J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 254

Kieran Healy: Conversational Disciplines: "Being able to ...

Kieran Healy: Conversational Disciplines: "Being able to broadly agree on how to evaluate contributions is what allows disciplines to tolerate (and enjoy) substantial, persistent disagreement about this or that 'big question' or 'core problem'. Thus, you are unlikely to convince your fellow Psychologists of something important (something that���s important to them, I mean) without some fake data good experimental evidence. Similarly, Economists may not pay attention to you if you do not proceed according to some (to them) widely-shared rules of ritualized mathematics model-building supplemented by some nonsense about incentives empirical evidence. Professional Historians will be less likely to take you seriously if your claims are not built on an elegant prose style a demonstrated mastery of a relevant archive. Sociologists may remain unconvinced of your claims if you do not blame neoliberalism blame neoliberalism...

#noted

0, 179, 465, 654���what's the next number in this series?...

0, 179, 465, 654���what's the next number in this series? Stephen Moore claims it is obvious, and gestures at it with an "and so on". Two numbers give you a line, three (that don't fall on a line) give you a parabola, and four (that don't fall along a line or a parabola) give you a cubic. We have four: What are the next numbers iin the cubic? 542, and -75, and -1401. Add up the first ten terms of this "and so on" series and we get not +6000 billion but rather -39820 billion. Economists know how to do and use math. Stephen Moore just doesn't: Stephen Moore: The Corporate Tax Cut Is Paying for Itself: "Kevin Hassett... caused a brouhaha by claiming... that the corporate tax cut... has 'about paid for itself.'... He is almost entirely right.... Even if we assume a reversion to the pre-Trump 1.9% growth path, the ratchet up in GDP this year translates into 179 billion in unexpected output this year, 465 billion next year, 654 billion in 2020, and so on. This magic of compounding yields more than $6 trillion additional GDP over the decade thanks to the faster growth already achieved...

#noted #economisgonewrong #orangehairedbaboons #publicsphere

As I have said: It is a long time since NEC Chair Larry K...

As I have said: It is a long time since NEC Chair Larry Kudlow was an economist���now he is just a guy who plays an economist on TV: Fred Imbert: White House Advisor Kudlow Says Apple Technology May Have Been 'Picked Off' by China: "'Apple technology may have been picked off by China and now China is becoming very competitive with Apple',��� says Kudlow. 'There are some indications from China that they���re looking at that, but we don���t know that yet. There���s no enforcement; there���s nothing concrete', Kudlow adds... John Gruber: "What he���s saying here is that the Chinese stole Apple technology, copied it, and are now flooding the Chinese market with phones based on that stolen tech. I���m 99.8 percent certain that hasn���t happened���if there were Chinese phones built with stolen Apple technology we���d know it because we���d see it. I was going to say 'You can���t just make shit like this up', but as with most of the Trump Kakistocracy, things that you think are can���t���s are really just shouldn���t���s...

#noted #orangehairedbaboons #publicsphere

Brian Barrett: The Silver Lining in Apple���s Very Bad iP...

Brian Barrett: The Silver Lining in Apple���s Very Bad iPhone News: "As recently as 2015, smartphone users on average upgraded their phone roughly every 24 months.... As of the fourth quarter of last year, that had jumped to at least 35 months.... The shift from buying phones on a two-year contract���heavily subsidized by the carriers���to installment plans in which the customer pays full freight... a sharp drop-off in carrier incentives. They turn out not to be worth it.... 'It actually costs them to get you into a new phone, to do those promotions, to run the transaction and put it on their books and finance it'. Bottom line: If your service is reliable and your iPhone still works fine, why go through the hassle?...

