will humanity's extended-reading abilities atrophy?; quits as a good labor-market thermometer; Bob Reich's "Wealth & Poverty" lectures; & Drezner, Hobart, & Smith on downer economic journamalism...
"Daniel W. Drezner: The U.S. economy is humming along pretty well... or is it?: "
I cannot tell you how significant that issue is. Every expert or economist who has told an audience (a firm, a bank, a large or a small business) since last fall that the inverted yield curve all but assures a recession in about 12 months has contributed to a fictitious dark cloud, a dampening of economic expectations, perhaps even deadening the perception of how solid economic growth and employment have been. Anyone who left those Leading Indicators aside has done OK (so many of those indicators have been revised up in retrospect that it is not funny anymore e.g. the revision of unemployment claims data earlier this year totally changed the direction in which the labor market was heading six months earlier). Most everyone else has gotten it wrong as is now becoming clearer from the large number of Mea Culpas about a recession that was supposed to have been underway by now. The diehards will, of course, postpone it by another six months, as they've already done once before.
On inflation and prices, however, I would give the consumers a pass. They might see inflation as the same thing as the price level. Price level today is higher than it was a couple of years ago, but the inflation rate has definitely fallen. The consumer does have the right to crib until the nominal wage/income (level) is able to restore the prior purchasing power. But the media and the chatter heads haven't helped on that issue. They haven't clarified the distinction between inflation and price level. Perhaps many of them don't know the difference themselves.
The "good news is bad" ultimately comes from the idea that the Fed will not accept "yes" for an answer. Having made a mistake in not raising rates soon enough (and it was that, a "mistake" not a mortal sin) people fear that it is seeking redemption in creating a recession.
Yes indeed. Having the dots without having an output and inflation path is near worthless. And the TIPS market needs to be much better integrated with interest rate futures...
Can someone tell me what is a "sub-Turing instantiation"? The good professor uses it a lot and I have substituted "thinking" when I see it, but today I decided to Google search it and came up empty handed. Learned a lot about Turing machines, which was nice, but that was about it. I know this marks me as a noob, but I want to learn if someone will take pity on me.
I spent my career as a corporate bureaucrat, and wrote my share of long reports. I wrote the executive summary to be read and understood: information for action. That's two pages, at most. It was all the reader needed. The other forty pages? Well any clever person can write a page or two of persuasive bullshit, especially in bullet form. Nobody can keep that up over forty pages of cold text. The forty pages were for readers who didn't trust me beforehand.
Economics: Mike Konczal: "The manufacturing boom we are experiencing isn't just shifting around a given level of investment. It's crowding-in more investment than forecasters thought there could be…"
Yes. There was neither much expectation nor indication of this type of investment growth in any of the usual surveys of capex intentions/projections. Most surveys indicated subdued investment growth, except for a slight jump over June in some surveys. So, this totally came from the left field. It happened despite the increase in interest rates and tightening credit standards. It happened despite lackluster revenue and profit guidance from firms. It was as if this investment was "orthogonal," so to speak, to those things. Which probably means it happened for non-cyclical reasons. The manufacturing sector's improving prospects are also not in any of the usual manufacturing sector surveys; not even in the industrial production data over the last six-nine months. People might want to wake up about growth in Q3 and Q4 2023, at least. Fingers crossed.
Maximum Canada. The pro-immigration story has either been told provocatively (Kaplan's open borders, even Yglecias's One Billion Americans) or as reparations for the sins of racism/ imperialism/Enlightenment-ism, not as just one more pillar of a strategy of growing prosperity for ordinary Americans.
"Unemployment Is No Longer a Good Thermometer for Labor-Market State"
But what do we mean by "state?" The instantaneous distance from "equilibrium" of wage transactions? And why, essentially" focus on the labor market as if only it could be out of equilibrium? Are they the stickiest of prices?
"Niccolo Machiavelli ... in his “Letter to Vettori”..
That is a lovely quote. Although, a modern version of Machiavelli's "There I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions;" is, more often than not, "WTF?."
I would add, however, that the main "threat" to books comes more from podcasts and audio books than from ChatGPT and such. When people engage with podcasts and audio books instead of printed or written material, though, they engage with another long-standing tradition: the oral tradition. Stories and parables were narrated aloud, sung, or performed as plays perhaps long before they were widely disseminated in printed form. Further, some people grasp things better when they see or hear than when they read. In that sense, podcasts and audiobooks may not even be a "threat" to books (perhaps, a threat only to the sales of printed books). They are a way in which a book or any written content can reach more people than those who would only read.
I make a distinction in not wishing to receive information that I may want to argue with in audio-visual form unless it is live and I can at least potentially raise questions.
