Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

England has now lost control of the coronavirus plague again:

Faisal Islam: 'The PHE surveillance report chart that I followed very closely in early March https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1306963521373175811... a leading indicator in showing the pandemic hitting care homes... Acute Respiratory Infections now back up to April levels, but this time fair chunk is in schools…

I understood why professional Republican economists were opposed to expansionary fiscal policy from 2009 to 2013: they thought that multipliers were small, government debt was expensive, and that even extended spells of unemployment were salutory worker-discipline devices that boosted productivity (and made the income distribution more unequal and more just).

And I understood why Republican politicians went along: Democratic President Obama owned the economy, it was not the job of the opposition to be constructive, and, anyway, all Democratic policy initiatives are probably bad ideas.

But now it is a decade later, even the laggards among reality-based economists have learned a lot, and it is Republican President Trump who owns the economy. Thus it is the Republicans who have the incentive to try things. Yet those economists who are professional Republicans first and analysts second are being with absolutely no help. And Claudia Sahm is extremely alarmed:

Claudia Sahm: GET MORE MONEY OUT: IT IS AN AND / BOTH MOMENT!!! https://twitter.com/Claudia_Sahm/status/1306943139526119424: ‘Not holding my breath disappointed many times already... don’t think we are closing in. most important: $3 trillion is bare minimum we need, other smaller proposals are an insult to our crisis!! I am a broken record. NO REGRETS. DC is same train wreck as in Great Recession... we must not again.... We are dealing with the mother of all demand shocks. on top of a pandemic. get money out, and put politics aside!! IT IS AN AND / BOTH MOMENT!!! unemployed, communities small businesses, families ALL NEED MONEY from DC!!!…

The spring and summer of 2020 were exactly the wrong time to have an economy that places a very low weight on the quality of eldercare:

Krista Ruffini: Worker Earnings, Service Quality, & Firm Profitability: Evidence from Nursing Homes & Minimum Wage Reform https://equitablegrowth.org/working-papers/worker-earnings-service-quality-and-firm-profitability-evidence-from-nursing-homes-and-minimum-wage-reforms/: ‘A ten percent increase in the minimum wage raises low-skilled nursing home workers’ earnings one to two percent, reduces separations, and increases stable hires. These earnings gains and increases in firm-specific human capital translate into marked improvements in patient health and safety. A ten percent increase in the minimum wage would prevent at least 15,000 deaths, lower the number of inspection violations by one to two percent, and reduce the cost of preventable care…

I confess that back in March I grossly misjudged the situation. I thought back then that one of two things would happen: (1) We would fail to knock the virus’s R[current] below 1, and the virus would rip through the population in a spring or spring and summer of horror, but it would be largely over by the fall. (2) We would knock the virus’s R[current] below one, and the virus would become a minor annoyance. I completely did not expect what we have now: a seriously depressed economy, with substantial but inadequate social-distancing, mask-wearing, and other measures, keeping the virus‘s R[current] around one, but with every prospect of this plague raging for years until policy somehow changes. Here the very sharp Joshua Gans says: We are economists. We are trained to look for equilibrium positions. So we should have expected this. Yes, I take his point. But I would never have imagined that the equilibrium caseload would be this high, and cause this big an ongoing depression:

Joshua Gans: Reproduction Numbers Tend to 1 & þe Reason Could Be Behavioural https://voxeu.org/article/reproduction-numbers-tend-1-and-reason-could-be-behavioural: ‘Standard epidemiological models that show how infection rates in the population rise and then fall assume that people do not understand what’s going on. When people react to infection rates by changing behaviour, the model’s predictions are no longer valid. This column explains why that can mean that pandemics don’t rage out of control but becoming something more endemic. In particular, epidemiological models that incorporate rational economic agents tend to predict that pandemics may move towards a steady state for a significant period of time...

It was decades ago that my ex-roommate Andrei Shleifer asked me: why are there Keynesians and monetarists and Hayekians and institutionalists in economics, but no Galbraithians? I did not have a good answer for him then. But I believe that now I do. It is: we are all Galbraithians now:

Kate Bahn, Mark Stelzner, & Emilie Openchowski: Wage Discrimination & þe Exploitation of Workers in þe U.S. Labor Market https://equitablegrowth.org/research-paper/wage-discrimination-and-the-exploitation-of-workers-in-the-u-s-labor-market/: ‘Characteristics specific to race and gender, such as the lower levels of wealth... increased household responsibilities... make workers of color and women more susceptible to exploitation.... Government support for workers to act collectively boosts worker power, reducing employers’ monopsony power—their ability to set and lower wages—and thus decreasing worker exploitation and wage differences that replicate discriminatory biases against these groups of workers…

George Orwell was very insightful. He focused on the fact that at the core of fascism, in both its right-wing and its left-wing versions and in whatever future versions may emerge, is the ability to tell public lies with impunity—and for supporters to then glory in the facts of the leaders were clever enough to tell them: Hannah Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism https://twitter.com/WindsorMann/status/1265793327884046336: ‘Instead of deserting the leaders... they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness…’ Media Matters: : ‘Rush Limbaugh praises the president for being "clever" in sharing conspiracy theories: “Trump is just throwing gasoline on a fire here, and he’s having fun watching the flames...

I think the very sharp Angus Deaton is wrong here. America’s federalism has not been an insuperable obstacle to united national action in the past. Of course, that required presidential leadership and an opposition party willing to buy in and except a share of credit for national action, rather than regarding its primary mission as making the president of the other party appear to be a failure. Perhaps that America that could have reacted properly to coronavirus even with its federalism is long gone: Angus Deaton: America’s Compromised State https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-connecticut-compromise-1987-and-failed-covid-response-by-angus-deaton-2020-07: ‘A malevolent, incompetent Trump administration bears much of the blame for America’s failure to control COVID-19. But there is an additional, less noticed cause: the Connecticut Compromise of 1787.... Each state follows its own instincts and perceived interests, usually myopically...

Looking greatly forward to this: Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Barry Eichengreen: New Thinking in a Pandemic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcHBD-D5CRQ&feature=youtu.be: ‘What will be the political legacy of the Coronavirus pandemic? Will COVID-19 renew or diminish public trust in science? How will the crisis shape “Gen Z”—those who are coming of age during the pandemic?...

