Noted for Your Morning Procrastination for November 14, 2013
Over at the Equitablog:
- We Need a Less Ideological Language to Describe Politicians: Thursday Focus
- In a Good World, Would We Have to Deal with “Global Imbalances”?
- Janet Yellen as Central Banker
- The Role of a Central Bank and of a Central Banker: Cutting-Edge Economics from 188 Years Ago: Wednesday Focus
- People Should Read Ta-Nehisi Coates on “Conventional Views”, Richard Cohen, and the Washington Post
And:
- Via Izabella Kaminska, Stephen Schork: Recollecting the false messiah of peak oil: "Back in September 2008 we were in Vienna... we thought oil was heading back to at least $75, which was the spot whence the 2008 bubble began. After we finished our bearish screed, the fund manager stood up, snickered and shot us a look of haughty derision. He then walked over to his bookshelf, took out a book and slid the book across the desk. The book was Matt Simmons’ Twilight in the Desert... he told us that this (pointing to Mr. Simmons’ book) was the reason why we would never see oil below $100 a barrel again. We sat there. We took in what he just told us and we contemplated a measured response. After some thought, we told him that we thought he was a fool (that was our exact word). Needless to say, we didn’t get his business.... The reason why no new significant oil deposits were discovered in the 1980s and 1990s is because... at $20 a barrel it did not make any economic sense to go out and try and discover new oil. In hindsight, you drive oil to $147 barrel and lo and behold, five years hence the world is swimming in oil. It really is that simple..."
- Narayana Kocherlakota: Reducing bond buys now would hinder recovery: "Reducing the flow of purchases in the near term would be a drag on the already slow rate of progress of the economy toward the committee's goals. Under a goal-oriented approach, the committee would respond to this weak outlook by providing more monetary stimulus--for example, by lowering the interest rate being paid to banks on their excess reserves..."
- Eclectablog: The Obamacare enrollment number Republicans hate most: 444,000: "At least 444,000 people have signed up for Medicaid in the six weeks since open enrollment began... [in] just 10 states of the 25 plus Washington D.C. that will be expanding their Medicaid programs. These are exactly the people we need to be covering, too. They are from working families who currently earn too much for government-subsidized health care, the working poor who have suffered the most from the great recession. Covering them will reduce their depression and financial strain in the near term. It can keep them out of emergency rooms while creating jobs in health care. And best of all, it’s paid for on a slight tax on the rich and corporations..."
- John Holbo: The Overton Straitjacket: "You’d think such a dominant right-tip would not only generate a more moderate middle but also an ‘acceptable’ right to its right. That is, whatever is the center of political gravity – which is now on the extreme right – would sort of end up ‘moderate’, by definition, so long as you adopt a relative definition. That is, folks would figure that if Ted Cruz is ok, then Ted Cruz’ dad is probably ok. Because, what the hell, they aren’t THAT different. (By contrast, Obama really didn’t seem much like Jeremiah Wright. The shocker there was going to have to be that this association proved he believed stuff totally different from what he said.) Overton Window 101. But this doesn’t actually seem to be the way of it. Rather, what we get is this big weight of conservative opinion, this huge clump of conservative grass-roots, right at the edge of what is considered at all acceptable, in US political discourse. There is a very narrow range of things you can say without being, on the one hand, a RINO squish; or, on the other hand, having to say it was all ‘taken out of context’ when David Corn or Media Matters gets wind of it..."
Plus: Long:
Steven Fazzari, R. Glenn Hubbard, and Bruce Petersen (1988): Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment | Kate Marvel1 and Céline Bonfils: Identifying external influences on global precipitation |
Plus: Short:
