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CONDITION: On the Omicron Downslope:
First: Playing the Game of Life Not on Easy Mode:
My sometime student Lisa Cook has her senate hearing for her nomination to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors this morning. And there have not been nearly enough positive validators. A fair and meritocratic selection process would have thrown up a lot more Black Fed Governors by now. But there are complaints—and they, I think, all boil down to “unlike we white guys, she hasn’t been playing the Game of Life on the ‘easiest’ setting <https://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/>, and so hasn’t piled up as many of the points I care about as I have…”
Pretty stupid. Pretty much completely in bad faith. And a bunch of people who know, or ought to know, how smart and thoughtful Lisa is are not out there validating her nomination. Come on guys!
Speaking as a U.C. Berkeley faculty member, I am offended by even the suggestion that any distinguished graduate of our Ph.D. program is not excellently qualified to serve on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve…
Craig Torres & Daniel Flatley: Fed’s First Black Female Nominee Brings New Focus, Stirs GOP Ire: ‘Adam Posen… highlights the value of people with different backgrounds on a central bank’s board, noting that it took somebody like Cook to challenge the notion that property rights alone provided sufficient protection to foster innovation. “You want to have a diversified portfolio of people so you have different perspectives and aren’t caught short as the world lurches,” he says…
Amanda Terkel: Biden’s Federal Reserve Nominee Lisa Cook Is Facing A Racist Smear Campaign: ‘Brad DeLong is a professor of economics at Berkeley and has known Cook since the 1990s, “when she was a go-getting graduate student here at Berkeley making things happen.” He said he would “easily put her in the top third in terms of most qualified” Fed nominees.
“She has the distinction of having made me change my mind in a seminar through argument about something important: how disastrous the progressive-era attack on the African American talented 10th was,” he told HuffPost. “That is very unusual, because I am a very arrogant SOB, and even when I lose a debate, I almost always attribute the loss to my poor performance rather than to the weight of reason.”
The Federal Reserve Act gives the president the power to choose the board of governors, adding that he or she “shall have due regard to a fair representation of the financial, agricultural, industrial, and commercial interests, and geographical divisions of the country.”… “Almost all presidents have completely ignored this charge,” DeLong said. “It is nice to see Biden stepping up, even if only in a small way. Where is the unskilled-labor representing governor? Finance, wealth, technocratic economists and small business [owners] are almost the only people who have ever gotten a voice”…
The five Biden Fed appointments and reappointments—Powell as Chair, Brainard as Vice-Chair, Bloom Raskin as Vice-Chair for Supervision, Cook and Jefferson to the Board—strike me as a near perfect portfolio of central-banker appointments. (The only big improvement I could see would come from switching Brainard and Powell, who do make a good team, but I don't see why Lael should always be playing second fiddle here.) The Amended Federal Reserve Act charges the President, in choosing the members of the Board of Governors, to "have due regard to a fair representation of the financial, agricultural, industrial, and commercial interests, and geographical divisions of the country..." These are all five extremely high-quality and hard-working people with a very strong sense of public service, and together they have the comprehensive set of perspectives that the Amended Federal Reserve Act directs the President to provide in his appointment—a comprehensive set of perspectives that has been greatly lacking in the appointments of past presidents who have felt free to disregard the legislative language of the "representation" clauses of the Amended Federal Reserve Act.
& Paul Romer:
Paul Romer: Theories, Facts, and Lisa Cook: ‘I proposed a theory…. In a paper available here or here, Lisa presents evidence… about a crucial point that this line of reasoning [of mine] missed. She used patenting as a proxy for the activities that spur growth and assembled convincing evidence that there is another part of the legal system that has a bigger effect: the degree to which it creates a climate of personal security by protecting citizens from the threat of violence…. The gist of Lisa’s paper is conveyed in two figures. The first presents patenting rates for black inventors and the control group, white inventors…. The second shows the timing of violence against Blacks during these years. The surprise for me was the size of the effect on black patenting at a time when the control group of white inventors shows no comparable change. Had I considered the effect that changes in personal security can have on an activity like patenting, I might have concluded that it could have some effect, but I would not have expected the effect to be so large. After Lisa’s evidence forced me to think again about how easy it is to take personal security for granted and about the profound effect that a lack of personal security can have on optimism and a willingness to invest in the future…. Growth theorists could learn a lot by looking beyond the degree to which a system of law provides protection for contracts and intellectual property rights and evaluating the degree to which it creates a climate of personal security….