"Daniel W. Drezner: The U.S. economy is humming along pretty well... or is it?: "
I cannot tell you how significant that issue is. Every expert or economist who has told an audience (a firm, a bank, a large or a small business) since last fall that the inverted yield curve all but assures a recession in about 12 months has contributed to a fictitious dark cloud, a dampening of economic expectations, perhaps even deadening the perception of how solid economic growth and employment have been. Anyone who left those Leading Indicators aside has done OK (so many of those indicators have been revised up in retrospect that it is not funny anymore e.g. the revision of unemployment claims data earlier this year totally changed the direction in which the labor market was heading six months earlier). Most everyone else has gotten it wrong as is now becoming clearer from the large number of Mea Culpas about a recession that was supposed to have been underway by now. The diehards will, of course, postpone it by another six months, as they've already done once before.
On inflation and prices, however, I would give the consumers a pass. They might see inflation as the same thing as the price level. Price level today is higher than it was a couple of years ago, but the inflation rate has definitely fallen. The consumer does have the right to crib until the nominal wage/income (level) is able to restore the prior purchasing power. But the media and the chatter heads haven't helped on that issue. They haven't clarified the distinction between inflation and price level. Perhaps many of them don't know the difference themselves.
The "good news is bad" ultimately comes from the idea that the Fed will not accept "yes" for an answer. Having made a mistake in not raising rates soon enough (and it was that, a "mistake" not a mortal sin) people fear that it is seeking redemption in creating a recession.
Good grief. If that is accurate, someone needs to get them out of this morality funk.
The problem with all the leading indicators (including my favorite TIPS) is that we do not know what expectations of policy are built into them.
Yes indeed. Having the dots without having an output and inflation path is near worthless. And the TIPS market needs to be much better integrated with interest rate futures...
Can someone tell me what is a "sub-Turing instantiation"? The good professor uses it a lot and I have substituted "thinking" when I see it, but today I decided to Google search it and came up empty handed. Learned a lot about Turing machines, which was nice, but that was about it. I know this marks me as a noob, but I want to learn if someone will take pity on me.
On reading …
I spent my career as a corporate bureaucrat, and wrote my share of long reports. I wrote the executive summary to be read and understood: information for action. That's two pages, at most. It was all the reader needed. The other forty pages? Well any clever person can write a page or two of persuasive bullshit, especially in bullet form. Nobody can keep that up over forty pages of cold text. The forty pages were for readers who didn't trust me beforehand.
Wow Brad, thanks fer th feed! All th way frum book bindering to how to pick stocks. I
liked th way you put that wun tagether.
Economics: Mike Konczal: "The manufacturing boom we are experiencing isn't just shifting around a given level of investment. It's crowding-in more investment than forecasters thought there could be…"
Yes. There was neither much expectation nor indication of this type of investment growth in any of the usual surveys of capex intentions/projections. Most surveys indicated subdued investment growth, except for a slight jump over June in some surveys. So, this totally came from the left field. It happened despite the increase in interest rates and tightening credit standards. It happened despite lackluster revenue and profit guidance from firms. It was as if this investment was "orthogonal," so to speak, to those things. Which probably means it happened for non-cyclical reasons. The manufacturing sector's improving prospects are also not in any of the usual manufacturing sector surveys; not even in the industrial production data over the last six-nine months. People might want to wake up about growth in Q3 and Q4 2023, at least. Fingers crossed.
Maximum Canada. The pro-immigration story has either been told provocatively (Kaplan's open borders, even Yglecias's One Billion Americans) or as reparations for the sins of racism/ imperialism/Enlightenment-ism, not as just one more pillar of a strategy of growing prosperity for ordinary Americans.
"Unemployment Is No Longer a Good Thermometer for Labor-Market State"
But what do we mean by "state?" The instantaneous distance from "equilibrium" of wage transactions? And why, essentially" focus on the labor market as if only it could be out of equilibrium? Are they the stickiest of prices?
"Unemployment Is No Longer a Good Thermometer for Labor-Market State, But Quits Still Are:"
Yes, very much so!
"Niccolo Machiavelli ... in his “Letter to Vettori”..
That is a lovely quote. Although, a modern version of Machiavelli's "There I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions;" is, more often than not, "WTF?."
I would add, however, that the main "threat" to books comes more from podcasts and audio books than from ChatGPT and such. When people engage with podcasts and audio books instead of printed or written material, though, they engage with another long-standing tradition: the oral tradition. Stories and parables were narrated aloud, sung, or performed as plays perhaps long before they were widely disseminated in printed form. Further, some people grasp things better when they see or hear than when they read. In that sense, podcasts and audiobooks may not even be a "threat" to books (perhaps, a threat only to the sales of printed books). They are a way in which a book or any written content can reach more people than those who would only read.
I make a distinction in not wishing to receive information that I may want to argue with in audio-visual form unless it is live and I can at least potentially raise questions.