Understanding Bernanke: So just why was he not able to get the Fed to act in a more Bagehot way sooner and not in an anti-Bagehot way in June 2010 when the Fed let inflation expectations again fall well under target?
Understanding Trump. I agree as an insider message. Progressives should try as much as possible not to reinforce the idea* that "we are going this TO you deplorables FOR them." But that really just means arguing that Progressive policies are good for "everybody" and actually pushing those policies.
* Said idea did not just unfortunately bubble up to the top of the political froth. The entire Conversative-Media Complex has been cultivating it for decades.
Authers: Someone should have sat down and patiently explained to Ms Truss, et.at. that a repeat of the Republicans "Tax Cuts for the Rich and Deficits Act of 2017" will fail not just in the long run but in the short run if a) ones country does not have the worlds reserve currency, b) one's central bank was already dealing with inflation and c) giving money to rich people has fallen further out of favor since 2017.
Dani Rodrik: An Industrial Policy for Good Jobs: He wants to sound positive about "industrial policy" but is smart enough not to actually favor it. Is there any path to more "good jobs" than more investment (including in people's human capital) to raise marginal products of labor?
Climate is well NOT emphasized. It's a very special [yes hugely important, but not conceptually different] case of the "neoliberal" turn foundering on the shoals of taxes. Intellectually dealing with climate change is Econ 101 easy, but getting first elites and then the public to see the logic of a TAX on net CO2 emissions is hard. And the fact that actual real life-life "Hayekians" are not beating the drums for the tax is quite telling. Maybe they were never Hayekians at all, just ever educated chamber of commerce Republicans.
"An effective book has to tell a narrative, and a narrative needs a beginning, a middle, and AN END."
Sure. But there is a major thread about coal, oil and oil wars, and the energy surplus that gives you lots of economic growth. I know the Great Moderation is the revealed utopia, but it sure is interesting that correlation is not causation, and also that two periods of rapid American economic expansion coincide the eras of cheap oil: 1945-1973 and 1986-2006. (And the best economic performance of the post-GFC period was post-2014 when the oil price collapsed.)
"It is indeed true that, as my friend Yingyi Qian says, come 2100 the story that everyone will see as central starts in 1976 with the accession of Deng Xiaoping and is the story of the Chinese 21st century. But that, again, is a different story."
Is it though?
elm
this seems to be an article of faith but i don't see the underlying elements to make that work
You have admirably championed the resurrection of the letters thorn and eth. You have correctly labelled the state ruled by Putin as Muscovy. But you disappoint me with respect to energy. Energy is a conserved quantity! Let us not speak of energy shortages or energy crises; we ought to name our dependency plainly: it is low entropy.
Agree with Davis. Tooze's point around climate centrality is silly - did he depict WWI or the 2008 crash as climate catastrophes? But within his point is another - one that your cutting room floor points to as well: energy centrality. You wanted to write an economic history, not a geopolitical one, and a contingent history, not a "structural" one: all fair enough, but maybe the result is still a little too light on oil.
Full disclosure: I probably wouldn't have been sensible to this point at all had I not been reading Helen Thompson's 'Disorder' right before I picked up STU. You don't have to buy Thompson's whole argument to be struck by the fact that outside of US and Russia, no global north decision-maker (after, say, 1914?) could operate without regard to access to energy. Acknowledging that constraint (whose violation by political leaders, often triggers Polanyian-rights-type reactions) may in fact make an account of the 20th century more "economic", not less.
But heck with all that - more interesting I think are the differences between Tooze's and your accounts of the 2008 crash and its aftermath. I'll be parsing that one out for a while.
Understanding Bernanke: So just why was he not able to get the Fed to act in a more Bagehot way sooner and not in an anti-Bagehot way in June 2010 when the Fed let inflation expectations again fall well under target?
Understanding Trump. I agree as an insider message. Progressives should try as much as possible not to reinforce the idea* that "we are going this TO you deplorables FOR them." But that really just means arguing that Progressive policies are good for "everybody" and actually pushing those policies.
* Said idea did not just unfortunately bubble up to the top of the political froth. The entire Conversative-Media Complex has been cultivating it for decades.
Authers: Someone should have sat down and patiently explained to Ms Truss, et.at. that a repeat of the Republicans "Tax Cuts for the Rich and Deficits Act of 2017" will fail not just in the long run but in the short run if a) ones country does not have the worlds reserve currency, b) one's central bank was already dealing with inflation and c) giving money to rich people has fallen further out of favor since 2017.
Dani Rodrik: An Industrial Policy for Good Jobs: He wants to sound positive about "industrial policy" but is smart enough not to actually favor it. Is there any path to more "good jobs" than more investment (including in people's human capital) to raise marginal products of labor?
Climate is well NOT emphasized. It's a very special [yes hugely important, but not conceptually different] case of the "neoliberal" turn foundering on the shoals of taxes. Intellectually dealing with climate change is Econ 101 easy, but getting first elites and then the public to see the logic of a TAX on net CO2 emissions is hard. And the fact that actual real life-life "Hayekians" are not beating the drums for the tax is quite telling. Maybe they were never Hayekians at all, just ever educated chamber of commerce Republicans.
"An effective book has to tell a narrative, and a narrative needs a beginning, a middle, and AN END."
Sure. But there is a major thread about coal, oil and oil wars, and the energy surplus that gives you lots of economic growth. I know the Great Moderation is the revealed utopia, but it sure is interesting that correlation is not causation, and also that two periods of rapid American economic expansion coincide the eras of cheap oil: 1945-1973 and 1986-2006. (And the best economic performance of the post-GFC period was post-2014 when the oil price collapsed.)
"It is indeed true that, as my friend Yingyi Qian says, come 2100 the story that everyone will see as central starts in 1976 with the accession of Deng Xiaoping and is the story of the Chinese 21st century. But that, again, is a different story."
Is it though?
elm
this seems to be an article of faith but i don't see the underlying elements to make that work
You have admirably championed the resurrection of the letters thorn and eth. You have correctly labelled the state ruled by Putin as Muscovy. But you disappoint me with respect to energy. Energy is a conserved quantity! Let us not speak of energy shortages or energy crises; we ought to name our dependency plainly: it is low entropy.
Re Trimble: is Prof. DeLong a secret gear head?
Agree with Davis. Tooze's point around climate centrality is silly - did he depict WWI or the 2008 crash as climate catastrophes? But within his point is another - one that your cutting room floor points to as well: energy centrality. You wanted to write an economic history, not a geopolitical one, and a contingent history, not a "structural" one: all fair enough, but maybe the result is still a little too light on oil.
Full disclosure: I probably wouldn't have been sensible to this point at all had I not been reading Helen Thompson's 'Disorder' right before I picked up STU. You don't have to buy Thompson's whole argument to be struck by the fact that outside of US and Russia, no global north decision-maker (after, say, 1914?) could operate without regard to access to energy. Acknowledging that constraint (whose violation by political leaders, often triggers Polanyian-rights-type reactions) may in fact make an account of the 20th century more "economic", not less.
But heck with all that - more interesting I think are the differences between Tooze's and your accounts of the 2008 crash and its aftermath. I'll be parsing that one out for a while.