[We] should prefer having someone like Lisa on the Board of Governors over someone like me because she will insist doggedly that important decisions be based on facts rather than theories. In so doing, she will support the fundamental commitment of science—that a fact beats a theory every time…
Mark Knopfler, Clapton, Sting, & Collins: Money for Nothing: ‘And the youtube comedy comment of the day: "That backup guitar player could have his own band… <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL2Yo2GcLkQ>:
Max Weber: Science as a Vocation: ‘Published as “Wissenschaft als Beruf,” Gesammlte Aufsaetze zur Wissenschaftslehre (Tubingen, 1922), pp. 524–55. Originally a speech at Munich University, 1918, published in 1919 by Duncker & Humblodt, Munich… <https://www.soc.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Weber-Science-as-a-Vocation.pdf>
Dietz Vollrath: The Deep Roots of Development: ‘Researchers… take big swings at big questions… the prose… will reflect that. Don’t let that put you off…. Is a valid empirical link established[?]… [Can] link can be interpreted causally[?]…. There is an accumulation… establishing strong links between deep roots and current development… not just a few odd results…
Craig Torres & Daniel Flatley: Fed’s First Black Female Nominee Brings New Focus, Stirs GOP Ire: ‘Adam Posen… highlights the value of… different backgrounds…. It took somebody like Cook to challenge the notion that property rights alone provided sufficient protection…. “You want to have a diversified portfolio of people so you have different perspectives and aren’t caught short as the world lurches,” he says…
Ann Saphir & Jonnelle Marte: Fed Nominees Say Inflation Is ‘Grave Threat,’ Vow to Fight: ‘Our most important task is tackling inflation,“ Michigan State University economics professor Lisa Cook… said in her prepared remarks. The Fed must ”ensure that inflation declines to levels consistent with its goals,“wrote nominee Philip Jefferson…. former Fed governor Sarah Bloom Raskin said reducing inflation must be a ”top priority"…
Winston Churchill: Eulogy for Neville Chamberlain: ‘At the lychgate we may all pass our own conduct and our own judgments under a searching review…. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days…. The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the Fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour…
Jason Snell: Apple Results: The biggest Ever ($123.9B): ‘Record $34.6 billion in profit. Mac revenue… a new all-time high at $10.9 billion, and iPhone revenue also peaked at $71.6 billion…. Services kept its upward growth path, setting a new record at $19.5 billion, and Wearables/Home/Accessories likewise set a new record at $14.7 billion…
Rana Foroohar: Automation Exacts a Toll in Inequality: ‘Education is where the rubber meets the road…. Claudia Goldin and Laurence Katz have shown, when the relationship between education and technology gains breaks down, tech-driven prosperity is no longer as widely shared…. Biden… has been pushing investments into community college, apprenticeships and worker training… to prevent the hollowing out of labour markets… that went along with, say, the Clinton era embrace of free trade without adequate protections…. If they don’t have training to cope with technology-driven change, the anger of blue-collar workers in Midwestern swing states could be dwarfed by that of lower and middle-income service workers whose jobs are automated…
Become a free subscriber to receive this ‘Stack in your email. Do note that this Grasping Reality newsletter is a reader-supported publication—I really would like to collect enough from it to hire an RA. So consider becoming a paid subscriber, please, if you find this project worthwhile and think it worth continuing:
Small comment on Substack diagnostics: "Something went wrong" is thin.
More concretely, apparently the only way I can say I liked this post at the moment is to say that I liked this post. (Clearly, though, not everyone has this issue.)
I'm guessing such errors leave a trace somewhere that over time may lead to changes.
I could clear my cache and whatnot, but not based on that kind of diagnostic.
The powers that be are terrified of this kind of thing. The Federal Reserve is supposed to work as a bankers' trade association with infinite money and government powers. Someone like Cook on the board is like Teddy Roosevelt becoming president when McKinley was killed. Didn't they call that Mark Hanna's nightmare?
Small comment on Substack diagnostics: "Something went wrong" is thin.
More concretely, apparently the only way I can say I liked this post at the moment is to say that I liked this post. (Clearly, though, not everyone has this issue.)
I'm guessing such errors leave a trace somewhere that over time may lead to changes.
I could clear my cache and whatnot, but not based on that kind of diagnostic.
"Error: An error has occurred." https://wiki.c2.com/?WeirdErrorMessages
The powers that be are terrified of this kind of thing. The Federal Reserve is supposed to work as a bankers' trade association with infinite money and government powers. Someone like Cook on the board is like Teddy Roosevelt becoming president when McKinley was killed. Didn't they call that Mark Hanna's nightmare?