J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 358
May 31, 2018
Atrios: "I'm actually happy for 'leave the first lady alo...
Atrios: "I'm actually happy for 'leave the first lady alone' to be a new rule but remember when the New YorkTimes did an incredible deep dive into the question of "do Bill and Hill still have sex?" and neither of them were first spouse at the time. Lots of 'new rules' which will not apply as soon as Democrats have power again and while this will be, a bit, the fault of said Democrats, political journalists need to stop pretending to be unaware of this..."
#shouldread
Jeet Heer: "Frank Wilhoit: 'Conservatism consists of exac...
Jeet Heer: "Frank Wilhoit: 'Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition.��� There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.' This seems increasingly true..."
#shouldread
May 30, 2018
May 31, 2008: Ten Years Ago on Grasping Reality
May 30, 2008: Ten Years Ago on Grasping Reality
Kate Kelly of the Wall Street Journal on the Final Days of Bear Stearns
Dealing with the Mortgage Mess: Judge Tchaikovsky Does Her Job and Judges : Tanta: "The whole point of stated income lending was to make the borrower the fall guy: the lender can make a dumb loan���knowing perfectly well that it is doing so���while shifting responsibility onto the borrower, who is the one 'stating' the income and���in theory, at least���therefore liable for the misrepresentation. This is precisely where Judge Tchaikovsky has stepped in and said 'no dice'..."
Yet Another Republican "We Have Always Been at War with Eurasia" Moment : We watch the dead-ender wingnuts attack Scott McClellan, and conclude it is time to shut down the Republican Party���a new opposition with totally new personnel is needed, badly...
Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay Report the News : In any other industry, the two of them would now be running the show. Only in journalism does failure of the magnitude of America's Washington press corps manage to perpetuate itself on such a gigantic scale. Here is what they have to say...
Not all conservatives are Milo. Very few conservatives ar...
Not all conservatives are Milo. Very few conservatives are Milo, in fact: Rakesh Bhandari: "Some conservative Cal students have falsely complained that they are penalized by GSI's or Profs for their political views. One student falsely said an econ prof forced him to write in favor of open borders; another complained that he was penalized for a realism paper in IR..."
To be overly fair, it is very difficult to make an anti-open borders argument within the framework of rootless cosmopolite neoclassical economics.
There are people in country Y who want to work in country X. There are people in country X who want to hire them. Blocking that transaction destroys wealth. The argument that blocking that transaction produces a better income distribution that boosts the greatest good of the greatest number by more than decreased wealth reduces it can be made���but is not very convincing. And other considerations that might weigh against open borders are hard to make at all in an economic framework.
And:
Unfair to most conservative students. Most conservative students at Berkeley do not attract the eye of California Hall. Most are just trying to figure stuff out���not hoping for a Fox cameo by trying to make A-As, Latinos, immigrants feel small. The highly estimable Nils Gilman is unfair to the typical conservative Berkeley student here: https://twitter.com/nils_gilman/status/1001480840776376321
With respect to the atypical conservative Berkeley student, however, he has their number...
#berkeley
#notetoself
#ontwitter
#shouldread
Interesting and, I think, correct on the costs, benefits,...
Interesting and, I think, correct on the costs, benefits, risks, and opportunities from the keen-witted President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis: Neel Kashkari: The Fed should not move too quickly to raise rates: "The US recovery took place after the Federal Reserve undertook extraordinary monetary policies...
...While some economists predicted these policies would lead to runaway inflation, the opposite has happened: inflation and wage growth have been surprisingly low.... With unemployment even lower now, why is wage growth so slow? Labour markets in other advanced economies shed some light on what is happening in America.... It could be that the 3.9 per cent measure does not capture the true slack in the labour market and that additional, hidden slack explains today���s modest wage growth. A better measure of labour market tightness appears to be the employment-to-population ratio of prime age workers, those aged 25 to 54 years old.... If you look at international comparisons, there is an astonishing contrast between the US and other developed economies. The percentage of prime-age Americans who are working has been declining during the past few decades, while the same ratio has climbed to new highs in the UK, Canada and Germany....
Economists offer various theories.... Americans are addicted to drugs; too many have criminal records; workers do not have the skills needed for the available jobs.... The rise of Chinese manufacturing and of automation should affect other advanced economies as much as they do the US....
The truth is we don���t know how much slack still remains in the US labour market. But international labour markets offer a hopeful sign....
This analysis has important implications for monetary policy. It suggests that as we return interest rates to normal levels, we should shift only to a neutral policy stance, and not move too quickly, until we see more evidence that wages are climbing and that we really are at maximum employment.
