Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

• Donald Marron: CEA’s New Weekly Economic Index Says Shutdown Destroyed 120,000 Jobs
• Andrew Gelman: Ivy Jew Update
• Matthew Yglesias: Alan Greenspan Bank Capital: A Fraud

And:

1. "There is no problem if all we are is an enjoyable discussion club that is isolated from the rest of the world and is free to make its own rules. But we aren’t isolated...": Paul Pfleiderer: Chameleon Models
2. "The debate... is not about the debt. It is about whether Americans will pay the taxes needed to fund the government they have legislated. The US has created major social programmes. But it seems unable to agree on the taxes needed to pay for them.... This struggle is disguised behind the rhetoric on unsustainable debt and disincentive effects of modest rises in taxation. If the US does create a huge fiscal problem for itself, it will be because agreement on the balance between what government does and how it is financed is impossible. But, first, the factitious crises of recent weeks simply have to stop": Martin Wolf: The reality of America’s fiscal future
3. "Especially in the light of yesterday’s weak jobs report, I keep coming back to the disturbing fact that as soon as the shutdown/debt ceiling debacle was at least temporarily behind us, the political system, without dropping a beat, went right back to deficit reduction mode. The President['s]... framing/messaging becomes a mash-up that’s more confusing than elucidating: 'The issue is not growth versus fiscal responsibility.... We need a budget that deals with the issues that most Americans are focused on: creating more good jobs that pay better wages.  And remember, the deficit is getting smaller, not bigger'.... OK–stop right there.... As the austerity evidence in Europe has clearly shown, when you reduce your budget deficit in the midst of output gaps, those gaps stop closing and even reopen.  The deficit decline that the President is touting here is not part of the near-term solution, it’s a big part of the near-term problem.  It’s a key factor in the slog in which we’re demonstrably stuck": Jared Bernstein: An Odd Juxtaposition on Deficit Reduction and Growth
4. "Ethnocentric whites are more likely to push for cuts in food stamps, to favor reductions in spending on welfare, to oppose increasing benefits to women on welfare if they have additional children, and to favor strict time limits on public assistance. Partisanship, egalitarianism, and limited government also contribute.... [But[ ethnocentrism helps to build support for social insurance programs among white Americans—wherever we looked, and we looked in quite a few places. [...] When it comes to providing pensions and health care to the retired and elderly, ethnocentrism appears to be a force for liberalism, for a more generous welfare state": Donald Kinder and Cindy Cam: Us Against Them

Plus: Long:

Cardiff Garcia: The downsides of quantitative easing, Cardiff Garcia smackdown watch | Council of Economic Advisors: Economic Activity During the Government Shutdown and Debt Limit Brinksmanship Episode |