I remember that after 2003 I waited for years for the New York Times deep dive: “how Judy Miller fooled herself and us on Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons”. It never came. Instead, they went all in on the access journalism of which Judy Miller had been a master. And the problem with access journalism is that, in order to preserve your access, you have to work hard to mislead and misinform your readers. Duncan Black looks at yet another piece of the resulting flaming wreckage: Duncan Black: Scoop of a Lifetime https://www.eschatonblog.com/2020/08/scoop-of-lifetime.html: ‘Maggie Haberman.... “Treating the coronavirus as a blue state problem was a fairly widespread approach in the West Wing...”. Wow! If only you’d been a reporter at a prominent American news outlet so you could have informed the public!... Maggie isn't even saying she missed it, just that it wasn't worth being in the paper of record.... Not infrequently reporters... say, "oh, yes, we knew all that." Cool. Why didn't you tell us?...

And I found this greatly troubling as well: Here we have David Brooks saying: “American democracy is in trouble. Why? Because my journamalistic colleagues and I do not expect to do our jobs competently and truthfully to contextualize and interpret the world to our readers and viewers on the forthcoming November 3”: Steve M.: Just Do Your Damn Jobs https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2020/09/just-do-your-damn-jobs.html: ‘David Brooks writes: "On the evening of Nov. 3... Donald Trump seems to be having an excellent night..." Why? Why should what's happening be a gut punch? Why should it be perceived that Donald Trump is having an excellent night?...

And here is evidence on the strong positive effect of the 10% opportunity program in Texas: Sandra E. Black, Jeffrey T. Denning, & Jesse Rothstein: Winners and Losers?: The Effect of Gaining and Losing Access to Selective Colleges on Education and Labor Market Outcomes https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/rothstein_-_winners_and_loosers_abstract_10_2019.pdf: ‘Students who gain access to the University of Texas at Austin see increases in college enrollment and graduation with some evidence of positive earnings gains 7-9 years after college. In contrast, students who lose access do not see declines in overall college enrollment, graduation, or earnings…

I would put this point considerably differently. The stock market is relevant only to how the upper class is doing, yes. But there is more. A high stock market can mean that the present and the future are bright for the upper class. But it can also mean that the future is crap—hence it is worth paying a fortune for anything, anything, that promises to give you even some income in the future. Yes, current stock market values are high. But expected cash flows as a proportion of capital invested—are those high? Really?: Heather Boushey: The Stock Market Is Detached From Economic Reality https://t.co/57ZOJhRJOt?amp=1: ‘Wealthy investors and the Fed have been propping up large companies. It can’t last.… If the stock market doesn’t reflect the health of our economy, what does it reflect? Most directly, it reflects the financial health of the richest among us...

Andrés Velasco: Are We All Keynesians Again? https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/states-must-be-insurer-of-last-resort-against-aggregate-risks-by-andres-velasco-2020-08: ‘Rich-country governments can comfortably borrow far more than fiscal prudes once thought possible... and markets have yet to bat an eyelash.... When the nominal interest rate is at or near zero... savers are happy to hold the dollars, pounds, and euros central banks are printing with abandon. Inflation is nowhere on the horizon...

Steven J. Davis & Till von Wachter: Recessions and the Costs of Job Loss http://www.econ.ucla.edu/tvwachter/papers/BPEA_JobDisplacement_Davis_vonWachter.pdf: ‘Men lose an average of 1.4 years of predisplacement earnings if displaced in mass-layoff events that occur when the national unemployment rate is below 6 percent. They lose a staggering 2.8 years of predisplacement earnings if displaced when the unemployment rate exceeds 8 percent. These results reflect discounting at a 5 percent annual rate over 20 years after displacement

Steve Randy Waldmann: Social democracy & Freedom https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/7557.html: ‘We should return to the wisdom of Milton Friedman, that political freedom is a structural matter, inextricable from economic arrangements.... What is required is some system in which the economic stakes of unpopular speech are unlikely to be so horrible, because the distance between lives of the conformist elite and unwashed others is not so great...

Duncan Black: Medicaid Expansion https://www.eschatonblog.com/2020/08/medicaid-expansion.html: ‘The way the press covers this stuff is that Dems can't support crazy lefty economic policies in swing states because those old white guys in diners can't handle the communism.... That isn't actually how it works. As a now former senator explained... "the Chamber would go after me." He didn't mean "the Chamber" would run a bunch of ads about his support for increasing the minimum wage. That would have been a favor! It was popular! It passed overwhelmingly! He meant they would have dumped a bunch of money in the race nuking him on other issues. Any issue at all. Staying out of it was one way to just keep their money out of the race...

Sean Gallagher: Ars Readers on the Present & Future of Work https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/08/ars-readers-take-on-the-present-and-future-of-work/: ‘“It will suck, until it suddenly stops sucking.”... I’ve curated some of the thoughts of the Ars community on the topics of working better from home and what our shared experiences have taught us about the future of collaboration technology and the future nature of the corporate office...

Ben Smith: I’m Still Reading Andrew Sullivan. But I Can’t Defend Him https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/business/media/im-still-reading-andrew-sullivan-but-i-cant-defend-him.html: ‘Sullivan... finds himself now on the outside, most of all, because he cannot be talked out of views on race that most of his peers find abhorrent. I know, because I tried...

Anne Booth and Kent Deng: Japanese Colonialism in Comparative Perspective https://delong.typepad.com/japanese-colonialism-2017.pdf...

Atul Kohli: "Where Do High Growth Political Economies Come From? The Japanese Lineage of Korea's 'Developmental State'" https://delong.typepad.com/highgrowth09_1994.pdf...

Chez Panisse Restaurant: Café Menu https://www.chezpanisse.com/menus/cafe-menu...

