Getting Fast & Complete Recovery in a Shaken-Up Labor Market; & BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2021-12-07 Tu

Things that went whizzing by that I want to remember

First:

J. Bradford DeLong: The Great Labor Market Shakeup: ‘The COVID–19 pandemic has restructured entire industries and changed the way workers think about their jobs, especially in low-paid occupations and sectors. But a full recovery in employment is still possible: policymakers and employers need only offer workers the support they are demanding…. There is a standard list of explanations for this so-called Great Resignation… fear of COVID–19… disrupted childcare… workers… flush with cash… the past two years have prompted more people to stop and smell the roses…. Re-knitting the division of labor to restore employment after a massive disruption is always a long and painful process…. It would not be good policy for the current recovery to be bound by this low speed limit. A rapid recovery requires that US employers provide low-wage workers with the better bargains that, by quitting en masse, they obviously are demanding… a rapid removal of the main supply-side barriers to labor participation: a lack of childcare and the virus itself. And it requires a high-pressure economy, so that it is obvious to workers on the sidelines that there are good opportunities out there…. Both workers and entrepreneurs need a great deal more support right now than American business as usual can provide. Europe provides a promising example. The US needs more of them…

LINK: <https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/great-resignation-us-lack-of-support-for-workers-by-j-bradford-delong-2021-12?>

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Forthcoming September 6, 2022 from Basic:

Slouching Towards Utopia: A History of the Long Twentieth Century: Paragraph 2: In between [1870 and 2010], things were marvelous and terrible, but by the standards of all of the rest of human history much more marvelous than terrible. The one-hundred and forty years 1870-2010 of the long twentieth century were, I strongly believe, the most consequential years of all humanity’s centuries. And it was the first century in which the most important historical thread was what anyone would call the economic one, for it was the century that saw us end our near-universal dire material poverty.

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One Picture:

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One Video:

Thomas Flight: Why Dune’s Visual Effects Feel So Different: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIKupTibxKQ><

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Very Briefly Noted:

• Erik Loomis: Dole: ‘Let’s be very clear up front here. Bob Dole was not a nice man. He was never a nice man. Just because he was the last World War II veteran to win the nomination to the presidency at the same time that Boomers were dealing with their parental issues through the ahistorical and frankly absurd “Greatest Generation” nostalgia does not mean he was a nice man in 1996… <https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/12/dole>

• Chad Jones (2018): New ideas About New Ideas: Paul Romer, Nobel Laureate<https://voxeu.org/article/new-ideas-about-new-ideas-paul-romer-nobel-laureate>

• Maureen Tkacik: Built to Lie: ‘A new book about the Boeing 737 MAX disaster exposes the company’s allergy to the truth… <https://prospect.org/culture/books/built-to-lie-boeing-737-max-disaster-robison/>

• Eric Topol: ’Today’s data from South Africa…. This will bend Prof Van Ranst’s curve from yesterday a bit. Data are not indicative that Omicron is more mild. Until we see it in people > age 60, large N, no prior Covid or vaccination (or > 6 months, waned), we won’t know… <

Eric Topol @EricTopol

Today's data from South Africa, >11,000 new cases (>16,000 past 2 days) with relatively small number of new hospital admissions (13), slight decrease in ICU patients

sugan naidoo @sugan2503

SA COVID UPDATE 5 DECEMBER • Changes from yesterday highlighted • 7 day average of new cases https://t.co/x0tGhl0OI9

• Muge Cevik: ’There’s a lot we don’t yet understand about Omicron, including its impact on immunity and what it means for vaccines. New data will be emerging over the next few wks, which could be misinterpreted w/o context. What we might expect & how to interpret…

Muge Cevik @mugecevik

🦠 There’s a lot we don’t yet understand about Omicron, including its impact on immunity and what it means for vaccines. New data will be emerging over the next few wks, which could be misinterpreted w/o context. What we might expect & how to interpret the emerging data? 🧵(1/n)

