J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2316

I am now good enough at typing on the iPad virtual keyboa...

I am now good enough at typing on the iPad virtual keyboard that typing a full paragraph is now easy--that the machine no longer gets in my way.





However, anything longer than a paragraph is still difficult, and still not comfortable, and if I had to guess I would guess that it will never be comfortable.





That is all.

What the iPad virtual keyboard really needs are arrow key...

What the iPad virtual keyboard really needs are arrow keys. Too much of the time you are trying to get the cursor to a certain place in a text-entry field... And you wind up a letter or two off... And then you poke again at the text-entry field with your index finger... And you wind up a letter or two off again...

Wow! I guess the chancellor's declaration that we were go...

Wow! I guess the chancellor's declaration that we were going to cut classes short by a week and have a reading period was effective! The campus feels deserted...

A Somewhat Worse ADP Payroll Number than I Was Expecting

In the email inflow:

Private nonfarm payroll employment increased by 32,000 from March to April on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the ADP National Employment Report™. This is in line with consensus expectations for this figure of a 28,000 increase...

Far, far below the 130K a month or so needed to keep the unemployment rate from drifting upward in the CPS...

But better than a number on the far side of zero.

links for 2010-05-04

Google Voice for iPhone and Palm WebOS







Song of Everlasting Regret - Wikisource







Paul Krugman: Oil Drilling, Disaster and Denial

PK: "[A:]s visible pollution has diminished, so has public concern over environmental issues.... This decline ... would be fine if visible pollution were all that mattered — but it isn't, of course.... As the... crises of the 1960s and 1970s faded.....

High International Finance

Martin Wolf asks:

Must large capital inflows always end in crisis?: The question I wish to pose for the next two weeks is whether it is possible for countries to accept large net inflows of capital from abroad, without ending up in crisis. If not, how do we manage a world of capital mobility?...

The answer, however, is "yes." If you:

Borrow in your own currency; and

Keep a reasonably tight rein on the leverage of your banks, real-estate firms, and operating companies;

...

The Future of Social Security

If the Social Security program remains as specified in current law, then sometime between 2032 and 2070--call it a 50% chance of happening by 2042--the Social Security Administration's trust fund balance at the U.S. Treasury hits zero.

At that point, one of three things happen:

The Social Security Administration continues to write Social Security checks as usual, the Treasury continues to pay them, and the Treasury begins sending the SSA notices that it is overdrawn...

The Commissioner...

The Financial Times and the London Economist Lose Their Minds

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Mattt Yglesias:

Matthew Yglesias: [Gordon Brown:] is... being punished for an economic crisis he didn’t cause, couldn’t have stopped, and has actually handled quite well. The global financial meltdown was not unique to Britain.... And thanks to... Brown... kept the UK out of the Euro... presided over substantial stimulus the British economy is actually weathering the recession pretty well.... Conditions aren’t great--they’re actually quite...

In Case Anybody Still Thinks We Need the Republican Party Here in America

We do not.

Christina Wilkie:

Kyl jokes about Obama drowning: Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) got a big laugh on Saturday at a National Republican Senatorial Committee retreat, but his joke definitely wouldn't be funny to some people. According to a source who attended the meetings, Kyl told the assembled crowd a political version of the classic three-people-in-a-boat joke: "So [President Barack:] Obama, [House Speaker Nancy:] Pelosi [D-Calif.:] and [Majority Leader:] [Harry...

Harvard Law School 3L Stephanie Grace Apologizes for Having Previously Said that African-Americans Are *NOT* Predisposed by Genetic Endowment to Be Less Intelligent than Whites

To me, the remarkable thing about this email from Judge Kozinski's clerk-to-be is that she won't stick to her earlier claim that test differences between whites and African-Americans are not driven by gene differences--that she feels under considerable social pressure to retract:

I just hate leaving things where I feel I misstated my position. I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also...