Plus

Paul Romer (2016): The Trouble with Macroeconomics https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-romer-2016-trouble-macro.pdf: 'For more than three decades, macroeconomics has gone backwards. The treatment of identification now is no more credible than in the early 1970s but escapes challenge because it is so much more opaque. Macroeconomic theorists dismiss mere facts by feigning an obtuse ignorance about such simple assertions as "tight monetary policy can cause a recession." Their models attribute fluctuations in aggregate variables to imaginary causal forces that are not influenced by the action that any person takes. A parallel with string theory from physics hints at a general failure mode of science that is triggered when respect for highly regarded leaders evolves into a deference to authority that displaces objective fact from its position as the ultimate determinant of scientific truth...

Financial Times: Keeping þe Torch of Global Democracy Alight https://www.ft.com/content/4f10a2d7-d380-4b53-a864-35f40aaef298: ‘In Belarus this week, protests over rigged elections have been met by mass arrests and a hail of rubber bullets.... In Hong Kong, China has stepped up its crackdown on democracy and press freedom.... Yet it is not necessarily authoritarians who should be taking heart.... The autocrats may force the democratic impulse underground, but it will not die.... Black Lives Matter rallies in the US and elsewhere demonstrate the urge even in richer countries to oppose injustice.... This year’s US election will be a test. If, as some Americans fear, Mr Trump adopts tactics verging on the authoritarian, the damage to the global democratic cause will be hard to repair…

Robert Bates: Markets & States Duology: Markets & States in Tropical Africa: The Political Economy of Agricultural Policies https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-bates-markets.pdf || When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-bates-state-failure.pdf...

Chinua Achebe: Pentalogy: Things Fall Apart https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-achebe-things.pdf || _No Longer at Ease https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-achebe-ease.pdf || The Arrow of God https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-achebe-arrow.pdf || A Man of the People https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-achebe-people.pdf || Anthills of the Savannah https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-achebe-anthills.pdf...

Colin Leys (1982): Samuel Huntington & the End of Classical Modernization Theory https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-leys-1982-huntington.pdf...

Keri Leigh Merritt: Merrittocracy https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM-jYKFxM03QrkSjvf5MhwA…

Joseph Schumpeter (1947): The History of Economic Analysis https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-schumpeter-history-of-economic-analysis.pdf...

David Glasner: Schumpeterian Enigmas https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-glasner-schumpeterian-enigmas.pdf: ‘Schumpeter exhibited a generosity of spirit in his assessments of the work of other economists in... The History of Economic Analysis.... Schumpeter’s own tragic and largely unrealized ambition to achieve the technical analytical breakthroughs to which he accorded highest honors in his assessments of the work of other economists, notably, Quesnay, Cournot and Walras…

Paul Krugman (1989): History vs. Expectations https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-krugman-1989-history.pdf || (1990) Increasing Returns & Economic Geography) https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-krugman-1990-increasing.pdf || (1992): _A Dynamic Spatial Model https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-krugman-19920dynamic-spatial.pdf || (1995): Globalization & the Inequality of Nations https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-krugman-1995-globalization.pdf || (2010): The New Economic Geography: Now Middle-Aged https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-krugman-2010-geography.pdf...

Plus

Stefan Gerlach: Crunch Time for Central Banks https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/central-banks-response-to-public-opinion-on-inequality-environment-by-stefan-gerlach-2020-09: ‘In little more than a decade, the global financial crisis, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic have transformed the environment in which central banks operate–and public opinion is not on their side.... Central banks’ responses to the financial crisis and the pandemic have triggered a huge increase in wealth inequality.... That is how monetary policy works. But a large part of the public finds it grossly unfair…

Edward Luce: Donald Trump’s Orwellian Jamboree https://www.ft.com/content/593edb26-f117-4fab-942e-c2e704567582: ‘This year’s Republican convention proves the party is post-ideas—the plan is simply the man.... The image of the US president’s eldest son may differ in the details from that of Big Brother’s boot stamping on the human face. But the message of this week’s Republican National Convention is Orwellian. There is no perceptible platform or even ghost of a second term agenda for Donald Trump’s party. There is thus no possibility of dissent. His chief surrogates are his own family members. The message is Mr Trump, the whole Mr Trump and nothing but Mr Trump...

This is simply an truly excellent two-pager: Equitable Growth: Reforming Unemployment Insurance across the United States https://equitablegrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/conventions-ui-fs.pdf: ’Longstanding problems with the Unemployment Insurance system in the United States are immediately evident amid the coronavirus recession and echo the problems experienced during the Great Recession…. Administrative failures at state Unemployment Insurance agencies. Lack of a permanent Unemployment Insurance program that includes the self-employed and others traditionally left out of the program. Low benefit levels that require emergency top-offs. The temporary nature of fixes when recessions hit, which, in turn, requires renegotiations just months after political compromises are reached. The current disarray in the Unemployment Insurance system is neither a surprise nor an accident. It is the result of decades of conscious choices made by policymakers…

Brilliant: Austin City Limits (2014): Celebrating 40 Years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM0fXtg4SOY: ‘An all-star lineup celebrating four decades of Austin City Limits culminates in Buddy Holly's classic "Not Fade Away"...

Tasty: Imperial Tea Court: Our Berkeley Teahouse https://www.imperialtea.com/category-s/1874.htm…

Something that has been bugging me for a while that I did not know. why is this office different Wikipedia: The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod: 'The office was created in 1350 by royal letters patent.... The title is derived from the staff of office.... Black Rod is principally responsible for controlling access to and maintaining order within the House of Lords and its precincts.... Black Rod's official duties also include responsibility as the usher and doorkeeper at meetings of the Most Noble Order of the Garter...

I confess I have not seen this "certification trust" taking shape. Where is it? Who controls the keys to it? How does it become a social fact: Mihnea Moldoveanu: How Our Response to COVID-19 Will Remake Higher Ed https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/how-our-response-to-covid-19-will-remake-higher-ed: ‘A decisive change is afoot: a digital higher education “certification trust” has taken shape over the past two years. This digital ledger will allow students to certifiably, verifiably, and securely guarantee their range of educational credentials to their college, a potential employer, financial institutions, loan providers, recruiters, and others...