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Paragraphs:

Alice Evans: Ten Thousand Years of Patriarchy: ‘What explains the Great Gender Divergence? It happened primarily in the 20th century, but it has much deeper roots. To answer the question, we need to go back ten thousand years…. Three kinds of agricultural societies emerged in the world: patrilineal, bilateral and matrilineal. In Eurasia, patrilineal communities transmitted land and herds to sons… tight restrictions on women’s sexuality and mobility…. Horticultural societies in Southern Africa and Southeast Asia tended to be matrilineal… less concern for paternity, [so] women moved freely…. Native Americans were mostly bilateral and recognised the importance of women’s contributions…. The Middle East and South Asia grew even more endogamous (through cousin marriage and caste). Since rumours of female promiscuity would dishonour the entire lineage, women were increasingly cloistered, especially in socially diverse towns. Meanwhile in medieval Europe emerged several latent advantages: nuclear families and participatory assemblies…. Patriarchal dominance was not geographically determined, but was also a product of cultural evolution, as reflected in folklore, religion, gender stereotypes, and institutions. Folklore (an insight into traditional cultures) of the Middle East, South Asia, the Mediterranean and Scandinavia tends to valorise male dominance and female submission. Patriarchy was cemented in Eurasia by the emergence over 2000 years ago of religions with Big Gods meting out supernatural punishment. Tight policing of women’s sexuality was sanctified. Disobedience was punished by God or karma with famines, floods and torment after death…. The 20th century. Technological change freed women from domestic drudgery while industrialisation increased demand for their labour. Thriving firms ran out of skilled men and recruited women en masse. Women, in turn, gained status, autonomy and solidarity through broader friendships. But this progress towards gender equality was contingent on strong growth, weak systems of kinship and democratisation. If prevailing wages are too low to compensate for the loss of honour, female seclusion persists (as in much of India, Iran and Egypt). These effects are compounded by political trajectories. Only in democracies (so excluding Russia and China) can women collectively mobilise for representation and protection from male violence…. While female seclusion persists in poor, patrilineal countries; gender revolutions have occured in countries undergoing rapid economic growth, democratisation, secular enlightenment, and feminist activism. For the first time in human history, women entered the labour market en masse, organised politically and collectively eroded patriarchal dominance…

LINK: <https://www.draliceevans.com/post/ten-thousand-years-of-patriarchy-1>

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Jemima Kelly: Crypto: Definitely Not a Pyramid Scheme: ‘Ah, le crypto…. 2021’s… been a decent year for the brodom. Bitcoin’s up about two-thirds since the start of January. Lol-coin Doge? Around 2,900 per cent. Yeah. (Though it’s down about 82 per cent from its Dogefather-fuelled May highs.)… The FT refuses to employ anyone who will pump this stuff — outrageously — we are more than happy, as we have done (a lot) before, to simply direct our readers to the bros themselves to give you the spiel. Because let’s face it, they can sell this digital fairy dust better than any journalist, whose very choice of profession actually proves that they are NGMI. We quote: “Now we have the goal to get to a dollar, we have everybody kind of encouraging everyone else to buy more Dogecoin. Because now it’s like, alright if I get it, then I have it at a certain price, if you get it, you have it at a certain price, and then if we get more people to buy it, the value goes up, right? Soon as the value goes up, I make more money, you make more money, they make more money. Oh, wow! So let’s get more people to buy it, and then the valuation goes up, and then we all make more money…. We’re all in this together. We’re all a part of a team. And we’re all trying to get it to a certain goal…” That’s why crypto is better and will ultimately beat fiat, you see. Because everyone will just keep making more and more money forever, and we will all just one day live in a meta-paradise where we are sold decentralised digital matter by the centralised fat cats who got into the schemes before us saltfaces, and all will be good and righteous. Long live le crypto…

