Journamalistic grifting machines; Greg Clark vs. institutionalist theories of economic history; plutocrats in 1982 and now; Nvidia, Apple, & TSMC Deep Magic; Cicero made a very unwise joke about...
"[In] the United States… 40% of the electorate stares catastrophe in the face and happily embraces it…. They fear they’d lose the country entirely if we just went on muddling through with competent centrism and a more-or-less liberal majority sociocultural bent, so they’d rather burn the whole thing down…"
What scares me is that we are not only embracing fascism, but neoNazism is apparently on the upswing. Yesterday's rant by the normally liberal TCinLA which in effect said ignore the Nazis, just keep them out with paywalls and moderation, is ignoring history. The right wing in the US is clearly following the MO of the Nazis, and we know how that ended up. With GOP legislators and an increasingly sympathetic judiciary, we can see how the unfolding of Nazism in pre-WWII Germany is being copied here. It may be more rhyming than repeating, but I fear a tyranny of the minority may get its way. It is happening in a number of states, and unless this is stopped, it may encompass teh nation. Tolerating intolerance, and worse, promoting it for fun and profit, will not end well.
Muddling through with competent centrism sounds like a reasonable policy, but in reality this policy (which has been going on for decades) involves hundreds of billions worth of deficit spending EVERY YEAR. Can this just go on forever? Can we just quietly inflate our way out of this problem? Who knows? Neither politicians nor economists want to discuss the long term implications of the national debt.
"Neither politicians nor economists want to discuss the long term implications of the national debt."
Hmmm. I think both groups do discuss the implications. The politicians from an agenda, the economists depending on their models. Politicians are worse as they veer from "Deficits don't matter" (Dick Cheney) to "High Debt/GDP ratios will cause hyperinflation" (deficit hawks). Do you want more nth-order implications discussed? There is plenty of historical data from different countries to provide guidance. It is just the "This time it is different" opinions to avoid.
The problem, from my perspective, is twofold. First, that while the chances that we won't be able to grow/slowly inflate our way out of the national debt being a burden, the chances are there. And so what to do about it? Second, that so far all attempts by Democrats to set the national debt-to-GDP ratio on a downward trajectory have been undone by the subsequent Republican administration, leaving us with the same debt problem and a smaller government that does less to boost economic growth and moderate inequality.
I have a long list of "kick yourself for things you neglected to do at UC Davis between 1994-1999." First on the list is neglecting to buy a house. Probably 2nd is neglecting to take a class from Greg Clark.
Looks like the Conference Board doesn't take its own Consumer Confidence Survey seriously. Also seems to have an unhealthy focus on the yield curve's slope that has misled so many people over the past year and a half, at least.
Interesting side note on the Greg Clark video from 2009. He ends with the example of the copyright on Mickey Mouse being an extreme form of copyright protection that hurts knowledge. The Steamboat Willie version of Mickey is now up for grabs as its copyright (95 years) expires Jan 1st, 2024.
Cicero's joke reminds me of our recent exchange on the origins of Judaism. One of the (minor) pieces of evidence that Adler proffers for the establishment of Judaism by the 1st century CE is what might be the oldest Jewish joke in the world, attributed to Octavian. After Herod had executed yet another family member, an activity for which he had a notorious proclivity, Octavian is supposed to have remarked that "I would rather be Herod's pig than his son." We needn't take the attribution too seriously (son/pig makes a pun in Greek that suggests either a certain fluency in the original speaker or else a somewhat free translation). The point is that non-Jews were widely aware of a stereotypical aspect of Jewish culture ("widely" because assumed by the speaker to be known to the audience) that has been highly conserved, right up to the present day.
Conference Board: Presumably if the Fed shared the model the CB prediction is based on, it would have cut rates in December. It is the case that TIPS 5- and 10-year expectations are significantly below target, so the CB could well be correct in its prediction that the Fed will screw it up after all.
Basu: Lenders continue to lend in situations where the ROI on the funds are < borrowing rate. We need to make sure that defaults are as much of a “crisis” for lenders as for borrowers. It takes two parties to make a bad loan.
"That the manufacturing cost of a marginal H100 is 1% of its current market cost ..."
Sometime in the next decade, the H100 will be cheap enough to use in a host of local, edge computing applications. I look forward to the day. No doubt I will also be looking enviously at the performance of the future high-end chips and wondering what I could do with them.
It would take a lot of "know-nothing" ignorance not to understand that 6bn people would be 3/4 of the global population trying to cross the southern boarder into the USA.
A nice counterpoint to all this right-wing fear mongering is this Guardian article on migration:
Everything politicians tell you about immigration is wrong. This is how it actually works
My only issue with his point about climate change mass migration not happening is that when temperature conditions become lethal in the equatorial regions, will populations just sit down an die as they do during periods of mass starvation? I think he may be right that mass migration in teh face of global heating may not happen. Will the world just look on and make gestures but do nothing substantive? Will the richer nations just keep the borders closed and imply "Sorry, but we have our troubles too."? The German population turned a blind eye to murder of 6 million Jews as well as other "undesirables". The sociopath Stalin reputedly said: "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic" as 10s of million Russians died. Will we callously feel the same for the deaths of 100s of millions of people?