It is nice to see the Fed recognize reality. It would have been much, much better if Greenspan had been willing to do so in real time: Tim Duy: Fed Lacks Consensus on Implementation, Data Generally Solid https://blogs.uoregon.edu/timduyfedwatch/2020/08/30/fed-lacks-consensus-on-implementation-data-generally-solid/: ‘The previous guidance constrained the Fed, or so they believed, to setting policy to return to the 2% target without overshooting that target. The Fed wanted flexibility to overshoot.... From a practical perspective, the Fed simply updated its guidance last week to match how they were already setting policy...

And Adam Posen reminds us he has been calling for this for eight years: Adam Posen: 'What matters from what Federal Reserve Chair Powell did and did not say.... https://twitter.com/adamposen/status/1299031917665439744?s=21 The process of doing the review was as important as the results of the review. The trust bought in from Congress and interested public made room for current policies. The substance of the review was rightly framed as catching Fed strategy up to economic realities.... Some of us had asked Fed to take these realities into account a while ago.... See me and Danny Blanchflower (2014)...

Am I profoundly stupid, or is Uncle Judea's framework of causal confounders—colliders—mediators a huge advance, perhaps not in helping those of you who think carefully do non-stupid statistics, but in helping those of us who do not think carefully do non-stupid statistics, and in providing a royal road to teaching people how to do not-stupid statistics?: Cosma Shalizi: No, it really is that awesome! Of course, I would think that: https://twitter.com/henryfarrell/status/796786137989840896...

This is a sign of a very serious problem in the legitimacy of our police force, and in their ability to understand the people they are supposed to serve: Zack Beauchamp: Why Police Encouraged Shooting Suspect Kyle Rittenhouse to Patrol Kenosha’s Streets https://www.vox.com/2020/8/27/21404117/kenosha-kyle-rittenhouse-police-gun-populism: ‘Police in Wisconsin told armed militia members that “we appreciate you guys.” Some new research helps us understand the racial roots of their irresponsible behavior...

A very nice debate: Nir Kaissar & Barry Ritholtz: Best Route to Wealth: Savings or Earnings, a Debate https://ritholtz.com/2020/05/debate-saving-or-earning/: BR: 'Let’s bring this back to my biggest issue with frugality, and that’s mental bandwidth. Will power is finite.' NK: 'The irony is that you’re a good example of the mindful consumption I’m advocating. You focus your spending on the things and experiences you find meaningful, and you spend much less than you make, all of which allows you to save and pursue the big things. In my experience, you’re the vast exception...'

A nice skewering of the lies from the Trump administration, and all its Republican, neo-fascist, and journalistic enablers: Ezra Kleini: 3 Charts Disprove Donald Trump’s 2020 RNC Speech https://www.vox.com/2020/8/28/21405053/donald-trump-republican-convention-speech-2020-record-charts-facts-lies: ‘Trump wants to take credit for something he didn’t do, and dodge blame for something he did do.... If Trump’s economic policy was so masterful, why is it impossible to pinpoint his takeover on a simple chart of job growth?.... The Trump administration had to defend America against coronavirus. It failed, and horribly so.... The core of Trump’s reelection message: You should give him credit for the economic recovery he inherited from Obama. And you should blame someone else for the disastrous response to the coronavirus...

Not so much technology—organization too is necessary: Reka Juhasz, Mara Squicciarini, Nico Voigtländer: Technology adoption and productivity growth https://voxeu.org/article/technology-adoption-and-productivity-growth: ‘The adoption of mechanised cotton spinning in France during the Industrial Revolution to study the short-run and long-run effects on firm productivity.... Firm productivity gains from this technology materialised slowly in the 19th century, consistent with the need to establish the complementary organisational practices to efficiently operate the cotton mills…

I have no idea who the "Roman despot" was. Diocletian perhaps? But 1500 years would put us in the reign of Justinian...: Herbert Hoover: Against That Communist Roosevelt, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and ??? https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/07/herbert-hoover-against-that-communist-roosevelt-karl-marx-john-maynard-keynes-and.html: ‘I rejected the schemes of economic planning to regiment and coerce the farmer. That was born of a Roman despot 1400 years ago and grew into the A[gricultural ]A[djustment ]A[ct]. I refused national plans to put government into business in competition with its citizens. That was born of Karl Marx. I vetoed the idea of recovery through stupendous spending to prime the pump. That was born of a British Professor...

The importance of civil rights, the rising significance of class, the productivity slowdown that started in the 1970s, the reaction of local governance to the crime wave that began in the 1960s and to the Great Migration—all of these play a powerful role in the setbacks that Black workers in America have experienced since the end of the 1960s. This is the best thing I have heard on these topics: Soumaya Keynes & Chad P. Bown: Trade Talks: Opportunities & Setbacks for Black Workers in the 20th Century https://www.tradetalkspodcast.com/podcast/134-opportunities-and-setbacks-for-black-workers-in-the-20th-century/: ‘Economic gains for America’s Black workers stalled in the 1970s. Why things had improved during the Great Migration, why that stopped, and what international trade had to do with it. Ellora Derenoncourt (UC Berkeley), Mary Kate Batistich (Notre Dame) and Timothy Bond (Purdue University) join to explain…

Plus

One of the best assessments of the extremely strange James Buchanan I have read: Daniel Kuehn: James M. Buchanan, Political Regionalism, & þe Southern Agrarians https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-kuehn-buchanan-agrarians.pdf: 'The importance of dispersing population to rural areas was tied to Buchanan’s concerns about the negative externalities associated with cities. In “A Future for ‘Agricultural Economics’?” Buchanan writes, “Few among us can look optimistically at the pattern that threatens to emerge with coalescence centered primarily on age, race, innovation in behavioral perversity, and, finally, terror. Perhaps I both exaggerate the seriousness of the portent and grasp at straws of my own prejudice. But radical dispersal of people over space appears almost to be a necessary complement to any policy of hope.”... Buchanan further issued a “plea” for scholars to provide intellectual support to “enlightened leaders” of rural areas who “espouse the virtues of smallness, of limited power of man over man, of decentralized authority, of the clean pure air of the countryside, which every man must seek and few men find”.... The thread of Southern distributism running through Jefferson’s Arcadia and the Agrarians’ yeoman farmer class is clearly identifiable in Buchanan.. and not just in his beloved southwest Virginia farm, which taught him the “valuational content” of “the Southern Agrarians of the 1930s”... but in some of his most famous papers and policy proposals...