#shouldread
Possible Fall 2018 Schedule...
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J. Bradford DeLongScheduleFall 2018
https://tinyurl.com/dl2010530a
MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
8 AM Econ 101b Lecture Cory 277 Econ 101b Lecture Cory 277
9 AM Econ 101b Lecture Cory 277 Econ 101b Lecture Cory 277
10 AM Econ 101b Staff Meeting Blum 200G Open Office Hours Blum 200GHistory Thesis Writers Evans 506
11 AM Open Office Hours Blum 200G
NoonEconomic History 211 Lunch WFC Economics Faculty Lunch Peixotto Room History Lunch Evans 598
1 PMEconomic History 211 Lunch WFC Economics Faculty Lunch Peixotto RoomLunch: Rice and BonesHistory Lunch Evans 598
2 PMEconomic History 211 Seminar Evans 639Macro Evans 589/GPP 115/VLSB 2050Office Hours Evans 691AGPP 115/VLSB 2050
3 PMEconomic History 211 Seminar Evans 639GPP 115/VLSB 2050 Economics Afternoon TeaGPP 115/VLSB 2050
4 PMEconomic History 211 Coffee Yali's EastDevEng 215Departmental Seminar or
5 PM Departmental Faculty Meeting
Doug Campbell: Sitting in on a growth theory lecture:
...
Doug Campbell: Sitting in on a growth theory lecture:
Doug Campbell @TradeandMoney: Sitting in on a growth theory lecture. What is clear is that this field of economics is largely a scam. Top growth theorists know nothing at about topic they study. It���s remarkable to behold. Some of the misguided beliefs in yesterday's talk: (1) that property rights institutions are a key to growth. (Actually, it looks like a wide-variety of institutions are consistent with economic growth...)
Brad DeLong @de1ong: As somebody who has been predicting for 30 years that China���s lack of property rights institutions will cause it���s growth to crash in five years or so, you feel my pain...
Doug Campbell @TradeandMoney: This guy's take was that China was at risk of a middle-income trap because of its property rights institutions. I wonder how many years he has been saying this for. He also insinuated that China is mostly just copying and not innovating. An idea which is out-of-date by 15 years at least, if it was ever accurate.
Brad DeLong @de1ong: Let him go to Shenzhen...
Doug Campbell @TradeandMoney: (2) that there is a causal relationship between financial development and growth. In fact, there is no close relationship, and what relationship there is is unlikely to be causal. (3) that the number of patents across US states has a causal impact on state GDP growth. (Likely 3rd factor causality here...) (4) That Japan started growing slowly after 1990 because it didn't reform while Sweden did. Actually, what reforms the speaker wanted were not stated, but it appeared to be reform of the tax system. But, taxes in Japan are still much lower than Sweden, so taxes on innovation (5) are not going to explain Japan's poor performance since 1990 (and, yes, it has been poor). The liquidity trap, and the timidity of the central bank are the key explanatory variables. (6) the implicit assumption that if a paper is written by people from prestigious universities, inevitably very, very close friends of the speaker, and published in a top 5 journals, it must be correct. Even despite relatively obvious flaws, there for all to see. (7) At one point the speaker responded to a question about whether the correlation between two clearly endogenous variables was really causal by saying. "Yes, because the author had an IV." He didn't explain what it was. But, in reality, few IVs are convincing.
Brad DeLong @de1ong: Truly: the specification search for instruments and the pretense that geographical autocorrelations do not exist or the twin banes of the growth literature...
..."
Doug Campbell @TradeandMoney: (8) One piece of research the speaker cited at face value was the Bloom, Draca, Van Reenen paper on China. Indeed, this is a paper published by titans from MIT and Stanford, in the REStud, one of Econ's top journals. And it is also a comedy of sloppy errors. (9) But, hey, I'm not at Harvard, so what could I possibly know?
Epic Factory Owner @GurdCarm: What does this say about these top journals?...
Doug Campbell @TradeandMoney: Haha, I'm not the best person to ask. I have a rather cynical view about what it is that top economic journals actually do. What isn't appreciated enough is the "least common denominator" feature of publications in top journals. To publish, you need to write something the median referees in your field agrees with. In other words, you're probably going to need several people of rather middling intellect to sign off on a paper to get into a top 5 or top field. Combine this w/ no downward mobility in academia, the cliquesh nature of the field, the under-appreciated inherent difficulty of doing science, and of judging science, and it is easy to explain some real pseudoscientists at top departments...
#shouldread
Noah Smith: "MS-13" is just Republican for "Hispanic peop...
