Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

: Hoover and Truman:

Diary entry, Eben Ayers, May 24, 1945:

Prime Minister Antonio Salandra: Italian Entry into the War:

I address myself to Italy and to the civilized world in order to show not by violent words, but by exact facts and documents, how the fury of our enemies has vainly attempted to diminish the high moral and political dignity of the cause which our arms will make prevail.

Over at Equitable Growth It seems to me that this is likely to be analytically wrong--or, at least, far from the optimal policy under any expections scenario:

Janet Yellen: The Outlook for the Economy--May 22, 2015: "Given this economic outlook and the attendant uncertainty... READ MOAR

Over at Equitable Growth A good day yesterday at the University of California center in Sacramento, which is in the basement on K St. a couple of blocks away from the California state capital. 20 students, and then 100 for the lecture. (And I do not yet have the URL for the videotape.) READ MOAR

Must-Read: William Lazonick: Stock buybacks: From retain-and reinvest to downsize-and-distribute: "Stock buybacks are an important explanation for both the concentration of income...

Must-Read: Christopher L. Foote and Christopher F. Goetz (2005): The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime: Comment: "This comment makes three observations about Donohue and Levittʹs [2001] paper on abortion and crime...

Live from the Elmwood Cafe: Charlie Jane Anders: "Mad Max: Fury Road Is An Astonishing Work Of Art : "Mad Max: Fury Road is like a really great rock concert...

Must-Read: Nicholas Bagley: Wreck the RUC: "The American Medical Association/Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC)....

Must- and Should-Reads:

• Pros And Cons Of Raising The Minimum Wage
• Allison Preiss: RELEASE: 1 Million Entrepreneurs Went Missing in the U.S. Economy Before Recession
• Must-Read: John Cassidy: A Fascinating Minimum-Wage Experiment Is About to Unfold
• Hillary Clinton produces first campaign listicle for social media
• Must-Read: Richard Kogan et al.: Difference Between Economic Growth Rates and Treasury Interest Rates Significantly Affects Long-Term Budget Outlook
• Must-Read: Dan Davies: Time for a Delivery of Eurofudge
• Must-Read: Paul Krugman: Stop-Go Austerity and Self-Defeating Recoveries

Over at Equitable Growth--The Equitablog

• Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth
• Thursday Musings on Macroeconomic Policy and "The Right"
• Kavya Vaghul: What about commuting to new economic opportunities?

Plus:

• Things to Read on the Morning of May 22, 2015

And Over Here:

Harry S Truman: Longhand Note:

Had a long talk with Joe Davies last night on the Russian situation. Had previously discussed it with him on May 13. He suggested a cable by him to Molotov for Stalin in which he suggested a meeting of Stalin & myself in Alaska or Siberia or on a warship somewhere in that neighborhood.

Over at Equitable Growth: Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth

http://delong.buffalo.io/how-did-i-get-started-weblogging-delong-faq

How did I get started weblogging?

In my memory, I got started weblogging because one afternoon sometime in the 1990s that convinced me that weblogging was likely to become a key part of the forthcoming ecology of intellectual influence.

Must-Read: Dan Davies: Time for a Delivery of Eurofudge: "“They pretend to pay us” — or in this case...

Must-Read: John Cassidy: A Fascinating Minimum-Wage Experiment Is About to Unfold: "The increases in the minimum wage that will be introduced over the next few years...

Over at Equitable Growth I have two things I want to say this morning.

First, Amtrak wifi really is c---, isn't it?

Second, I think that Paul Krugman gets one thing wrong here, in his talk of "the right" and macroeconomic policy... READ MOAR

Comment of the Day: Robert Waldmann: Links and Tweets...: "I am not going to type that...

...'the real Peter Baelish would never leave Sansa Stark at the mercy of Boltons', because I'm not quite far enough gone to forget that 'A Song of Ice and Fire is fiction'. Yet.

Must- and Should-Reads:

• Duncan Black: "The Economy Of Los Angeles Will Be Destroyed: FIFTEEN WHOLE DOLLARS AN HOUR how can the jaayuuubb creeaturrzz possibly create jobs in those conditions???..."
• Lawrence Summers: "At present, when zero interest rates make capital costs as low as they have ever been but corporate profits are at record levels, there needs to be much less concern with capital costs and more concern with the distributional aspects of capital taxation..."
• James Kwak: The Importance of Taxing Capital
• Jonathan Chait: Obamacare: What If the GOP Gets What It Wants?