True words about why Donald Trump is not something that should come as a surprise to anyone who has been watching Republidans over the past, say, 40 years: Ezra Klein: The Continuity Between George W. Bush & Donald Trump https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/8/27/21403153/bush-iraq-financial-crisis-trump-coronavirus-government-small-draper-book: ‘Those who like government least govern worst: From the Iraq War to the coronavirus: why Republicans fail at governance.... When Bush left the White House in 2009, the Iraq War was a recognized debacle, with thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, casualties of its chaos. The global economy was in collapse, driven by a calamitous void of regulatory oversight of Wall Street, and the disastrous decision to let Lehman Brothers fall. Less than 10 years later, the next Republican president is ending his first term with nearly 200,000 Americans dead of the coronavirus—the worst pandemic performance, by far, of any rich nation—and an economy in shambles. Bush and Trump are... personally different.... It feels awkward to compare them.... But in his new book, To Start a War, Robert Draper chronicles the internal deliberations and dynamics that led the Bush administration into Iraq. In doing so, Draper reminds us of the throughline between the two administrations: a toxic contempt for the government itself...

Nancy LeTourneau: Biden Has a Plan to Reopen Schools. Trump Does Not https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/09/03/biden-has-a-plan-to-reopen-schools-trump-does-not/: ‘The safety of this country’s children is on the ballot.... The first step of Biden’s plan, released over a month ago, includes something the Trump administration has failed to do: get the virus under control via actions such as implementation of nationwide testing-and-tracing. Take a look at how Biden’s message is totally different from Trump’s nonsense…

Doris Goodwin: þe Way We Won: America's Economic Breakthrough During World War II https://prospect.org/health/way-won-america-s-economic-breakthrough-world-war-ii/: 'High growth needn’t require a war.... It is no exaggeration to say that America won the war abroad and the peace at home at the same time. No doubt the historical conditions of America's economic surge during World War II were singular. But we have much to learn...

Itamar Drechsler & al.: þe Financial Origins of þe Rise & Fall of American Inflation https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3538569: ‘We argue that its rise was due to the imposition of binding deposit rate ceilings under the law known as Regulation Q, and that its fall was due to the removal of these ceilings.... The degree to which Regulation Q was binding has a large impact on local inflation.... In the presence of financial frictions the Fed may be unable to control inflation regardless of its policy rule…

More "but umbrellas cause rain!" journamalism from the Wall Street Journal: Donald Luskin: þe Failed Experiment of Covid Lockdowns https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-failed-experiment-of-covid-lockdowns-11599000890: ‘New data suggest that social distancing and reopening haven’t determined the spread…

McCormick: Maryland Crab Soup Recipe https://www.mccormick.com/old-bay/recipes/soups-stews/old-bay-maryland-crab-soup…

Collider: Best Movies on Netflix Right Now (September 2020) https://collider.com/best-movies-on-netflix-streaming

Raymond Chandler: þe Simple Art of Murder https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-chandler-murder.pdf...

Colin Leys (1982): Samuel Huntington & þe End of Classical Modernization Theory https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-leys-1982-huntington.pdf...

Plus

Christopher Tassava: þe American Economy during World War II https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-american-economy-during-world-war-ii/: ‘The federal government emerged from the war as a potent economic actor, able to regulate economic activity and to partially control the economy through spending and consumption. American industry was revitalized by the war, and many sectors were by 1945 either sharply oriented to defense production (for example, aerospace and electronics) or completely dependent on it (atomic energy). The organized labor movement, strengthened by the war beyond even its depression-era height, became a major counterbalance to both the government and private industry. The war’s rapid scientific and technological changes continued and intensified trends begun during the Great Depression and created a permanent expectation of continued innovation...

Ghouls. Ghouls all the way down: Xeni Jardin: Herman Cain, Who Died of Covid-19, Tweets 'þe Virus Is Not as Deadly' as Believed https://boingboing.net/2020/08/31/herman-cain-who-died-of-covid.html: ‘@THEHermanCain: "It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be. 08:49 8/31/20..." Herman Cain died of COVID-19. That's it. That's the blog post...

The StoryGraph Beta https://beta.thestorygraph.com/

Wikipedia: Henry Bartle Frere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bartle_Frere#Outbreak_of_Zulu_and_Boer_Wars…

Wikipedia: Annette Gordon-Reed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Gordon-Reed…

Wikipedia: History of Grand Central Terminal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Grand_Central_Terminal#Grand_Central_Depot…

Fire in California: Fire Activity Map https://ucanr.edu/sites/fire/Safety/Current/…

All Turtles https://medium.all-turtles.com/…

Economic History Association: Conference Program and Papers https://eh.net/eha/conference-program-and-papers-4/…

Plus:

Buce: The Luckiest Horse in the Fifth Millennium BCE https://underbelly-buce.blogspot.com/2008/08/luckiest-horse-in-fifth-millennium-bce.html: ‘David W. Anthony... The Horse, the Wheel, and Language.... he date is about 4800 BCE; the place is in what he chooses to call “the Pontic-Caspian steppes,” just above the Caspian Sea. The “why” is interesting: apparently not for riding, but for food—horses were big and meaty and could live over the winter in cold climates (riding came later). AS to “how,” the flip answer is “it wasn’t easy,” which is not surprising when you stop to think of it: horses—or, more precisely, stallions—are a notoriously tricky lot and they wouldn’t take kindly to being stabled or hobbled or slapped into harness. But as to precisely how, the DNA evidence provides a remarkable clue.... "the male aspect of modern horse DNA, which is passed unchanged on the Y chromosome from sire to colt, shows remarkable homogeneity. It is possible that just a single wild stallion was domesticated…. [A] relatively docile and controllable stallion was an unusual individual—and one that had little hope of reproducing in the wild. Horse domestication might have depended on a lucky coincidence: the appearance of a relatively manageable and docile male in a place where humans could use him as a breeder of a domesticated bloodline. From the horse’s perspective, humans were the only way he could get a girl. From the human perspective, he was the only sire they wanted..." So here’s to you, Mr. Lucky, the granddaddy of them all…