...Meanwhile, older iPhones work better, for longer, thanks to Apple itself. When Apple vice president Craig Federighi introduced iOS 12 in June at Apple���s Worldwide Developers Conference, he emphasized how much it improved the performance of older devices.... Combine all of that with the fact that new model iPhones���and Android phones for that matter���have lacked a killer feature, much less one that would inspire someone to spend $1,000 or more if they didn���t absolutely have to. ���Phones used to be toys, and shiny objects,��� Maldonado says. ���Now they���re utilities. You���ve got to have it, and the joy of getting a new one is pretty minor. Facebook and email looks the same; the camera���s still great.��� In the near term, these dynamics aren���t ideal for Apple.... News that people are holding onto their iPhones longer should be taken for what it really is: A sign of progress and a win
...

#noted

Where did David Brooks learn to use the term "cultural Ma...

Where did David Brooks learn to use the term "cultural Marxism"? From Alexander Zubatov and his attempt to rehabilitate it from its anti-Semitic not just connotation but denotation. How does Zubatov do this? By taking Russell Blackford out of context: Zubatov claims that Blackford's bottom line is "in other words, [cultural Marxism] has perfectly respectable uses outside the dark, dank silos of the far right". Blackford's actual bottom line is that the modern

conception of cultural Marxism is too blunt an intellectual instrument to be useful for analysing current trends. At its worst, it mixes wild conspiracy theorizing with self-righteous moralism.... Right-wing culture warriors will go on employing the expression 'cultural Marxism'... attaching it to dubious, sometimes paranoid, theories of cultural history.... Outside of historical scholarship, and discussions of the history and current state of Western Marxism, we need to be careful.... Those of us who do not accept the narrative of a grand, semi-conspiratorial movement aimed at producing moral degeneracy should probably avoid using the term 'cultural Marxism'...

Why does Zubatov misuse Blackford? In the hope that he will pick up readers like Brooks, who will take his representations of what Blackford says to be accurate. Why does Brooks take Zubatov's representations of what Blackford says as accurate? Because Brooks is too lazy to do his homework: Ben Alpers: A Far-Right Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theory Becomes a Mainstream Irritable Gesture: "At the heart of this largely rote piece of Brooksian pablum is a claim that deserves a closer look.�� 'The younger militants', writes Brooks, 'tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy'.��This is interesting both for what Brooks appears to be trying to say and, more immediately, how he has decided to say it.... Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik... murdered sixty-nine people... William Lind... associated with both the Free Congress Foundation and Lyndon LaRouche... Lind���s conception of Cultural Marxism was explicitly anti-Semitic.... Over the course of these years, the idea of Cultural Marxism spread across the American far right... [with] a big boost from Andrew Breitbart.... Why would a columnist like David Brooks, who is himself Jewish in background (if, perhaps, no longer in faith) and who has tried to build his brand identity by peddling in respectability and civility, adopt the term?...

...Brooks... defended his use.... Alexander Zubatov entitled ���Just Because Anti-Semites Talk About ���Cultural Marxism��� Doesn���t Mean It Isn���t Real���.... For Zubatov, it wasn���t so much the Frankfurt School, but rather Gy��rgy Luk��cs, Louis Althusser, Herbert Marcuse, Edward Said, Judith Butler, Stuart Hall, and, above all, Antonio Gramsci who are at fault.... Zubatov... maintains that Cultural Marxism is ���a coherent program��� and accuses it of many of the same things that Lind does:

It is a short step from the Marxist and cultural Marxist premise that ideas are, at their core, expressions of power to rampant, divisive identity politics and the routine judging of people and their cultural contributions based on their race, gender, sexuality and religion.... Public shaming, forced resignations and all manner of institutional and corporate policy dictated by enraged Twitter mobs, the sexual McCarthyism of #MeToo���s excesses, and the incessant, resounding, comically misdirected and increasingly hollow cries of ���racist,��� ���sexist,��� ���misogynist,��� ���homophobe,��� ���Islamophobe,��� ���transphobe��� and more that have yet to be invented to demonize all those with whom the brittle hordes partaking in such calumnies happen to disagree.

Zubatov prominently cites the English philosopher Russell Blackford.... But in the very piece Zubatov cites, Blackford concludes that the phrase is so marked by its connection to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that it is, in practice, largely unusable:

In everyday contexts, those of us who do not accept the narrative of a grand, semi-conspiratorial movement aimed at producing moral degeneracy should probably avoid using the term ���cultural Marxism.���... Like other controversial expressions with complex histories (���political correctness��� is another that comes to mind), ���cultural Marxism��� is a term that needs careful unpacking.

Of course, Zubatov, much less Brooks, is not very interested in carefully unpacking anything. Zubatov and Brooks are attached to a pejorative which they���d prefer to be uncoupled from the anti-Semitism to which it has been usually attached.... ���Cultural Marxism��� is a toxic expression that entered our national discourse as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.�� It ought to be avoided on that basis alone, especially given the more general mainstreaming of anti-Semitism...

#noted #publicsphere #orangehairedbaboons

David Brooks takes Zubatov's representations of what Blackford says about "cultural Marxism" as accurate because Brooks is too lazy to do his homework...

Where did David Brooks learn to use the term "cultural Marxism"? From Alexander Zubatov and his attempt to rehabilitate it from its anti-Semitic not just connotation but denotation. How does Zubatov do this? By taking Russell Blackford out of context: Zubatov claims that Blackford's bottom line is "in other words, [cultural Marxism] has perfectly respectable uses outside the dark, dank silos of the far right". Blackford's actual bottom line is that the modern

conception of cultural Marxism is too blunt an intellectual instrument to be useful for analysing current trends. At its worst, it mixes wild conspiracy theorizing with self-righteous moralism.... Right-wing culture warriors will go on employing the expression 'cultural Marxism'... attaching it to dubious, sometimes paranoid, theories of cultural history.... Outside of historical scholarship, and discussions of the history and current state of Western Marxism, we need to be careful.... Those of us who do not accept the narrative of a grand, semi-conspiratorial movement aimed at producing moral degeneracy should probably avoid using the term 'cultural Marxism'...

Why does Zubatov misuse Blackford? In the hope that he will pick up readers like Brooks, who will take his representations of what Blackford says to be accurate. Why does Brooks take Zubatov's representations of what Blackford says as accurate? Because Brooks is too lazy to do his homework: Ben Alpers: A Far-Right Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theory Becomes a Mainstream Irritable Gesture: "At the heart of this largely rote piece of Brooksian pablum is a claim that deserves a closer look.�� 'The younger militants', writes Brooks, 'tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy'.��This is interesting both for what Brooks appears to be trying to say and, more immediately, how he has decided to say it.... Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik... murdered sixty-nine people... William Lind... associated with both the Free Congress Foundation and Lyndon LaRouche... Lind���s conception of Cultural Marxism was explicitly anti-Semitic.... Over the course of these years, the idea of Cultural Marxism spread across the American far right... [with] a big boost from Andrew Breitbart.... Why would a columnist like David Brooks, who is himself Jewish in background (if, perhaps, no longer in faith) and who has tried to build his brand identity by peddling in respectability and civility, adopt the term?...

...Brooks... defended his use.... Alexander Zubatov entitled ���Just Because Anti-Semites Talk About ���Cultural Marxism��� Doesn���t Mean It Isn���t Real���.... For Zubatov, it wasn���t so much the Frankfurt School, but rather Gy��rgy Luk��cs, Louis Althusser, Herbert Marcuse, Edward Said, Judith Butler, Stuart Hall, and, above all, Antonio Gramsci who are at fault.... Zubatov... maintains that Cultural Marxism is ���a coherent program��� and accuses it of many of the same things that Lind does:

It is a short step from the Marxist and cultural Marxist premise that ideas are, at their core, expressions of power to rampant, divisive identity politics and the routine judging of people and their cultural contributions based on their race, gender, sexuality and religion.... Public shaming, forced resignations and all manner of institutional and corporate policy dictated by enraged Twitter mobs, the sexual McCarthyism of #MeToo���s excesses, and the incessant, resounding, comically misdirected and increasingly hollow cries of ���racist,��� ���sexist,��� ���misogynist,��� ���homophobe,��� ���Islamophobe,��� ���transphobe��� and more that have yet to be invented to demonize all those with whom the brittle hordes partaking in such calumnies happen to disagree.