Over at Equitable Growth--The Equitablog

• : The Theory of Growth and Inequality: Piketty, Zucman, Krusell, Smith, and "Mathiness"
• Ken Rogoff Fakes Right, Goes Left, and Heads Down the Sideline Toward Global Social Democracy and a Truly Human World...
• Jessica Fulton: New insights into U.S. public perceptions of income inequality

Plus:

• Things to Read on the Evening of May 20, 2015

And Over Here:

Over at Equitable Growth: Kenneth Rogoff: Inequality, Immigration, and Hypocrisy: "Europe’s migration crisis exposes a fundamental flaw, if not towering hypocrisy, in the ongoing debate about economic inequality...

And Kenneth Rogoff fakes right:

Wouldn’t a true progressive support equal opportunity for all people on the planet, rather than just for those of us lucky enough to have been born and raised in rich countries? READ MOAR

Hoisted from Others' Archives: Simon Wren-Lewis reminds us he got it absolutely right three years ago:

Simon Wren-Lewis (2012): Dangerous Voices and Macroeconomic Spin: "Dangerous voices are what the British Prime Minister called those who criticised austerity...

...One of those dangerous voices, Martin Wolf, became shrill in Friday’s FT ($). After noting the observation by Jonathan Portes that public investment could currently be financed very cheaply because UK long term real interest rates are so low, he writes:

it is impossible to believe that the government cannot find investments.... that do not earn more than the real cost of funds. Not only the economy, but the government itself is virtually certain to be better off if it undertook such investments and if it were to do its accounting in a rational way. No sane institution analyses its decisions on the basis of cash flows, annual borrowings and its debt stock. Yet government is the longest-lived agent in the economy. This does not even deserve the label primitive. It is simply ridiculous.

**Live from La Farine: 500 years, or 50 years, or 5 years, or 5 months, or 5 days from now the Roman Catholic Church will reverse Pope Paul VI's claim that he has special insight into natural theology which tells him that birth control is very wrong. Whenever that happens, what will the administrators of and lawyers for Notre Dame have to say for themselves?

**: Federal Appeals Court Tells Catholic University [Notre Dame] That It Can't Cut Off Birth Control For Its Students: "'The Seventh Circuit... express[es] ‘puzzlement about what exactly the university wanted us to enjoin’...

Comment of the Day: Walt Someguy: Unfogged: "The new Mad Max movie may be the most guy movie ever made. The plot is literally: Tom Hardy (Mad Max) and Charlize Theron (Furiosa) rescue scantily-clad supermodels...

Live from La Farine: I have long had a Facebook account, but I have never done much with it except plug my Twitter account into it. My feeling was that with the World Wide Web weblogging and Twitter, I had enough Internet media on my plate to try to master.

Now, however, it looks increasingly likely that it will be The Facebook that wins the Internet ThunderDome cage match. Which means that I need to figure out how to use and be a presence on The Facebook.

Any suggestions as to how to do this quickly and painlessly?

Okinawa Campaign:

• 17 May 1945 After a vicious 48-hour battle the Okinawan capital, Naha, was captured by the Americans.
• 18 May 1945 Destroyer USS Longshaw, stuck on a reef, was sunk by Japanese shore battery.
• 19 May 1945 US 77th Division withdrew near the Ishimmi Ridge after suffering heavy casualties.
• 20 May 1945 American troops reached Shuri Castle.
• 21 May 1945 Japanese traditional and special attacks damaged five Allied ships off Okinawa.
• 22 May 1945 Torrential rain reduced mobility of US armoured forces on Okinawa and gave the Japanese defenders a temporary respite.

Live from La Farine: Game of Thrones Blogging:

People: "Game of Thrones" Is Horror!:

In the very first scene of the very first episode of the very first season of "Game of Thrones", three members of the Night's Watch--an older veteran-type Gared, and two callow-youth types, one in command named Waymar Royce and the other named Will--set out on patrol. By 2:45 the point rider Will has encountered horrible evil. By 3:30 the veteran-type Gared has told the two callow-youth types that they need to head back to their base. By 5:50 they learn that the evil is supernatural, and start to die. By 6:15 the survivors' courage has broken and they are running south as fast as they can. By 7:00 there is only one survivor--the un-arrogant callow youth Will.

Busy day today: lecturing my class on humility & writing column on how my disastrous support for Iraq War must never be questioned.

