But GDP Is the Palpable Economy Aggregated!, & BRIEFLY NOTED
For 2022-12-03 Sa
FOCUS: This Makes Zero Sense!
WAIT! WHAT?!
The big reason why Britain’s Conservative Party is in trouble right now is precisely economic idiocy—that Brexit’s effect on GDP was dire, and that the GDP was, in fact, owned by the heckler in Newcastle:
Sebastian Payne: To woo voters, Rishi Sunak must fix the UK’s ‘palpable economy’: ‘The Tories may be desperate to boost the economic data, but everyday signs of improvement will be more important: High streets are filled with boarded-up shops, public services are verging on collapse and there’s a spiralling wave of strikes: It was one of the most famous soundbites of the Brexit campaign. In a debate on the economic impact of leaving the EU, a heckler in Newcastle shouted at a university professor, “That’s your bloody GDP, not ours”. As Rishi Sunak will soon discover, many Britons still feel the same…. What they care about is what you might call the “palpable economy” — the one that really touches people, as opposed to the data-driven one. Sunak needs to focus on the general state and mood of Britain: does the country feel more prosperous than it did at its lowest economic ebb (ie: right now), are the high streets improving, are job opportunities plentiful? And are public services working well? Were there to be an election in the next six months, the answers to all these questions would be negative…
There are second-order arguments about the distribution of that GDP, and there is a dog-in-the-manger aspect to the Conservative Party’s base not wanting to see anyone they do not regard as deserving prosper. But the ditinction between the “palpable” and the “data-driven” economy simply does not exist. Add up all the instances of the palpable economy and you get the data-driven one:
Very Briefly Noted:
Iryna Voichuk: “Today is the first day of winter and I want you to watch this video of Christmas #Mariupol as it was a year ago, when the city and its residents didn’t yet know what awaited them in 2 months…
China Charts: LONG VIEW: Energy, Chips, War-Making Capacity, and Taiwan…
Gillian Tett: https://www.ft.com/content/68cbf8a2-051d-4123-a0a9-dba14d5dea6d New York is staring at a dangerously divided future... esembles not just the face of America but an extreme microcosm of its challenges.... Its economy may be growing and its entrepreneurial spirits soaring, but its economic and social divides seem likely to worsen
Marques Brownlee: “I have some thoughts... the VR headsets are coming…
Eric Levitz: Why Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave”: ‘Why do these rail barons hate paid leave so much?… The answe… precision-scheduled railroading…. Already understaffed and underperforming, the railroads cannot allow unanticipated absences to become significantly more prevalent without either pulling back from P.S.R. or suffering even more frequent disruptions and customer complaints…
Ian Allison: Divisions in Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Empire Blur on His Trading Titan Alameda’s Balance Sheet… (2022-11-02)
James Block: Is Alameda Research Insolvent?: ‘The hedge fund's finances appear to rest on the same scheme that destroyed Celsius Network. Will it work out any differently for Sam Bankman-Fried?… (2022-11-04)
Joe Nye: War Over Taiwan?: ‘For five decades, both China and the US benefited from the time they had bought on the question of the island’s status. To prevent what is currently a managed competition from spiraling out of control, the United States should take careful but clear steps to strengthen its longstanding policy of “double deterrence”….
Greg Sargent: ‘So richly deserved: Now that Musk suspended Ye for sharing a swastika, Musk is getting slaughtered by his fans, who are finally realizing his "free speech absolutism" was always the scam we told you it would be…
¶s:
Robert Skidelsky: Friedrich Hayek: a great political thinker rather than a great economist: ‘His theorising was abstract, but his purpose was practical: to make the case for a liberal economic order which would be proof against the political and economic wickedness and madness through which he lived: the two world wars, the Great Depression and the rise and fall of fascism and communism.... The theoretical case for entrusting to the free market exclusive direction of the flow of society’s goods and services depended heavily on demonstrating its god-like capacity for rapid adjustment to changing conditions, and it is here that the Austrian School fell short.... Hayek’s main popular appeal was to the anti-Roosevelt right in the USA. He never considered that Roosevelt’s New Deal might have been an antidote to serfdom rather than a prelude to it... Institution-building took place against the background of Hayek’s relocation from the LSE to Chicago University, where an American businessman guaranteed his salary, his messy divorce from Helena Fritsch, his marriage to his first love ‘Lenerl’ Bitterlich and his break with his English patron Lionel Robbins...
Anup Roy & Ruchi Bhatia: Global Economy Must Start Bracing for Low Inflation, Rajan Says: ‘“We should be prepared to potentially go back to low inflation regime,” he said Friday…. “We need to examine what constrained us, Rajan said. “We need to assess if we didn’t recognise inflation building or we were actually waiting for our instruments to play out, wanting to preserve them for the next time.” Therefore, it is important for central banks today to pursue policies that provide for changes in inflation dynamics over time, he said, adding that headwinds, including de-globalisation, slow growth in China and K-shaped recovery in emerging economies can hurt growth…
Jonathan Weil: Rising Tether Loans Add Risk to Stablecoin, Crypto World: ‘Tether reports hadn’t disclosed that loans it issues are denominated and payable in the token: The company behind the tether stablecoin has increasingly been lending its own coins to customers rather than selling them for hard currency upfront. The shift adds to risks that the company may not have enough liquid assets to pay redemptions in a crisis. Tether Holdings Ltd. says it lends only to eligible customers and requires that borrowers post lots of “extremely liquid” collateral, which could be sold for dollars if borrowers default…
James Livingston: The Contested Fed: ‘The US Federal Reserve is a monument to the idea that the market, if left on its own, will destroy everything in its path, including itself. Three recent books suggest that the Fed has the capacity to function as a device of indicative planning, coordinating economic activities to fulfill democratically determined social purposes: Ben S. Bernanke, 21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19…. Edward Chancellor, The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest…. Lev Menand, The Fed Unbound: Central Banking in a Time of Crisis…
The palpable adds up to the data driven... Well, yes, but the data driven also averages out the palpable - and it's the losers of the palpable that are asserting the Polanyian rights that you emphasize so much elsewhere.
I thought that the Payne article was silly, but he has a point. Politically, there is nothing second-order about the distribution of GDP. People respond doubly to a perceived maldistribution--they are angry about being deprived, and angrier at those who gain at their expense. Their response could be welfarist, socialist, or fascist. But respond they do, and pretty strongly.