Zubatov prominently cites the English philosopher Russell Blackford.... But in the very piece Zubatov cites, Blackford concludes that the phrase is so marked by its connection to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that it is, in practice, largely unusable:

In everyday contexts, those of us who do not accept the narrative of a grand, semi-conspiratorial movement aimed at producing moral degeneracy should probably avoid using the term ���cultural Marxism.���... Like other controversial expressions with complex histories (���political correctness��� is another that comes to mind), ���cultural Marxism��� is a term that needs careful unpacking.

Of course, Zubatov, much less Brooks, is not very interested in carefully unpacking anything. Zubatov and Brooks are attached to a pejorative which they���d prefer to be uncoupled from the anti-Semitism to which it has been usually attached.... ���Cultural Marxism��� is a toxic expression that entered our national discourse as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.�� It ought to be avoided on that basis alone, especially given the more general mainstreaming of anti-Semitism...

#noted #publicsphere #orangehairedbaboons

Lisa Cook: On invention gaps, hate-related violence, disc...

Lisa Cook: On invention gaps, hate-related violence, discrimination, and more: "One of the first things I do is to buy a Bic pen.... Each one was 10 dollars! Ten dollars! This completely stunned me. I knew how poor most people were. I knew students had to have these pens to write in their blue books. It just started this whole train of thought...

#noted

Dinner in California���Sparing a Thought for the Victims of Boris Johnson and Company...

The consensus of the eaters is that the parsnips are only edible if the ratio of parsnip-to-butter is less than 2-to-1:

#food

Comment of the Day: Paul Reber: Patriarchy & Gender: "On ...

Comment of the Day: Paul Reber: Patriarchy & Gender: "On Patriarchy & Gender... it's worth noting that a consequence of the Y-chromosome bottleneck 5000 years ago is that the 'fat tails' hypothesis that Pinker and Baumeister suckered Larry Summers with is obviously wrong. That is, the hypothesis that men exhibit genetically-dependent higher IQ variability, leading to more men on the upper tail of the distribution (and lower) which leads to over-representation in highly IQ-selective subsets such as professors at Harvard/MIT/etc....

...A collapse in diversity reduces variability, so any sex-linked aspect of intelligence/IQ would end up with substantially lower variability in men compared to woman after a more recent sex-specific genetic reduction (die off). The "evo psych" explanation never really made any sense anyway���Baumeister originally claimed men had to compete to mate which would somehow increase variability (it wouldn't, it would reduce variability and increase the mean). But it really doesn't make any sense given the existence of these genetic bottlenecks.

I always thought it was a shame that a really smart guy like Summers got tarnished by a bad idea like that. I use the example in my lab to teach my students of the dangers of working outside your own area���lack of domain knowledge makes you even more vulnerable to confirmation bias which you might catch in your area of expertise...

#commentoftheday

Comment of the Day: Pinkybum:: What Is Going on This Morn...

Comment of the Day: Pinkybum:: What Is Going on This Morning Over at "National Review"? Is It Worth Reading? No.: "I feel like Louis CK's Parkland joke is not funny because fundamentally the premise is not true. What he posits is (a) the kids who are getting the media attention (b) don't deserve it because (c) why does surviving a mass shooting make you (d) an expert in gun control? But really the fundamental truth of the issue is that they are experts because it doesn't really take much intellectual brain power to see that gun regulation could be much more comprehensive and effective if possession of guns took as least as much trouble as obtaining a driver's license...

...The fact that Louis CK finds the Parkland students smug, sanctimonious media whores is sort of besides the point and in itself is not very funny. He even has to attribute and invent reprehensible behavior towards them to make them unsympathetic (pushing fat kids in the way of the bullets) this is why the joke is a stretch. A joke about how any idiot could be a gun control expert would be way funnier, if told by Louis CK of course! Making a joke about an untrue premise AND having to invent abhorrent behavior to gain sympathy for your position is not Louis' best work....

#commentoftheday