This, from Jonathan Horn, is the best thing I have ever read on the road that led Robert E Lee and George Pickett's division to Pennsylvania—where they grabbed American citizens and shipped them south to be sold as slaves—and then to the disastrous charge up Cemetery Ridge. The Pickett division soldiers dead at Gettysburg could have kept the American Civil War going for one or two months more. At war's end Ulysses S. Grant "felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse":

Jonathan Horn The Man Who Would Not be Washington https://books.google.com/books?id=n_5tAwAAQBAJ: 'Winning a major battle on Northern soil might end the war, and that, as Lee would later say, was his chief purpose. “I went into Maryland to give battle.”... Lee intended to isolate Washington, DC, from the west. He would not let reinforcements from the mountains and beyond rescue the eastern cities. He would destroy the B&O Railroad and, once more, that pesky Potomac canal.... When Brigadier General John Walker visited Lee’s tent, he learned what else his chief had in mind.... Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and blow up the railroad bridge over the Susquehanna. “There will [then] remain to the enemy but one route of communication with the West, and that very circuitous, by way of the Lakes,” Lee explained. “After that I can turn my attention to Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Washington, as may seem best for our interests.”

The audacity of it all astonished Walker.... The concern showed on Walker’s face. “Are you acquainted with General McClellan?” Lee asked rhetorically. “He is an able general but a very cautious one. His enemies among his own people think him too much so. His army is in a very demoralized and chaotic condition, and will not be prepared for offensive operations—or he will not think it so—for three or four weeks.” By then, Lee planned to have his columns consolidated and in Pennsylvania, no less...

Om Malik: How I Stay Sane in 2020 https://om.co/2020/09/04/how-i-stay-sane-in-2020/: ‘Twitter: no alerts, view in latest tweets mode, never use it between 7 pm and 7 am. Forget about using Twitter on the weekends. Liberally mute accounts and mute words. Block accounts that exceed the boundaries of propriety. Set your trends location to a place where you don’t know the language or is sparsely populated. I also use the Nuzzel app.... Instead, I want to read a whodunnit. And drink some great coffee.... Download a couple of albums from Bandcamp. On the first Friday of every month, all money goes to the artists. Given the persistent smoky conditions, and my desire to not be outside as much, I also have some shows I want to watch this weekend: Young Wallander: If you were a fan of Kurt Wallander, a fictional detective created by Swedish writer Henning Mankell, then this one would be an excellent series to watch on Netflix. Enola Holmes: Wait, Sherlock Holmes has a sister? Enough said—more goodness on Netflix. Sadly it is not launching till September 23rd. But for now, the trailer will do!…

Barry Eichengreen: The Pandemic’s Most Treacherous Phase https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-pandemic-crisis-will-worsen-in-october-by-barry-eichengreen-2020-09: ‘The more dangerous phase of the crisis in the US may actually be now.... Fatalities are still running at roughly a thousand per day... matches levels at the beginning of April.... Many surviving COVID-19 patients continue to suffer chronic cardiovascular problems and impaired mental function.... [This] new normal['s]... implications for morbidity–and for human health and economic welfare–are truly dire.... Americans[']... current leaders are willing to accept 40,000 new cases and 1,000 deaths a day... inured to the numbers... impatient with lockdowns. They have politicized masks.... Congress seems incapable of replicating the bipartisanship that enabled passage of the CARES Act at the end of March.... If the economy falters a second time, whether because of inadequate fiscal stimulus or flu season and a second COVID-19 wave, it will not receive the additional monetary and fiscal support that protected it in the spring.... If steps are not taken to reassure the public of the independence and integrity of the scientific process, we will be left only with the alternative of “herd immunity,” which, given COVID-19’s many known and suspected comorbidities, is no alternative at all…

David Brooks says: "American democracy is in trouble because my journamalistic colleagues and I will not do our jobs on November 3":

Steve M.: Just Do Your Damn Jobs https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2020/09/just-do-your-damn-jobs.html: ‘David Brooks writes: "On the evening of Nov. 3... Donald Trump seems to be having an excellent night. Counting the votes cast at polling places, Trump is winning Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.... Trump quickly declares victory. So do many other Republican candidates. The media complains that it’s premature, but Trumpworld is ecstatic. Democrats know that as many as 40 percent of the ballots are mail-in and still being counted... but they can’t control the emotions of that night. It’s a gut punch." Why? Why should what's happening be a gut punch? Why should it be perceived that Donald Trump is having an excellent night?... What happens on TV on election nights? On MSNBC, to take one example, Steve Kornacki stands at a digital map and discusses not just the current vote totals but the nature of the votes that haven't been counted... that the untallied votes come from precincts or counties that are stronger for one party than another. He'd give us a sense of what it would take for the candidate who's trailing to make up the deficit. And up to a point in every contest he'd say: This is why we can't call the race yet…

Franco Modigliani (1944): Liquidity Preference and the Theory of Interest and Money https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-modigliani-liquidity-preference.pdf: ‘As long as wages are flexible, the long-run equilibrium rate of interest is determined exclusively by real factors... the propensity to save and the marginal efficiency of investment. The condition, money saving = money investment, determines the price level and not the rate of interest. If wages are rigid... the propensities to save and to invest but the situation is now more complicated; for these propensities depend also on money income and therefore on the quantity of active money which in turn depends itself on the level of the rate of interest.... In a system with rigid wages not only interest but also almost every economic variable depends on the quantity of money.... [In] the "Keynesian [liquidity trap] case"... the long-run equilibrium rate of interest is the rate which makes the demand for money to hold infinitely elastic... [and] the rate of interest is determined exclusively by institutional factors.

Irwin Collier: Harvard. Advanced Economic Theory, Second Term. 1948 http://www.irwincollier.com/harvard-advanced-economic-theory-second-term-schumpeter-1948/: ‘Joseph Schumpeter: "Economics 103b. Spring Term 1947-48. Plan of Course and Suggestions for Reading. The plan of the course is to start from and to build upon Professor Haberler’s lectures in the Fall Term (103a). We shall start from the statics of equilibrium and then discuss at some lengths the use and limitations of the method of Comparative Statics. After this, we shall survey various Dynamic Models. These models will be made the starting points of excursions...

