Dan Drezner notes that Tom Friedman finally has more than one non-embarrassing column in a row; the entire Supreme Court winks at bribery and corruption; the possibility that Tether is way...
Crawford: "... the dark arts of “behavior design,” which are sometimes turned to purposes that can only be called misanthropic."
Matt Yglesias has made the same observation about the taste of the Cheeto or the effects of fentanyl. The scope for intervention in markets -- both for paternalistic reasons and Pigou taxes/subsidies -- is increasing.
Economic History: "Machines Eating Men: Shoemakers and their Children After the McKay Stitcher:"
Quite plausible as would be liberalization of the Chinese economy + container ships on mid-level manufacturing jobs. The only remedy for this is if aggregate investments (not crowed out by deficits) is growing fast enough that the displaced workers generally find better jobs than the ones they were displaced from. It also helps if your fiscal policy (dollar-overvaluing deficits) and trade negotiation strategies (prioritizing protection of intellectual property) do not shift the terms of trade against manufacturing.
Stiglitz: Inflation was "temporary" because the Fed belatedly decided to MAKE it temporary. Inflation that is engineered to allow relative prices to change w/o creating massive failures of markets to clear is by definition "temporary." Why would the Fed move to a new higher target in response to a one-time shift in demand from services to goods and back? Who would have ordered that?
Armstrong: AI will lead to joblessness only if the Fed decides to allow it. The actual question is, what will AI do to the wage distribution?
Of course, we may never know, because BLS, in its wisdom, does not construct wage indexes; it only gives us labor unit value indexes. Ditto no import or export price indices, so we don't know the terms of trade, either. And Treasury stubbornly refuses to add more intermediate tenor TIPS or issue a real or nominal Trillionth.
Saraiva: If consumers and investors' irrational exuberance can hold for a few more months, to give the Fed time to walk back all the rate-hike speculation it has been doing ....
Dan Drezner suggests a term limit for [political] columnists of five years. I agree. Even Krugman! (He remains always correct, but oh-so-predictable.) But I am puzzled by one thing. Good political cartoonists never seem to go stale: Herblock; Tom Toles; Mike Lukovitch [sic?]. Bloggers are somewhere in between. What's the relevant difference between political columning and political cartooning?
Dmitrieva: 5- and 10-year TIPS breakeven rates were down, too.
Crawford: "... the dark arts of “behavior design,” which are sometimes turned to purposes that can only be called misanthropic."
Matt Yglesias has made the same observation about the taste of the Cheeto or the effects of fentanyl. The scope for intervention in markets -- both for paternalistic reasons and Pigou taxes/subsidies -- is increasing.
Economic History: "Machines Eating Men: Shoemakers and their Children After the McKay Stitcher:"
Quite plausible as would be liberalization of the Chinese economy + container ships on mid-level manufacturing jobs. The only remedy for this is if aggregate investments (not crowed out by deficits) is growing fast enough that the displaced workers generally find better jobs than the ones they were displaced from. It also helps if your fiscal policy (dollar-overvaluing deficits) and trade negotiation strategies (prioritizing protection of intellectual property) do not shift the terms of trade against manufacturing.
Stiglitz: Inflation was "temporary" because the Fed belatedly decided to MAKE it temporary. Inflation that is engineered to allow relative prices to change w/o creating massive failures of markets to clear is by definition "temporary." Why would the Fed move to a new higher target in response to a one-time shift in demand from services to goods and back? Who would have ordered that?
Armstrong: AI will lead to joblessness only if the Fed decides to allow it. The actual question is, what will AI do to the wage distribution?
Of course, we may never know, because BLS, in its wisdom, does not construct wage indexes; it only gives us labor unit value indexes. Ditto no import or export price indices, so we don't know the terms of trade, either. And Treasury stubbornly refuses to add more intermediate tenor TIPS or issue a real or nominal Trillionth.
Saraiva: If consumers and investors' irrational exuberance can hold for a few more months, to give the Fed time to walk back all the rate-hike speculation it has been doing ....
Dan Drezner suggests a term limit for [political] columnists of five years. I agree. Even Krugman! (He remains always correct, but oh-so-predictable.) But I am puzzled by one thing. Good political cartoonists never seem to go stale: Herblock; Tom Toles; Mike Lukovitch [sic?]. Bloggers are somewhere in between. What's the relevant difference between political columning and political cartooning?
Krugman is usually correct, but almost always gives the wrong reasons for his opinions.