Farmer and Britain's Financial Policy Committee

No more boomb and bust? by Roger Farmer

(via Thoma)

Baker on job openings

The Skills Gap is Most Evident in Retail Trade and Restaurants by Dean Baker

Dan Davies

The end of a glittering career.... by Dan Davies

Steampunk - The Knick

AV Club reviews The Knick: "Mr. Paris Shoes"

Pitchfork streams Cliff Martinez's soundtrack

My dream project is a steampunk "prestige drama" about Ada Lovelace along the lines of The Knick.

Bono's daughter plays nurse Lucy Elkins.

SecStags

Secular Stagnation: The Book by Krugman

Secular Stagnation: Missing the Forest for the Trees by David Beckworth

There is a new VoxEU ebook on secular stagnation. The book is a collection of essays by many prominent economists, most of whom are proponents of secular stagnation. As readers know, I am not convinced that this problem lingers over the U.S. economy and have explained why at the Washington Post and on this blog. This latest book does nothing to ease my skepticism. Many of the authors continue to mismeasure the real interest rate and ignore what I see as important technology and demographic developments that undermine the case for secular stagnation. Let's review these key issues. 

First, real interest rates adjusted for the risk premium have not been in a secular decline. Everyone from Larry Summers to Paul Krugman to Olivier Blanchard ignore this point in the book. They all claim that real interest rates have been trending down for decades. The editors of the book, Coen Teulings and Richard Baldwin, even claim that this development is the 'prima facie' evidence for secular stagnation. What they are doing wrong is only subtracting expected inflation from the observed nominal interest rate. They also need to subtract the risk premium to get the natural interest rate, the interest rate at the heart of the story. For it is the natural interest rate that is affected by expected growth of technology and the labor force.

Beckworth is optimistic saying we just had a bad business cycle. Edward Lambert says we'll have a startling bad recession in the next three years with signs showing the next six months because of the "effective demand" limit.

Germany and population growth

A Rapidly Aging Population Is Not a Depression Problem by Dean Baker

Matt O'Brien had a good piece in Wonkblog pointing out that the current downturn in the euro zone has been worse for these countries than the Great Depression. However it does get part of the story wrong. 

At one point it outlines the troubles of the region: 

"The combination of zombie banks, a rapidly aging population and, most importantly, too-tight money have pushed it into a "lowflationary" trap that makes it hard to grow, and is even harder to escape from. That's what happened to Japan in the 1990s, and now, 20 years later, its nominal GDP is actually smaller than it was then. "

The aging of the population, and therefore a slow-growing or declining labor force, does not belong on the list of problems here. What matters for well-being is per capita growth. (That is not the only thing that matters, but insofar as GDP matters it is GDP per capita.) If the population is growing very slowly or even shrinking slowly, it will likely be associated with lower overall growth, but not necessarily with lower per capita GDP growth. 

Germany has managed to get its unemployment rate down to 5.1 percent, compared to 7.8 percent before the downturn, in spite of having considerably lower growth than the United States over this period. Its employment rate for prime age workers (ages 25-54) has risen by 3.0 percentage points, compared to a drop of 3.5 percentage points in the United States.

As a result of its slow population growth, few in Germany would see its slow economic growth as being a problem. In fact, most view the economy as being relatively prosperous right now. This is one of the reasons that the country is reluctant to support measures that would help its neighbors, since Germany is not really sharing in their pain at the moment. Similiarly, Japan's slow population growth meant that most people in the country were not suffering in the way that its weak GDP growth may have suggested.

wikileaks

If you want to send a message, use Western Ukraine by Dan Davies

What was needed was for someone (probably Baroness Ashton) to go and deliver the message "Don't worry Vlad, not while the Ukrainian people have holes in their arses will they be members of the EU and as far as NATO membership is concerned they are somewhere behind North Korea. We fully appreciate that Ukraine is your back yard, not ours and we have no interest in doing anything that makes you feel threatened". At which point it could all have been stood down in a cloud of bad temper, but kept relations on the same broadly productive track they were before.

Thing is, this is now the post-Wikileaks era. And the trouble with the little speech I indicated in the last paragraph is that a) it's a total lie and obviously so, and b) it involves selling out the Ukrainian opposition in a really unedifying way - we keep financing these people and providing the expectation of help that we're never going to deliver, in order to use them as pawns in our game of chip-bits, and I suspect they might kind of know that, but we can't rub their faces in it and expect to keep their support. There is no way that any official is going to be prepared to have that speech attached to their name, and so no way anyone's going to do it if there is a risk of it being plastered all over the internet (and there is; EU diplomats have screwed up their comms at least once already and seen embarrassing conversations appear in the papers). There's a symmetry too here - there are all sorts of threats and deals that Putin might want to communicate but can't.