LINK: <https://www.ft.com/content/025ea33f-7351-4d86-a1ca-b6c268f5b042>

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Maia Szalavitz: Opioids Feel Like Love. That’s Why They’re Deadly in Tough Times: ‘I had told myself that I’d never try heroin because it sounded too perfect. It’s like “warm, buttery love,” a friend told me. When I did yield to temptation—in a fit of rage over a boyfriend’s infidelity in the mid–1980s—that’s what I experienced. It wasn’t euphoria that hooked me. It was relief from my dread and anxiety, and a soothing sense that I was safe, nurtured and unconditionally loved. Science now shows that this comparison is more than metaphor. Opioids mimic the neurotransmitters that are responsible for making social connection comforting—tying parent to child, lover to beloved…. “When people experience an opioid high, they feel warmth, safety and love,” said Steven Chang, an associate professor of neuroscience at Yale. That’s because opioid systems have evolved in part to fuel the good feelings people get from spending time with friends and family, he explained…. Understanding the social nature of opioids and addiction should help policymakers better care for those who suffer from it…. None need jail simply for trying to feel OK. To paraphrase the writer Johann Hari, the opposite of addiction isn’t abstinence. It’s love…

LINK: <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/opinion/us-opioid-crisis.html?referringSource=articleShare>

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Noah Smith: The Omicron Situation, Week 2: ‘There is going to be a big Omicron wave in the U.S. soon…. Omicron has substantial resistance to existing immunity…. Omicron is less deadly in South Africa so far…. Some have speculated that this is because Omicron is less deadly than other variants, and this theory is still going around…. On the more pessimistic end of the spectrum, Omicron cases in Gauteng might be milder because they’re skewing much younger so far…. But experts seem to be converging on a third explanation for Gauteng’s low death rate: Most people in Gauteng simply had some pre-existing immunity, either from vaccination or from prior infection, and that this is making their illnesses more mild. This is supported by early evidence in the U.S., where people who’ve caught Omicron so far have mild cases and were fully vaccinated…. Vaccination might not stop you from catching Omicron, but it’ll probably reduce your risk of dying by quite a lot…

LINK:

The Omicron situation, Week 2

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Chad Orzel: Journalism: Still A Problem: ‘I find that “Democracy Dies in Darkness” at the top of every Washington Post story faintly irritating, and grind my teeth a little whenever someone launches into a panegyric about journalism’s essential role in producing an informed citizenry. It’s not completely wrong, mind, but when the choice needs to be made between accurately informing people and telling a colorful story, the story wins, every time. Most of the time, that’s pretty inconsequential because most news doesn’t actually matter, but when it matters, it really matters, and it’s making us all crazy…

LINK:

Journalism: Still A Problem

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Two Notes:

First, with respect to my this month’s Project Syndicate piece (up at the top of this newsletter) <https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/great-resignation-us-lack-of-support-for-workers-by-j-bradford-delong-2021-12?>, I continue to fail to grasp the reasons for the positions that many of my friends—most notably Larry Summers and Jason Furman—are taking. The Federal Reserve has spent 40 years building up its credibility. That means that it has enormous short-run freedom of policy action. Thus it should use that credibility to prioritize returning the economy to full employment and greasing the structural changes that the COVID plague is causing; and it should only after those tasks are accomplished turn its focus to controlling inflation.

So far Lael Brainard’s arguments to this effect have been convincing to Jay Powell and company. But he is, basically, a Republican Worthy and a manager—a very good one, but one without a strong grasp of the substantive macroeconomics. Just as the splitting of the Republican Party under Trump gave Powell the freedom to consider Lael Brainard’s arguments and find them convincing, so the splitting of the Democratic Party’s position now gives Powell the freedom to return to his Republican Worthy orientation, and I am afraid that he will do so too soon.

And so are some other people whom I trust to be good Fed-watchers.

Second, I am pleased to receive this in email, from a guy who knows Alan Greenspan well: “I think Brad did a good job capturing Alan”:

Were Alan Greenspan Ever to Let His Hair Down...; & BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2021-11-28 Su

That’s all for today!