Ann Harrison with evidence on capital now a substitute for labor; MOAR New York Times reporters who don’t understand what their job is—or do they?—Nilay Patel on “Spatial Computing”; the climate &...
Y'know...Matt keeps pushing NYT fixes, and I do not understand this. I kicked the grey lady habit last year and am happy with my news and opinion sobriety. So nice kicking bad habits. I'd much rather spend that money at substack.
Mui: Good, but I do bristle at "normalization" of interest rates. Most people who talk that way mean "Get inflation below X (zero if you are John Cochrane) ASAP and don't ever let it get above X, whatever the effect on real income."
He could have just said, "Tight budget, loose money!"
GWB has a LOT to answer for macroeconomically, not just for Iraq.
Not only is the video very low-bandwidth, it is also quite old and has been superseded by more research. There is general consensus that the cause of the 536 winter was very likely a volcanic eruption, but it is now known that there was no Indonesian eruption during this period. The true source of the eruption is not yet known.
ETA: I have to say that I appreciated the video of handling ice cores though.
Wages and technologies: Agree that there is no reason "technology" cannot reduce the labor share in the production function. I also agree that more of labor income will need to be mediated by public policy. My suggestions:
Replace employer "provided" health insurance with (improved) "ACA for all."
Replace financing of SS/Medicare/UI from the wage tax to a VAT (taking the opportunity to zero out
the deficit on this sub-account and keep it zeroed out)
Higher and more wage subsidy-like EITC
Compensate employers for social mandates like sick days.
[All of these ought to reduce the effective wage the employer perceives when choosing L/K.]
Subsidize education and training for career changes. [I want to become a volcanologist Is 81 to late? :)]
Finance all this (and enough left over to ~zero out the deficit) with a combination of VAT, tax on net emissions of CO2, progressive consumption tax, and elimination of taxes on business income.
I'm not much of a fan of "society" [cf Margaret Thatcher] having a "vision," but isn't "neofascist" a little strong for poor old Alasdair MacIntyre? Is it any worse than Dani Rodrik thinking the economy needs an "industrial policy" or Noah Smith worrying about "development strategy" for poor countries?
MacIntyre doesn't seem to understand liberalism. He considers it a fraud because it doesn't tell one how to live one's life or what goals one should have. Live and let live, he argies, is, as a philosophy, fatally flawed. This has fascist overtones, but it strikes me as more totalitarian, almost Roman Catholic. Then, there are those who argue that Facism - capital "F" - was just a secular form of traditional Roman Catholicism.
Y'know...Matt keeps pushing NYT fixes, and I do not understand this. I kicked the grey lady habit last year and am happy with my news and opinion sobriety. So nice kicking bad habits. I'd much rather spend that money at substack.
Mui: Good, but I do bristle at "normalization" of interest rates. Most people who talk that way mean "Get inflation below X (zero if you are John Cochrane) ASAP and don't ever let it get above X, whatever the effect on real income."
He could have just said, "Tight budget, loose money!"
GWB has a LOT to answer for macroeconomically, not just for Iraq.
The video reminds me of why I never watch TV. :) That could have been boiled down to 10 mi, max.
Patrick Wyman did suggest a climate event around the time of the Justinian Plague and as being the real end of Late Antiquity in Italy.
Not only is the video very low-bandwidth, it is also quite old and has been superseded by more research. There is general consensus that the cause of the 536 winter was very likely a volcanic eruption, but it is now known that there was no Indonesian eruption during this period. The true source of the eruption is not yet known.
ETA: I have to say that I appreciated the video of handling ice cores though.
Wasn't there some big volcano in the 530s that put the dark in the Dark Ages?
We need an LLM to summarize videos.
Maybe a LVM to turn long slow videos into fast-paced ones/ :)
Wages and technologies: Agree that there is no reason "technology" cannot reduce the labor share in the production function. I also agree that more of labor income will need to be mediated by public policy. My suggestions:
Replace employer "provided" health insurance with (improved) "ACA for all."
Replace financing of SS/Medicare/UI from the wage tax to a VAT (taking the opportunity to zero out
the deficit on this sub-account and keep it zeroed out)
Higher and more wage subsidy-like EITC
Compensate employers for social mandates like sick days.
[All of these ought to reduce the effective wage the employer perceives when choosing L/K.]
Subsidize education and training for career changes. [I want to become a volcanologist Is 81 to late? :)]
Finance all this (and enough left over to ~zero out the deficit) with a combination of VAT, tax on net emissions of CO2, progressive consumption tax, and elimination of taxes on business income.
What else would you expect from a neoliberal? :)
New(ly translated) biography of Alasdair MacIntyre:
He's been all over the philosophical map, but one thing he's never been is a Liberal. :)
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n03/jonathan-ree/like-a-top-hat
I'm not much of a fan of "society" [cf Margaret Thatcher] having a "vision," but isn't "neofascist" a little strong for poor old Alasdair MacIntyre? Is it any worse than Dani Rodrik thinking the economy needs an "industrial policy" or Noah Smith worrying about "development strategy" for poor countries?
MacIntyre doesn't seem to understand liberalism. He considers it a fraud because it doesn't tell one how to live one's life or what goals one should have. Live and let live, he argies, is, as a philosophy, fatally flawed. This has fascist overtones, but it strikes me as more totalitarian, almost Roman Catholic. Then, there are those who argue that Facism - capital "F" - was just a secular form of traditional Roman Catholicism.
He's clearly attracted to Anglo-Catholicism.
But you can be R. Catholic neoliberal like me. :)
And we are both pretty ticked at Henry for ruining all those monastery libraries, not that Henry could be accused of being Liberal. :)
Sweeney: I was going to object violently until I realized he was NOT talking about Nicoli!
Rodrik:
There is a good rationale for:
capturing learning and innovation externalities,
offsetting externalities having to do with the disappearance of local jobs,
the externalities of the green transition…
to providing]… firms with customised services… [that] are… public goods…
IF you can find policies to accomplish any of those things.
Just don't put them in a blender and call it "industrial policy."
I'd definitely recommend clicking through to the full Molly White review ... and following or subscribing.