"[In] the United States… 40% of the electorate stares catastrophe in the face and happily embraces it…. They fear they’d lose the country entirely if we just went on muddling through with competent centrism and a more-or-less liberal majority sociocultural bent, so they’d rather burn the whole thing down…"
What scares me is that we are not only embracing fascism, but neoNazism is apparently on the upswing. Yesterday's rant by the normally liberal TCinLA which in effect said ignore the Nazis, just keep them out with paywalls and moderation, is ignoring history. The right wing in the US is clearly following the MO of the Nazis, and we know how that ended up. With GOP legislators and an increasingly sympathetic judiciary, we can see how the unfolding of Nazism in pre-WWII Germany is being copied here. It may be more rhyming than repeating, but I fear a tyranny of the minority may get its way. It is happening in a number of states, and unless this is stopped, it may encompass teh nation. Tolerating intolerance, and worse, promoting it for fun and profit, will not end well.
Muddling through with competent centrism sounds like a reasonable policy, but in reality this policy (which has been going on for decades) involves hundreds of billions worth of deficit spending EVERY YEAR. Can this just go on forever? Can we just quietly inflate our way out of this problem? Who knows? Neither politicians nor economists want to discuss the long term implications of the national debt.
"Neither politicians nor economists want to discuss the long term implications of the national debt."
Hmmm. I think both groups do discuss the implications. The politicians from an agenda, the economists depending on their models. Politicians are worse as they veer from "Deficits don't matter" (Dick Cheney) to "High Debt/GDP ratios will cause hyperinflation" (deficit hawks). Do you want more nth-order implications discussed? There is plenty of historical data from different countries to provide guidance. It is just the "This time it is different" opinions to avoid.
The problem, from my perspective, is twofold. First, that while the chances that we won't be able to grow/slowly inflate our way out of the national debt being a burden, the chances are there. And so what to do about it? Second, that so far all attempts by Democrats to set the national debt-to-GDP ratio on a downward trajectory have been undone by the subsequent Republican administration, leaving us with the same debt problem and a smaller government that does less to boost economic growth and moderate inequality.
I have a long list of "kick yourself for things you neglected to do at UC Davis between 1994-1999." First on the list is neglecting to buy a house. Probably 2nd is neglecting to take a class from Greg Clark.
Looks like the Conference Board doesn't take its own Consumer Confidence Survey seriously. Also seems to have an unhealthy focus on the yield curve's slope that has misled so many people over the past year and a half, at least.
Nobody cuts through the cobwebs in economic history better than Greg Clark.
Interesting side note on the Greg Clark video from 2009. He ends with the example of the copyright on Mickey Mouse being an extreme form of copyright protection that hurts knowledge. The Steamboat Willie version of Mickey is now up for grabs as its copyright (95 years) expires Jan 1st, 2024.
Cicero's joke reminds me of our recent exchange on the origins of Judaism. One of the (minor) pieces of evidence that Adler proffers for the establishment of Judaism by the 1st century CE is what might be the oldest Jewish joke in the world, attributed to Octavian. After Herod had executed yet another family member, an activity for which he had a notorious proclivity, Octavian is supposed to have remarked that "I would rather be Herod's pig than his son." We needn't take the attribution too seriously (son/pig makes a pun in Greek that suggests either a certain fluency in the original speaker or else a somewhat free translation). The point is that non-Jews were widely aware of a stereotypical aspect of Jewish culture ("widely" because assumed by the speaker to be known to the audience) that has been highly conserved, right up to the present day.
Indeed. Very good point...
Conference Board: Presumably if the Fed shared the model the CB prediction is based on, it would have cut rates in December. It is the case that TIPS 5- and 10-year expectations are significantly below target, so the CB could well be correct in its prediction that the Fed will screw it up after all.
Basu: Lenders continue to lend in situations where the ROI on the funds are < borrowing rate. We need to make sure that defaults are as much of a “crisis” for lenders as for borrowers. It takes two parties to make a bad loan.
"That the manufacturing cost of a marginal H100 is 1% of its current market cost ..."
Sometime in the next decade, the H100 will be cheap enough to use in a host of local, edge computing applications. I look forward to the day. No doubt I will also be looking enviously at the performance of the future high-end chips and wondering what I could do with them.
13 century England might have been splendid economically, but otherwise...
The 13th Century wasn't too bad, especially compared to the 12th or 14th.
Re: Crisis at the Border
It would take a lot of "know-nothing" ignorance not to understand that 6bn people would be 3/4 of the global population trying to cross the southern boarder into the USA.
A nice counterpoint to all this right-wing fear mongering is this Guardian article on migration:
Everything politicians tell you about immigration is wrong. This is how it actually works
- Hein de Haas
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/29/politicians-immigration-wrong-cheap-labour
My only issue with his point about climate change mass migration not happening is that when temperature conditions become lethal in the equatorial regions, will populations just sit down an die as they do during periods of mass starvation? I think he may be right that mass migration in teh face of global heating may not happen. Will the world just look on and make gestures but do nothing substantive? Will the richer nations just keep the borders closed and imply "Sorry, but we have our troubles too."? The German population turned a blind eye to murder of 6 million Jews as well as other "undesirables". The sociopath Stalin reputedly said: "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic" as 10s of million Russians died. Will we callously feel the same for the deaths of 100s of millions of people?