Noah Smith: "MS-13" is just Republican for "Hispanic people":
[Noah Smith] @Noahpinion: At this point, "MS-13" is just Republican for "Hispanic people"
Daniel Dale @ddale8: Trump is beginning a campaign rally in Nashville. In this thread there will be tweets about it. "I love country music," Trump says. Trump says "people are saying" that he's the only politician that "produced more than I said I was going to produce." He started saying this at rallies and then eventually started attributing it to "people." Trump is talking about how people said he couldn't get 270 electoral votes but then he really did. "They're fake. They are FAKE. Look how many of them," Trump says of reporters. "That's a lot of people. Fake news." Big boos from the crowd.
Trump shouts out Bob Corker. Lots of boos. Then he callls up Marsha Blackburn, who's running to succeed Corker. She touts his accomplishments. Her own pitch: "Tennessee needs a senator who is going to support President Donald Trump." Trump lies that even his "enemies" are admitting no president has accomplished more than he has in the first year and a half. Trump wrongly claims nobody would have believed him if he'd promised there'd be 3.3 million jobs added between now and Election Day. Over the previous 18-month period, under Obama, there were 3.9 million jobs added. Trump falsely claims that wages are "finally going up" for "the first time in many, many years." Wages have been rising since 2014. The current pace, 2.6% in April, is lower than the pace in Obama's last full month in office, 2.7%.
"Most importantly; our country is respected again all over the world," Trump says. "We're respected again as a country." "Respect" is subjective, but approval of the U.S. has plummeted almost everywhere in the world outside Russia and Israel, Pew polling shows.
Trump calls Nancy Pelosi "the MS-13 lover." That's exceptionally unfair, obviously. "She loves MS-13, can you imagine?" he continues.
Trump says he has never heard of Democratic candidate Phil Bredesen, who was a popular governor of this state. "Who is he???" he demands to know. Trump says "Crooked Hillary." Very loud "lock her up" chant. Trump accuses unnamed people of "infilitrating" his campaign. He then asks anyone in the arena who is infiltrating his campaign to raise their hand. Trump is explaining that he worked very hard during the 2016 election, and got big crowds, while Hillary Clinton, conversely, did not have big crowds, unless she had Jay-Z perform, but he used "filthy" language, which made Trump look "clean-cut." The president is doing a long rant about how Jay-Z swears in his songs.
Trump claims that he has "already started" the wall. No actual construction of new wall has begun, only a few scattered replacement projects. Trump is telling his usual lengthy ramble-lie about how "San Diego" came and begged him for The Wall. None of this happened. San Diego's Republican mayor opposes the wall, and its city council held a formal vote to express disapproval. This lie is one of the ones where Trump recounts an entire fictional exchange in which people call him "sir." He lies that he was told he couldn't stop building the wall in San Diego because he, sir, was told it'd cost $7 million. He hasn't started the wall in San Diego.
"We have such a bad deal with Mexico. We have such a bad deal with Canada," Trump says. "We lose with Mexico over $100 billion a year with this crazy NAFTA deal," Trump falsely says. The trade deficit with Mexico was $69 billion last year. "In the end, Mexico's paying for the wall," Trump re-promises, though he says he "doesn't want to cause a problem." Trump on Mexico: "They're going to pay for the wall, and they're going to enjoy it."
Trump falsely claims that illegal immigration is "down." Judging by border apprehensions, Trump's favourite metric, it has spiked this year-apprehensions are up 4% from the first four months of 2016, up 77% from the first four months of 2017.
Trump lies that the perpetrator of the West Side Highway terror attack brought in "'22 people" through chain migration. Even anti-immigration activists say this is wildly implausible, and Trump's own aides have declined to endorse this claim.
Trump is graphically recounting the story of the West Side Highway terror attack. "MISSING A LEG! MISSING AN ARM!" Nobody lost an arm in this attack. One woman lost two legs.
For the 15th time in office, Trump lies that countries are intentionally sending their bad apples into the visa lottery. Individuals enter the lottery on their own because they want to immigrate.
Trump brings up Chicago crime: "What the hell is that mayor doing?"
"We have borders down 40%," Trump lies again. Once more, it's up 77% in the first four months of this year from the first four months of last year.
"You won't have a Second Amendment" if the Democrats win, Trump says, which is, imagine this, not literally true.
Trump has returned to the subject of MS-13: "They want to cut people up into little pieces." Scoffing at Pelosi, he says, "They're not human beings." "What was the name?" he asks the crowd. "ANIMALLLS," the crowd shouts as one. Trump is retelling his story about MS-13 as enemy occupying army and Trump as liberator of Long Island: "It's like they've been liberated, like from a war... the people are dancing and they're waving and they're looking out their windows and they're waving at the ICE people."