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) May 19, 2015

Across the Wide Missouri: Yet more journamalism from The New York Times and David Brooks. Once again, I don't understand what game they are playing here:

Scott Lemieux: David Brooks's Pathetic Iraq Excuses - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money: "David Brooks starts off his apologia with some stoned-dorm-room stuff about how if Hitler had been strangled in the crib we wouldn’t have the GI Bill or as many women in the workforce...

...It does not improve from there. First, note this crafty bit of dissembling:

Must- and Should-Reads:

• Must-Read: Simon Wren-Lewis: David Smith's gotcha quotes
• Ariel Rubinstein (1995): John Nash: The Master of Economic Modeling
• Must-Read: Nick Bunker: Shifting Implications of the Beveridge Curve
• Marhshall Steinbaum: Is finance doing what it’s supposed to?
• Jeremy Adelman: What Caused Capitalism?: Reviewing Mokyr, Bickerts, Neal and Williamson
• David Scutt: Three indicators that point to a sharp slowdown in China's economy
• • Nick Bunker: Looking for the roots of total factor productivity growth
• Annie Lowrey: The High Cost of Expensive Townhouses
• Paul Krugman: Fighting for History
• Must-Read: Paul Romer: Protecting the Norms of Science in Economics
• Craig Freedman (2008): [Chicago Fundamentalism: Ideology and Methodology in Economics](https://books.google.com/books?id=NsRs4nzp0_gC&pg=PA229&dq=craig+freedman+chicago+fundamentalism+google+books&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hCpbVd29HIzMsAWqs4GAAw&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=craig freedman chicago fundamentalism google books&f=false)
• Must-Read: Mark Egan: The 15 Best Behavioural Science Graphs of 2010-13
• Must-Read: Simon Wren-Lewis: Mediamacro Myth Makers Fight Back

Over at Equitable Growth--The Equitablog

• The Theory of Growth and Inequality: Piketty, Zucman, Krusell, Smith, and "Mathiness"

Plus:

• Things to Read at Lunchtime at May 19, 2015

And Over Here:

Must-Read: David Smith of the Times and Chris Giles of the Financial Times have annoyed Simon Wren-Lewis.

I must confess I don't understand the game that they are playing: is gaining a reputation as people who will go the extra mile to whitewash the reputation of the past Conservative-Liberal Democrat government really worth anything to a journalist, or a newspaper?

Simon Wren-Lewis: David Smith's gotcha quotes: "David Smith of the Times tries a bit of gotcha journalism...

Wisdom: Robert Shiller:

The inference from the unpredictability to the rationality of stock prices is the most remarkable error in the history of economic thought...

: Death by Suicide: May 19, 1915 | Gallipoli:

By May the initial attempt to capture the Dardanelles by the navy and take over Istanbul had failed. The Australians and New Zealanders on foot had a well-established line and the British at Helles were clinging to the small gains they had made. As the Anzacs worked to strengthen their position, the Turkish commanders were planning an attack to drive them back into the sea.

Must-Read: Simon Wren-Lewis: Mediamacro Myth Makers Fight Back: "This may also be the first in a series!... David Smith of the Times...

Comment of the Day: Sam on John Ringo: "My biggest gripe about all of this is that Ringo...

Must-Read: Zandar: The Rough Beast Perambulates: "The funny thing about making monsters is that...

Must-Read: Paul Romer: Protecting the Norms of Science in Economics: "For the history of the Stigler-Friedman attack on monopolistic competition...

Over at Equitable Growth Paul Romer inquired why I did not endorse his following Krusell and Smith (2014) in characterizing Piketty and Piketty and Zucman as a canonical example of what Romer calls "mathiness". Indeed, I think that, instead, it is Krusell and Smith (2014) that suffers from "mathiness"--people not in control of their models deploying algebra untethered to the real world in a manner that approaches gibberish.

I wrote about this last summer, several times: READ MOAR

Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth:

• J. Bradford DeLong
• When: May 21, 2015, from 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM
• Where: University of California Center Sacramento, 1130 K Street, Room LL3
• Contact Name: Dee Powell

Across the Wide Missouri: Ceasefire Oregon: "Congratulations and thank you!!...

...SB 941, Expanded Background Checks, was just signed into law!   The Oregon House of Representatives passed SB 941 on May 4. The Oregon Senate passed it last month. And Governor Kate Brown just signed the bill into law!

