BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2021-07-19 Mo
Things that went whizzing by that I want to remember:
First:
The people claiming that there would be a big employment boost from cutting off plague-time unemployment insurance always seemed to me to be incompetent. And, as of right now, it is looking as though they were wrong. But, as is more and more the case with the Republican Party and its tame sycophants these days, policy effectiveness and optimality is not the point. The cruelty is the point:
Arindrajit Dube: Early Impacts of the Expiration of Pandemic Unemployment Insurance Programs: ‘So far, 25 states have ended their participation in all or most of the pandemic unemployment insurance (UI) programs…. All… have ended the $300/week benefit boost (Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, or PUC)…. 21… have also ended their participation in the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC)… Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA)…. Around 3/4 of workers…. This… [would be] especially true in the 25 states cutting off UI, since unemployment rates are lower there than in states keeping the pandemic UI for now. So what has been the impact so far on the labor market?… I group states by their dates of expiration: 4 states ended the programs on June 12, then 8 more states ended them on June 19, and finally 10 additional states ended participation on June 26…. In the 12 states where pandemic UI expired on June 12 (grey) or 19 (green), the share of population receiving UI fell sharply between early June and early July… a roughly 60 percent reduction in the UI rolls in these states…. Between early June and early July, the EPOP rates in the states seeing large drops in UI receipt (i.e., 12th and 19th June cohorts in grey and green) saw no uptick in employment…. Certainly there was no immediate boost to employment during the 2–3 weeks following the expiration of the pandemic UI benefits…. Of course, this evidence is still early, and more data is needed to paint a fuller picture…
One Video:
Columbo: Stays on the Case When the Murder Charges Are Dropped Seas. 1 Ep. 5 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eufr7dx5f7M>
Very Briefly Noted:
LOL GOP: ’Trump ending up on the path that will kill the most people has always been inevitable. It’s why I don’t buy the idea that he does terrible stuff because Putin owns him. He does terrible stuff because that’s want he wants to do & Putin sees the beneficial evil in encouraging that… <https://twitter.com/LOLGOP/status/1417118290254696451>
Rangathetrainer: Create Your Own Lightboard Effect for Nothing! <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQkZkdFV_E8>
Alan Pegoli: Laundry Lens: ‘Laundry symbols reader… <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/laundry-lens/id1513767864>
Kellen Browning: Tech Workers Who Swore Off the Bay Area Are Coming Back: ‘Critics said the pandemic would make the industry flee San Francisco and its southern neighbor, Silicon Valley. But tech can’t seem to quit its gravitational center… <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/technology/tech-workers-bay-area-back.html>
Andrew Exum: ’I recommend two apps—AllTrails and onX—for those hitting the trail this summer… <https://twitter.com/ExumAM/status/1417096661654978561>
Paragraphs:
I have been flying. Chances are þt if þere is somebody here with a breakthrough delta case who is (somewhat) infectious & doesn’t know it, it’s me. Also, it might make old people I come near somewhat less anxious cost, some potential benefit. Only a moral midget would not:
Bryan Caplan: Why Do so Many Vaccinated People Keep Wearing Masks?: ‘High risk 7%. High anxiety 31.1%. Low discomfort 24.1%. Virtue signaling 37.8%. 1,755 votes…
LINK: <https://twitter .com/delong/status/1412072412586274818>
The right solution, in my opinion, is to make a Supreme Court appointment a twenty-year one-shot job, and appoint a new Supreme Court justice every year:
Ben Wittes: Prepared Statement: ‘I do not doubt that Republican conduct over the past half decade has set a new milestone of aggressiveness, and I am not trying to draw any sort of equivalence between Republican behavior during the Trump administration and prior outrages against the norms of the confirmation process. They are not equivalent. That is the nature of an escalatory cycle; each escalation takes the combatants to a new place. My point, rather, is that the behavior was altogether predictable given the cycles of retribution that had taken place over the previous three decades. I believe that court-packing, enlargement, or some other manipulative scheme will likely serve as the next phase of this ongoing escalation—unless, that is, as I describe below, our political actors take it as an opportunity for deescalation. The essential reason for the long-term escalatory cycle is that both sides perceive themselves as playing defense against a high-stakes attack on their fundamental values. Both sides perceive the judicial nominations of the other side as deeply threatening and as part of a long-term attempt by the opposing party to exercise political control through unelected means. Moreover, both sides believe, with some justice, that the other side plays dirty and will manipulate the rules to its own advantage. Hence, each side has a significant incentive to violate the current norms when it has the chance and the power—believing, probably rightly, that the other side would do the same as soon as it had the chance. It’s a classic prisoner’s dilemma, and it operates according to its own logic. The perception on the part of each party that it is acting defensively blinds both sides to their own contributions to the decay of the governing norms…
LINK: <https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Wittes-Testimony.pdf>
It is much less clear to me than it is to Paul that the “median” core measures are to be preferred—it depends on how rising used-car and hotel prices feed into expectations. What is clear to me is that I DO NOT CARE. We are burning rubber as we rejoin the highway at speed. Some inflation now is necessary, and a sign that we are doing desirable things:
Paul Krugman: Strengthening Your Core: ’The theory of core inflation has been a huge success story: people who understood it avoided the inflation panics of 2008 and early 2011 (remember Paul Ryan accusing Bernanke of “debasing the dollar”?). Which measure of core inflation should you use? It didn’t really matter: they all told the same story—until now. But in the post-pandemic, conventional core is running very hot, while other measures, especially median inflation, not. It seems clear to me that the less-used measures are telling a more accurate story: used car prices and hotel rates don’t belong in core inflation. Markets seem to get that; economic reporting less so…
LINK: <https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1416786559752409093>
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"Some inflation now is necessary, and a sign that we are doing desirable things:"
Risingused car prices are due to shortages of chips for new cars. Rising hotel prices may be due to a staff shortage limiting room availability. If so, are we "doing the right things" or just bidding up prices due to scarcity of key components and sick staff?
The only reform that is needed and the only one that will work is that any major alteration to the Constitution be an Amendment. The Court will rule on minor changes. That's a Constitution. So, pick a major change and use the Amendment process to alter it, reacquainting citizens with Constitutionalism. In the meantime, in government, do what can to limit the scope of the constitutional decisions, whatever they are.