And I've been too Online a visitor since you've been too Online. Been a visitor since the good old days of the dinosaurs such as Mark Thoma, donating coffee money every now and then, often with tips on how to do it right. You, Thoma, Paul Krugman, Noah Smith and Nick Rowe and Co at the Worthwhile Canadian Initiative -- yes, that still makes me chuckle -- were life savers, especially during the GFC. Will never forget those days. Double your subscriptions, people! We want Moar!
WCI is fantastic, indeed. My connection/link with the way they think is through Peter Howitt, from whom I learnt a great deal in monetary economics and Schumpeterian growth theory. I feel fortunate that he was around when I was in grad school. I probably make a lot of mistakes, still, and do more facepalm than I would like. A lot of the rest has come from Grasping and The Conscience of a Liberal. Bow and Curtsey, to all.
It's part of being a public intellectual nowadays. It used to be essays published in popular magazines like The Saturday Evening Post. Those magazines are mostly gone, so those essays wind up on one's blog.
I've been following since 2004, so I'll say thanks for all you have published. Whether it was by accident or design, you were ahead of the curve.
Robert Rubin may be a lovely and brilliant man, but as a total outsider it seems to me that his single goal at Treasury was never to do anything to upset Alan Greenspan. And I don't think he did. He was also made over $100 million working at Citigroup, which then went belly up during the Great Recession. You can read some interesting things about Mr. Rubin at Wikipedia.
To all of our benefit. I first started following you about 2000, I think. I was trying to recall why or how and I think it was due to a link from another blog but it's bugging me I can't recall which. Anyway, I was also trying to remember, when did you first do the coffee video things where you would opine over a hot cup of joe (with rather loud slurps picked up by the too close mic as I recall)? That was mid 2000s? A podcaster and influencer before those names even existed.
October 18, 2008 at 15:06 This blog from comments. Good times, good times...
Don the libertarian Democrat said...
"the current "disturbance" started with a "mania."
The WSJ with an interview of Anna Schwartz, who wrote a book with Milton Friedman that I found hellish to read, but interesting. Anyway, here's her bottom line in a great post:
"How did we get into this mess in the first place? As in the 1920s, the current "disturbance" started with a "mania." But manias always have a cause. "If you investigate individually the manias that the market has so dubbed over the years, in every case, it was expansive monetary policy that generated the boom in an asset.
"The particular asset varied from one boom to another. But the basic underlying propagator was too-easy monetary policy and too-low interest rates that induced ordinary people to say, well, it's so cheap to acquire whatever is the object of desire in an asset boom, and go ahead and acquire that object. And then of course if monetary policy tightens, the boom collapses."
The house-price boom began with the very low interest rates in the early years of this decade under former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan."
Once again, I'm having a hard time with this one. Who exactly is being forced to borrow or lend? And who said to invest in things that you don't know how to value or understand?
Surely the problem can't simply be the Fed. After all, at what point does the Fed hinder growth to stop a bubble.
I'm sorry, but after hearing so many times now that we don't know what are our assets are, how to trade this or that, how much they're worth, how they're rated, etc., etc., etc., I can't put it all at the feet of the Fed.
And I've been too Online a visitor since you've been too Online. Been a visitor since the good old days of the dinosaurs such as Mark Thoma, donating coffee money every now and then, often with tips on how to do it right. You, Thoma, Paul Krugman, Noah Smith and Nick Rowe and Co at the Worthwhile Canadian Initiative -- yes, that still makes me chuckle -- were life savers, especially during the GFC. Will never forget those days. Double your subscriptions, people! We want Moar!
WCI, especially, is a remarkable institution...
Thanks much. Yours,
Brad DeLong
brad.delong@gmail.com :: @delong@mastodon.social ::
+1 925-708-0467
http://braddelong@substack.com
====
Order Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Long 20th Century, 1870-2010 <https://bit.ly/3pP3Krk>
About: <https://braddelong.substack.com/about>
WCI is fantastic, indeed. My connection/link with the way they think is through Peter Howitt, from whom I learnt a great deal in monetary economics and Schumpeterian growth theory. I feel fortunate that he was around when I was in grad school. I probably make a lot of mistakes, still, and do more facepalm than I would like. A lot of the rest has come from Grasping and The Conscience of a Liberal. Bow and Curtsey, to all.
:-)
It's part of being a public intellectual nowadays. It used to be essays published in popular magazines like The Saturday Evening Post. Those magazines are mostly gone, so those essays wind up on one's blog.
I've been following since 2004, so I'll say thanks for all you have published. Whether it was by accident or design, you were ahead of the curve.
A huge benefit! So many are wiser and better for it.
Robert Rubin may be a lovely and brilliant man, but as a total outsider it seems to me that his single goal at Treasury was never to do anything to upset Alan Greenspan. And I don't think he did. He was also made over $100 million working at Citigroup, which then went belly up during the Great Recession. You can read some interesting things about Mr. Rubin at Wikipedia.
To all of our benefit. I first started following you about 2000, I think. I was trying to recall why or how and I think it was due to a link from another blog but it's bugging me I can't recall which. Anyway, I was also trying to remember, when did you first do the coffee video things where you would opine over a hot cup of joe (with rather loud slurps picked up by the too close mic as I recall)? That was mid 2000s? A podcaster and influencer before those names even existed.
October 18, 2008 at 15:06 This blog from comments. Good times, good times...
Don the libertarian Democrat said...
"the current "disturbance" started with a "mania."
The WSJ with an interview of Anna Schwartz, who wrote a book with Milton Friedman that I found hellish to read, but interesting. Anyway, here's her bottom line in a great post:
"How did we get into this mess in the first place? As in the 1920s, the current "disturbance" started with a "mania." But manias always have a cause. "If you investigate individually the manias that the market has so dubbed over the years, in every case, it was expansive monetary policy that generated the boom in an asset.
"The particular asset varied from one boom to another. But the basic underlying propagator was too-easy monetary policy and too-low interest rates that induced ordinary people to say, well, it's so cheap to acquire whatever is the object of desire in an asset boom, and go ahead and acquire that object. And then of course if monetary policy tightens, the boom collapses."
The house-price boom began with the very low interest rates in the early years of this decade under former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan."
Once again, I'm having a hard time with this one. Who exactly is being forced to borrow or lend? And who said to invest in things that you don't know how to value or understand?
Surely the problem can't simply be the Fed. After all, at what point does the Fed hinder growth to stop a bubble.
I'm sorry, but after hearing so many times now that we don't know what are our assets are, how to trade this or that, how much they're worth, how they're rated, etc., etc., etc., I can't put it all at the feet of the Fed.
Great story! Thanks!