Must-Read: Nick Bunker: Shifting Implications of the Beveridge Curve: "Sketching out the Beveridge Curve... confirms this notion that most of the shift...

Must- and Should-Reads:

• Must-Read: Matthew Yglesias: Obama's Real Problem on Trade Is Way Bigger than Elizabeth Warren
• Must-Read: John Quiggin: The Political Is Personal
• Kiley Kroh: This Billionaire [Harold Hamm] Tried To Get [Oklahoma] University Scientists Fired For Doing Their Job
• Lawrence Delevingne: Ray Dalio's Bridgewater: This is not a bubble
• Simon Wren-Lewis: Do not underestimate the power of microfoundations
• Paul Pfleiderer (2014): [Chameleons: The Misuse of Theoretical Models in Finance and Economics](http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/research/documents/Chameleons-The Misuse of Theoretical Models 032614.pdf)
• Paul Romer: Mathiness in the Theory of Economic Growth
• The Interest Rate That Did Not Bark in the Night: The Surge in U.S. Treasury Debt and the Non-Reaction of Rates (2011)
• Simon Wren-Lewis: Paul Romer and Microfoundations

Over at Equitable Growth--The Equitablog

• Nick Bunker: Shifting through the implications of the Beveridge Curve
• Noah Smith, Paul Romer, "Mathiness", and Baking the Politics into the Microfoundations...

Plus:

• Things to Read on the Evening of May 18, 2015

And Over Here:

The Battle of Festubert:

The battle of Festubert was in effect a second phase of the recently failed attack on Aubers Ridge.... Once again, the attack would take the form of a pincer attack with two assault frontages: a northern one along the Rue du Bois near Port Arthur and Richebourg 'Avoue, and a southern one at Festubert....

The general plan of the main attack will be as follows:- To continue pressing forward towards Violaines and Beau Puits, establish a defensive flank along the La Bassée road on the left and maintaining the right at Givenchy. The line to be established in the first instance if possible on the general line of the road Festubert - La Quinque Rue - La Tourelle crossroads - Port Arthur.

Must-Read: The real problem that Barack Obama has with the Trans-Pacific Partnership is that the intellectual property interests--Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and Pharma--are for it only to the extent that it strengthens their property rights, that the Democratic caucus is against it unless it contains meaningful steps to reduce inequality and increase positive-sum regulatory oversight, and that the Republican caucus is against it if it contains meaningful steps to reduce inequality and increase positive-sum regulatory oversight. Thus from a perspective that is technocrat-utilitarian, legislative-process, and coalition-assembly oriented, the obvious path is to appoint a senior free-trade Republican--a Romney figure--to negotiate TPP, and then to withhold presidential approval of its implementing legislation unless inequality-reducing Democratic legislative priorities are attached to the bill. Yet, once again, this kind of Legislative Process 101 move--to make the situation not "I'm in here with you" but "you're in here with me"--was not undertaken by the Obama White House...

Matthew Yglesias: Obama's Real Problem on Trade Is Way Bigger than Elizabeth Warren: "The coalition against TPP is very broad...

Must-Read: I have often wondered and never manage to get completely straight in my mind how economics lost its utilitarian roots--how it went from saying "this is a good policy because it advances the greater good of the greater number" to "competitive free-market allocations are good because they are Pareto-optimal, and we do not prefer any particular Pareto-optimal allocation because that would be a question not of science but of values and politics, and non-Pareto-optimal allocations are bad." It has puzzled me particularly because the claim that we cannot say X is better than Y because they are not Pareto-ranked is not, in general, raised when the policy at issue issue is a GDP-increasing and either distributionally-neutral or inequality-increasing policy like tariff reductions or cuts in capital taxation...

John Quiggin: The Political Is Personal: "Pareto’s larger body of anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian thought... culminated...

Via Ta-Nehisi Coates: John C. Calhoun: Slavery a Positive Good: "I do not belong... to the school which holds that aggression is to be met by concession...

...Mine is the opposite creed, which teaches that encroachments must be met at the beginning, and that those who act on the opposite principle are prepared to become slaves. In this case, in particular I hold concession or compromise to be fatal. If we concede an inch, concession would follow concession–compromise would follow compromise, until our ranks would be so broken that effectual resistance would be impossible. We must meet the enemy on the frontier, with a fixed determination of maintaining our position at every hazard. Consent to receive these insulting petitions [seeking from the senate a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery], and the next demand will be that they be referred to a committee in order that they may be deliberated and acted upon.