So the normal channels of diplomatic communication aren't working, and people are working blind, while trying to communicate strategies and alternatives to each other by the traditional Cold War means of costly signalling theory. My answer to the question of "why did Putin invade Crimea?" is that it is quite likely that he did it "in order to transmit a single bit of information". We're trying to use various forms of sanctions as a communication tool, but we haven't got an agreed code to match them up with - we need to develop a set of bidding conventions, like bridge players have. My guess is that because it has now become someone's job to develop a new substitute diplomatic communication channel, and fast, it will get done, and things will get a lot more normal. But it's also possible that they won't, and that we will be seeing a lot more use of the tactic of annexation of territory as a means of self-expression.\

Reminds me of the increased partisanship in Congress where old-style, bipartisan deals can no longer be made.

strange defeat of fair trade and sound finance

I pretty much agree with DeLong and Krugman on most things.. But DeLong's defense of NAFTA has returned memories of how Krugman used to argue for free trade in the late 90s as the left protested NAFTA and the the Battle in Seattle had riots over a WTO meeting, which began the militarization of the police.

In the discussion of Piketty a main focus is the aggregate of capital and labor income share. Larry Summers suggest free trade is in the process of working itself out. Dean Baker, another great teacher and populizer like DeLong and Krugman, has suggested the same in regards to China.

But there has been a long run of the working out. Now, both DeLong and Krugman say the U.S. could lower its trade deficit by devaluing the currency but don't emphasize it the way Baker does.

J.W. Mason has been focused on the euthanasia of the rentier and that's another matter of debate under Piketty's K21. It's part of the process of what's being worked out as Summers put it. But with rising inequality, the 1 percent gain in political power and can keep the their returns up.

DeLong and Krugman mistankenly focused on "sound finance" sort of. Krugman on how the Bush tax cuts and deficits would drive up rates. DeLong on Clinton's deal with Greenspan. But both were the pushed to the left by the Bush years, the housing bubble/financial crisis and the Insane Clown Posse Show/ Dark Age of Economics. To be reality-based is to be radical.

hedge funds and the euthanasia of the rentier

Capital Decimation Partners: slight return by Daniel Davies

Investors Pay for Hedge-Fund Illusions by Noah Smith

Innovation in Higher Ed, 1680 Edition by J.W. Mason

Makes me think of Nate Silver's Signal and the Noise and wishes he had a chapter on hedge funds.

Abenomics

Stocks, Flows, and Abenomics by Dean Baker

Abenomics has only worked because foreigners think it will by Matt O'Brien

Robin Williams

Vox quotes some from his Reddit AMA

lawlshane: Can you come to Canada so I can hug you? I love you for naming your daughter Zelda. 

RW: I will be there as soon as I can! You have to give me a more specific location, you are a big country. You are the kindest country in the world. You are like a really nice apartment over a meth lab. 

And thank you. My other son, Mario, sends his greetings.

the cultural vogue for zombie apocalypse

Zombies and Congressional Dysfunction: What’s the Connection? by Jared Bernstein

The Walking Dead on AMC has been a huge hit. This summer on his HBO Show, Bill Maher ticked off Republican "Zombie lies" like trickle-down economics. I thought of Quiggin's book. Maybe Maher and his writers got it via Krugman. Right now the FX channel has the alien vampire zombies of The Strain. (Patient zero is "The Master," a squid-like vampire alien.) In September, the Syfy channel will have a series titled "Z Nation" about a zombie apocalypse.

Since I pay attention, the 2008 financial crisis was scary as was the recent debt ceiling clown show. I've become less worried and a little inured to it since Obama faced the Republicans down and the Fed has resolution authority, bit if we hit the next recession while at the Zero Lower Bound - and given the hatred for bailouts - we could enter Mad Max territory:



Fortunately Yellen seems to get it and understands the danger of raising rates too quickly. Also the debt-to-GDP ratio is low again, not that it ever was seriously a problem. There will be less fiscal drag going forward.

Also the movie Pacific Rim, with its Jaegers versus Kaiju. The Japanese are making a push with Abenomics. Germany and Europe are struggling. (Although Germany is riding a bit high after winning the World Cup. But then again Ukraine.)

I'd add that shows like Masters of Sex and The Knick are more hopeful from a progressive perspective. They suggest a hope in science and empiricism like we've seen in the Obama stimulus, QE, and Obamacare. And progress on the social front like gay marriage, a black two-term President and marjuana decriminalization. There's a lot of shows about hospitals, like House.

Kiwis

Is New Zealand once again heading the way by Scott Sumner

In 1990 the Kiwis were the first to adopt inflation targeting, and now there is a report that they may be the first to give the central bank control over both monetary policy and an important tool of fiscal policy: 

New Zealand’s main opposition Labour Party plans to change legislation governing the country’s central bank in its first term if it wins next month’s election, finance spokesman David Parker said. 

The plans, which include giving the Reserve Bank of New Zealand an alternative tool for managing inflation, have been discussed with Governor Graeme Wheeler, though “not in detail,” Parker told reporters in Auckland today after Labour began its election campaign. The vote takes place Sept. 20. 

Labour wants to give the central bank the ability to recommend changes to the rate of contribution to the national pension savings program, Kiwisaver. The RBNZ could use the new tool as an alternative to the official cash rate to “take the heat out of the economy,” Parker said in April, when the policy was announced. 

Quick reactions: 

1. It would be better to rely 100% of monetary policy, particular as NZ doesn’t face the zero bound problem. 

2. But if others insist we need a combined monetary/fiscal approach, then this is far, far better than other forms of fiscal policy. I would think it would appeal to people like Brad DeLong, who focus a lot on the savings/investment imbalance perspective.

austerity, thanks Tea Party

Stanley Fischer:

The stance of U.S. fiscal policy in recent years constituted a significant drag on growth as the large budget deficit was reduced. Historically, fiscal policy has been a support during both recessions and recoveries. In part, this reflects the operation of automatic stabilizers, such as declines in tax revenues and increases in unemployment benefits, that tend to accompany a downturn in activity. In addition, discretionary fiscal policy actions typically boost growth in the years just after a recession. In the U.S., as well as in other countries--especially in Europe--fiscal policy was typically expansionary during the recent recession and early in the recovery, but discretionary fiscal policy shifted relatively fast from expansionary to contractionary as the recovery progressed. In the United States, at the federal level, the end of the payroll tax cut, the sequestration, the squeeze on discretionary spending from budget caps, and the declines in defense spending have all curtailed economic growth. Last year, for example, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that fiscal headwinds slowed the pace of real GDP growth in 2013 by about 1-1/2 percentage points relative to what it would have been otherwise. Moreover, state and local governments, facing balanced budget requirements, have responded to the large and sustained decline in their revenues owing to the deep recession and slow recovery by reducing their purchases of real goods and services. Job cuts at federal, state, and local governments have reduced payrolls by almost 3/4 of a million workers, resulting in a decline in total government civilian employment of 3-1/4 percent since its peak in early 2009. The fiscal adjustments of the last few years have reduced the federal government deficit to an expected level of 3 percent of GDP in 2014 and fiscal drag over the next few years is likely to be relatively low. 

Robin Williams

Remembering Robin Williams, the amazing elastic man

Mork from Happy Days, then his own show. World According to Garp. Good Morning Vietnam. The Bird Cage. Fisher King. At the beginning of Good Will Hunting his vet psychologist from Southie was teaching a college course where he would joke with the students. And in Dead Poets Society, too, that's how I saw him as the cool teacher who made school bearable and the rest of us were students.

reverse hystersis

Fed Vice-Chair Stan Fischer on Whether Stronger Actual Growth Can Boost Potential Growth by Jared Bernstein by Jared Bernstein

Manhattan

The show Manhattan certainly has high stakes, although we know how it turns out.

The scientists at Los Alamos believe they are working against the clock and Werner Heisenberg who is in charge of Germany's bomb program.

I wonder how Walter White decided on the name Heisenberg.

effective demand and class

New Revisions of Labor Share show economy at the effective demand limit by Edward Lambert

I don't buy it. He's predicting recession.

The Pathos of Aggregate Demand Management by Sandwichman

supply and demand

The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More. by Neil Irwin

In Connecticut, If Businesses Are Upset By Rising Wages, It Doesn't Matter What the Facts Are by Dean Baker