Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast We, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week); Aspirationally an hour...
Yeasts are fungi. There was a time when fungi were not classified as a separate kingdom, but they have never been classified as animals, they were formerly classified as plants. They are eukaryotic though - perhaps that's what you had in mind? In that case, the distinction would be between bacteria, archaea, and eukarya.
Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Tyrants are learning how to tease out the benefits of democracy without the burden. Elections are propaganda when competing parties are symbolic, then the judiciary is stacked or ignored, and human rights are erased even for the majority. One doesn't need households to share national income when consumption comes from exports. Wealth is retained only by the party oligarchs. But we will continue to call it a democracy until a leader's vanity demands that he is recognized as emperor.
Hi Brad. I hope you are right that the 'global south' (India is apparently fine this this moniker) will be able to follow the same development pathway as China and the Asian tigers. But I am less hopeful. First problem is that governance is a major issue in many countries - in part due to power structure problems left by colonisation and in part due to external interference. The second problem is that while there is a large share of the labour force still in agriculture the level of human capital is low. Even India has a literacy rate in rural areas that is 68%, while the East Asian success stories had literacy well above 90%. The third problem is that Washington no longer supports the Washington consensus, which promoted the trade and investment flows needed for labour productivity growth in developing economies. Industry policies that raise the costs of the energy transition and security policies that reduce the scope to share technologies, and at worse lead to parallel tech systems, add to the barriers to development. Add in stagnating aid flows, high debt burdens, and growing resistance to migration (remittances are an important source of income) to environment is far less favourable for an export led development model.
#5 Very important. Unless one has a low estimate of the harm that CO2 does, it is VERY important that the policies that are adopted to reduce net CO2 emissions. The fact that low-cost policies exist -- taxation of net emissions, removal of regulatory obstacles to deployment of zero and negative CO2 emitting technologies, and any imaginable investment in R&D -- does not guarantee that least cost polices will be chosen. So far, the experience is to the contrary.
The COP approach of encouraging countries to commit to arbitrary cuantitative reductions by arbitrary dates does not point to global least cost policies. The USA IRA appears to subsidize CO2 reductions at enormous cost per ton and certainly cannot be applied world wide (and may not even be sustainable for the US).
Thomas can kindly elaborate on how “USA IRA appears to subsidize CO2 reductions at enormous cost per ton and certainly cannot be applied world wide”. My sense is that we are engaging in expensive industrial policies in a rush to get something done and copying the Chinese model of guided investing. Pray tell
I don't know or particularly care if we are following a Chinese model or not. Do the projects that are subsidized have a positive NPV when we evaluate the CO2 emission avoided at the appropriate Social Cost of Carbon (=the tax rate on net CO2 emissions). It strains belief that it could when the subsidy is given not in proportion to the CO2 emission avoided, but in proportion to the investment in the activity that will reduce the CO2 emission.
#3. Probably so, but could we go back to good old globalization*, just in case. ?)
*Without large US fiscal deficits. The US ought to be a capital exporting country and this is NOT inconsistent with providing the world with safe financial assets.
I hated Accelerando. The first two books in the Singularity series were great. However, the third had deeply unlikeable characters. Stross did something similar with the Laundry series where the last several books have had characters that I find unappealing. It's almost like he. gets bored with the series
Yeasts are fungi. There was a time when fungi were not classified as a separate kingdom, but they have never been classified as animals, they were formerly classified as plants. They are eukaryotic though - perhaps that's what you had in mind? In that case, the distinction would be between bacteria, archaea, and eukarya.
Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Tyrants are learning how to tease out the benefits of democracy without the burden. Elections are propaganda when competing parties are symbolic, then the judiciary is stacked or ignored, and human rights are erased even for the majority. One doesn't need households to share national income when consumption comes from exports. Wealth is retained only by the party oligarchs. But we will continue to call it a democracy until a leader's vanity demands that he is recognized as emperor.
Hi Brad. I hope you are right that the 'global south' (India is apparently fine this this moniker) will be able to follow the same development pathway as China and the Asian tigers. But I am less hopeful. First problem is that governance is a major issue in many countries - in part due to power structure problems left by colonisation and in part due to external interference. The second problem is that while there is a large share of the labour force still in agriculture the level of human capital is low. Even India has a literacy rate in rural areas that is 68%, while the East Asian success stories had literacy well above 90%. The third problem is that Washington no longer supports the Washington consensus, which promoted the trade and investment flows needed for labour productivity growth in developing economies. Industry policies that raise the costs of the energy transition and security policies that reduce the scope to share technologies, and at worse lead to parallel tech systems, add to the barriers to development. Add in stagnating aid flows, high debt burdens, and growing resistance to migration (remittances are an important source of income) to environment is far less favourable for an export led development model.
Great content.
Cheers Jenny Gordon
#5 Very important. Unless one has a low estimate of the harm that CO2 does, it is VERY important that the policies that are adopted to reduce net CO2 emissions. The fact that low-cost policies exist -- taxation of net emissions, removal of regulatory obstacles to deployment of zero and negative CO2 emitting technologies, and any imaginable investment in R&D -- does not guarantee that least cost polices will be chosen. So far, the experience is to the contrary.
The COP approach of encouraging countries to commit to arbitrary cuantitative reductions by arbitrary dates does not point to global least cost policies. The USA IRA appears to subsidize CO2 reductions at enormous cost per ton and certainly cannot be applied world wide (and may not even be sustainable for the US).
Thomas can kindly elaborate on how “USA IRA appears to subsidize CO2 reductions at enormous cost per ton and certainly cannot be applied world wide”. My sense is that we are engaging in expensive industrial policies in a rush to get something done and copying the Chinese model of guided investing. Pray tell
I don't know or particularly care if we are following a Chinese model or not. Do the projects that are subsidized have a positive NPV when we evaluate the CO2 emission avoided at the appropriate Social Cost of Carbon (=the tax rate on net CO2 emissions). It strains belief that it could when the subsidy is given not in proportion to the CO2 emission avoided, but in proportion to the investment in the activity that will reduce the CO2 emission.
Brad, as a teacher for decades, what generational differences do you see?
An enlightening episode. Are commodity exporters (Middle East & Latin America) suffering from what was called the Dutch disease (high currency)?
Also, Noah's rant against Australia seemed sincerely manic.
The Quiggin thing about navies is pretty funny. He's been ranting about this forever, including on CT. Herian example from 2008 https://johnquiggin.com/2008/03/07/do-we-need-a-surface-navy/
Kudos for the string of out-of-the -ballpark images. [Is there a name for the image one associates with a Substack post?]
We should make one up DALLEings? DooDALLEings?
#3. Probably so, but could we go back to good old globalization*, just in case. ?)
*Without large US fiscal deficits. The US ought to be a capital exporting country and this is NOT inconsistent with providing the world with safe financial assets.
I hated Accelerando. The first two books in the Singularity series were great. However, the third had deeply unlikeable characters. Stross did something similar with the Laundry series where the last several books have had characters that I find unappealing. It's almost like he. gets bored with the series