Trump on Democratic candidate Phil Bredesen: "Phil whateverthehellhisname is, this guy, will 100% vote against us every single time."
This is a lot of stuff.
Trump: "We have respect for our great American flag...and we always proudly stand for our national anthem. Thank youuu. What's THAT all about?" Trump is now telling a version of the usual fictional story in which he, sir, is told no president since Reagan could pass a tax cut, and he realized it was because they all called it "tax reform," and he, master brander, decided to call it "tax cuts."
Trump brings up John McCain's vote against Obamacare repeal. Some boos. Trump: "That cost our country a lot. That was a very, very terrible thing that happened." He shouts that McCain campaigned on repeal.
Trump says the name "Bush," then pauses to let people boo. But only a few people boo. Then Trump says, of Bush's wars, "A lot of death. Death and blood."
Trump is telling the story about how he wasn't concerned about opening up ANWR to oil drilling - "who cares" - until a friend in the oil business called him up and told him Bush and other presidents couldn't do it, so then he wanted to do it.
For the 14th time, Trump falsely claims the U.S. has spent $7 trillion on Middle East wars. No basis for this claim. Trump is wildly exaggerating a Brown U study that estimates current costs at $4.3 trillion, total including estimated future costs at $5.6 trillion.
Trump is boasting of passing the VA Accountability Act. He criticizes the media for allegedly not tallking about it. He notes it makes it easier to fire bad employees. "JIM, YOU'RE FIRED," he says. He always uses "Jim" in this story.
Trump gets big applause for keeping his campaign promise to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, open the embassy there.
Trump is now retelling the almost-certainly-completely-fictional story about how he signed the name "Donald" on an order spending $1 billion on a new Israel embassy, and then had a fiscal epiphany and didn't sign the "Trump."
Trump has told three elaborate stories tonight in which he has talked to someone who called him "sir." I don't think any one of the stories has any basis in reality.
Trump very briefly on script: "Together we will lift up our country. We'll lift up millions and millions of Americans from welfare to work. From dependence to independence. And from poverty to prosperity."
Trump reminds people of how he said in 2016, of African-Americans, "Highest crime rate. Bad education...bad this, bad that."
19 replies 209 retweets 731 likes
Returning to the roots of his presidential announcement speech, Trump complains that America has shoddy airports. Talking about rebuilding America, Trump...goes out of his way to say he has big hands: "We'll do it all with these big beautiful hands. Look at these hands."
Trump calls Andrew Jackson "a great president and a great general." Trump, on script, reciting America's accomplishments: "We have tamed continents"...
For the fourth time, Trump falsely says that the Empire State building was built in less than a year. It was 13 months. "We are so respected again. I can't even tell you the degree to which people respect our country again," Trump says. "It's amazing. It's amazing."
The finale: "We are one people! We are one family! And we are one glorious nation under God! Without a question, without a doubt, we will make America wealthy again! We will make America strong again! We will make America safe again! Anddd: we will make America great again!"
Trump has concluded. That was an extremely dishonest speech.
One thing I still haven't figured out well, and I don't think anyone really has, is how to capture Trump's level of rally unhingedness in a regular article. The only good way is to list like 30 things he said.
#shouldread
Yes, it is hard to like Sean Wilentz these days. Little t...
Yes, it is hard to like Sean Wilentz these days. Little there but two-minute hates against "pwogwessives", who believe in the moment, in Sean's imagination, whatever bad thing he momentarily wants them to believe: Dan Nexon: I wanted to like this essay:
Dan Nexon @dhnexon: I wanted to like this essay, but it's really weird. https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/48/fighting-words/. Terminology evolves. US political labels don't neatly align w/ how same labels used in Europe. "Liberals" in US don't believe in the self-regulating market, and thus���in some ways���are closer to modern European social democrats. Yes. Obviously. Do a lot of people on the left throw around "liberal" and "neoliberal" in ways that don't take seriously how modern social democrats are different from DLC Democrats? Sure. That's fair. But that doesn't warrant this kind of incoherence. The "progressives" who focus on racial justice are generally loathed by the "progressives" who are genuine old-school socialists, who see the world in terms of class:
And for all that is holy, there is nothing illiberal, per se, about recognizing the relationship between durable inequality and categorical identities, let alone the dynamics that terms like "intersectionality" were designed to describe...
Brad DeLong @de1ong: In fact, there is something very illiberal about not recognizing it...
#shouldread
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