James Baldwin: The American Dream Is at the Expense of the American Negro https://www.tor.com/2020/08/16/lovecraft-country-sundown-episode-1-review/: ‘I picked the cotton, and I carried it to the market, and I built the railroads under someone else’s whip for nothing…

Berkeley: GSI Remote Teaching Hub https://grad.berkeley.edu/gsi-remote-teaching-hub/…

Fred: COVID Dashboard https://research.stlouisfed.org/useraccount/dashboard/56322#: ‘Initial Claims, Continued Claims, Personal Income, Personal Consumption…

Robert de Nero: The Good Shepherd https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/script-the-good-shepherd.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Shepherd_(film)

Gretal Kovach (2007): Pizza Chain Takes Pesos, & Complaints https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/us/15Pizza.html: ‘“I certainly wasn’t expecting ‘pizza for pesos’ to become a touchstone for the immigration issue,” Mr. Swad said. It was nothing more than an effort to “reinforce our brand promise to be the premier Latino pizza chain,” he said. “We’re businessmen. The Latino population is significant and it’s important,” Mr. Swad continued. “It’s here to stay. The United States... is going to be different, and it has an opportunity to be better.” Mr. Swad, who is Italian-Lebanese and was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, did not speak Spanish when he opened his first take-out pizzeria in Dallas in 1986…

Gretal Kovach (2007): Pizza Chain Takes Pesos, & Complaints https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/us/15Pizza.html: ‘“It’s a trivial example, but Hispanics now have their own pizza chain,” Mr. Krikorian said. “It’s a consequence of having too many people arrive from a single foreign culture, and may well reflect a kind of cultural secession”…

Daniel Voshart: Photoreal Roman Emperor Project https://medium.com/@voshart/photoreal-roman-emperor-project-236be7f06c8f: ‘Using the neural-net tool Artbreeder, Photoshop and historical references, I have created photoreal portraits of... the 54 emperors of The Principate (27 BC to 285 AD)…

x*Charlie Stross*: Dead Plots http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2020/08/dead-plots.html: ‘the eminent mainstream literary faculty are still turning out deeply sensitive realist-mode explorations of the human condition that totally neglect the tech dimension. We live in a world with killer drones, state level actors gaslighting each others' electorates with bots and sock puppets and AI generated user icons... where private space launch companies are listed on the stock market and cars park themselves. A realist-mode 21st century novel that ignores phenomena that were tropes in 20th century SF is a de-facto historical novel, or a retro nostalgia trip for people who are deeply uneasy about modernity...

McSweeney's: Arkham Board of Health Feedback on Miskatonic University’s Draft Plan for a Safe Campus Reopening https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/arkham-board-of-health-feedback-on-miskatonic-universitys-draft-plan-for-a-safe-campus-reopening?fbclid=IwAR3q4m50xLFQcW4MyAsREYP9Qv_ZCrdhqo5Kll58wwMmbWavlIvod8j5DVA: ‘Library services: You note that all of your library’s holdings have been digitized for online reading, including certain “foul, repellent, and irrudinous tomes that bespeak eldritch accursed rites and which, once made public, may unleash nameless aeon-dead horrors”...

I do confess that I am flummoxed by self-identified positively-valenced “white supremacy” as a thing.

My WASPy view was always that America was an America of ethnicities underpinned by the dominant myth-message: “people coming from elsewhere to build a utopia in which we all could live better lives”. This mosaic worked, with cultural influences flowing every which way, with the ideas and cultural orientations of WASPy Massachusetts Puritans, Virginia libertarians, and Kentucky pioneers serving as the first layer of the cultural matrix. The exchange in the 2006 movie The Good Shepherd between Joe Pesci and Matt Damon grossly overstates the case, but is in the right direction:

Joe Pesci: “Let me ask you something…. We Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland, Jews their tradition; even the n------, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Wilson, what do you have?”

Matt Damon: “The United States of America…”

Yes, African-Americans were always at the bottom, but there was no monolithic “whiteness” in the mosaic anywhere. Remember: when I was at Harvard in the 1980s, when an Italian-American Catholic married an Irish-American Catholic in Boston, it was a “mixed marriage”, and people would shrug their shoulders and say it was unlikely to last.

I look at how somebody by the name of Mark Krikorian can raise the alarm on behalf of "whiteness" against the idea of “Hispanics now hav[ing] their own pizza chain…. [It] may well reflect a kind of cultural secession…” Mark Krikorian finds it alarming that an Italian-Lebanese-American born in Columbus, OH sees a market for Hispanic-inflected pizza in Dallas and moves to satisfy it. And then I think: this was always a grift, this is the fascist playbook—create the bigotry against a despised other, and then use that bigotry to create a volk:

Sean Illing: Why Rev. William Barber Thinks We Need a Moral Revolution in America https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/8/18/21327358/william-barber-poor-peoples-campaign-moral-mondays: '“Racism may target Black people, but it damns a democracy and it damns humanity”'…

This is why retail businesses need large permanent financial transfers now. We do not want retail businesses that are not coronavirus transmission hotspots from receiving erroneous “shut down“ signals from the market. And yet that is what is happening when we do not make them whole from the effects of the crisis of March and April:

Jason Del Rey: Amazon, Walmart, & Target Reap þe Rewards of Covid Restrictions https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/8/20/21375942/amazon-walmart-target-pandemic-earnings-q2-2020-essential-retailers: ‘Some feared the pandemic would widen the gap between the haves and have-nots of retail. That fear is now reality…

Not that Isaac Asimov’s 1950s novel The Naked Sun Is either a great mystery novel or a great science fiction novel. But it is a place to start in thinking about how this next upward leap in interacting with each other via symbols and screens is going to work. What personality types are going to do well? What personality types are going to do badly? In in-person interactions, a great deal of the information channels our bids and offers about authority because rapidly reaching consensus about what the group was going to do trumped reaching the best decision at the price of maybe reaching no decision at all. But those channels do not operate through screens, as anyone who has ever participated in a flamewar Or watched trolls destroy an online discussion knows very well:

Sean Gallagher: Respawn Point: þe Inevitable Reincarnation of þe Corporate Office https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/work-from-home-03-the-office/: ‘Stanford Institute for Economic Research figures in June showed only 42 percent of the US workforce working from home full-time—the fact remains that people's relationship with their workplace has been dramatically restructured, perhaps permanently…

Publius Aelius Aristides Theodorus (155): The Roman Oration https://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/11/aelius-aristides-the-roman-oration-it-is-a-time-honored-custom-of-travelers-setting-forth-by-land-or-sea-to-m.html…

Wikipedia: Wrought Iron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrought_iron | Cast Iron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron | Bessemer Process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_process | Steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel

Boichik Bagels https://boichikbagels.myshopify.com/…

Constance Hunter (2020-08-19): Riding the Covid-Coaster https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/presentation-hunter-covid-coaster.pdf…

Casey Johnston: How to Fit in a Real Workout When You Have Only 20 Minutes https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/889bxx/how-to-get-a-real-workout-only-20-minutes: ‘[Randi Zuckerberg takes] a slightly more aggressive line here with her “pick three” rule: “Work. Sleep. Family. Friends. Fitness. Pick Three.” But I often see this rule separated from Zuckerberg’s follow-up clarification: “I can pick a different three tomorrow, and a different three the following day. But today, I can only pick three. As long as I wind up picking everything over the long run, then I’m balancing my imbalance”…

Jim Wendler: How to Fit in a Real Workout When You Have Only 20 Minutes https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/889bxx/how-to-get-a-real-workout-only-20-minutes: ‘This is my favorite. I don’t recommend it, but it’s useful for non-beginners who have limited time to train. The I’m Not Doing Jack Shit program entails walking into the weight room, doing the big lift for the day (bench, squat, military or deadlift), and then walking out… I’ve made this deal with myself many times before I’ve trained: If I do X weight for X amount of reps, I’m leaving…

2020 Democratic Party Platform https://www.demconvention.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/2020-07-21-DRAFT-Democratic-Party-Platform.pdf…

Wikipedia: Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus Pius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoninus_Pius#Marriage_and_children…

Wikipedia: Faustina the Elder—Annia Galeria Faustina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faustina_the_Elder…

Plus:

FRED: COVID Dashboard https://research.stlouisfed.org/useraccount/dashboard/56322#: Initial Claims, Continued Claims, Real Personal Income, Real Personal Consumption Expenditures...

The end of California’s “Mediterranean climate”? Nah. It’s still cooler in the summer than Greece, or Catalonia, or Sicily—by a lot:

Daniel Swain: https://weatherwest.com/archives/7427 https://weatherwest.com/: ‘A very intense and prolonged heatwave now appears likely for a large portion of California over the next 7-10 days, and this event will likely have wide-ranging impacts from human health, wildfire, and electricity demand perspectives.... A strengthening ridge axis... from the southeast... a humid tropical airmass... from the southwest... remnants of former Hurricane Elida... locked in place for at least the next 7 days, and very possibly longer…

It now looks like there was enough of a bounceback in July to give us a 5% boost to third quarter GDP—that is a 20% reported annualized growth rate for Q3 –unless the economy is falling off a cliff now or does so in September. Unfortunately, the economy may well fall off a cliff this month or next. The renewed spread of the coronavirus plague, plus Trump's and McConnell‘s decision that they would rather have no fiscal stimulus at all then negotiate with Pelosi, are not pieces of good news for aggregate demand:

Tim Duy: Fiscal Follies Continue* https://blogs.uoregon.edu/timduyfedwatch/2020/08/10/fiscal-follies-continue/: ‘Incoming data still reflects the push-pull dynamics of the shutdown and reopening; we *don’t have a clear picture of the growth trajectory after those dynamics play out. Fiscal policy in the U.S. is a mess…

Duncan Black is depressed. And there is, admittedly, a lot to be depressed about. But I think that the elected politicians here are right. The best thing we can do is to vote in November and throw the fascist bastards out. The second best thing we can do is scare the fascist-enabling bastards today with the thought that they are going to be thrown out in November unless they frantically start blocking the idiocies of Trump’s goons:

Duncan Black: The Plan Is Hope https://www.eschatonblog.com/2020/08/the-plan-is-hope.html: ‘I was never a SUPER DC INSIDER, but I used to be a bit more connected.... Not so much anymore.... Members of Congress are tweeting, "nothing we can do, please vote." I am dumb and not important and nobody tells me anything anymore, but…

This is not coherent: If "those people“ are not going to use their Medicaid benefits because of their attitudes toward life—which the likely future senator from Kansas says he is “not judging”-then those Medicaid benefits are not a burden on the federal or the state treasury, hence not a problem:

Nancy LeTourneau: The Extremist Agenda of Establishment Republicans https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/08/12/whats-the-difference-between-establishment-and-extremist-republicans/: ‘It can be difficult to distinguish between candidates who are “establishment” and those who are “extreme.”... [Roger] Marshall is touting the fact that he is “trusted by Trump”... in the center of efforts to repeal Obamacare and oppose Medicaid expansion in Kansas... "even with unlimited access to health care [they] are only going to use the emergency room when their arm is chopped off or when their pneumonia is so bad they get brought [in]…”

Steve M.: Donald Trump, A Force for "Stability"? https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2020/07/donald-trump-force-for-stability.html: ‘One participant... really seemed to misread the country: "'The more demonstrations there were, the more demands for recounts, the more legal challenges there were, the more funerals for democracy were held, the more Trump came across as the candidate of stability', said Edward Luce, the US editor of the _Financial Times, who played the role of a mainstream media reporter during one of the simulations." Donald Trump has many weapons at his disposal if he wants to try to cling to power after an election loss, but the general impression that he's a figure of stability is not one of them...

Julian E. Zelizer with Rick Perlstein: _ A discussion of Zelizer's latest book, Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=lRopePOgjzE&feature=emb_logo...

Zack Budryk: 'Pastor who urged people https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/510274-pastor-who-urged-people-not-to-cower-in-fear-tests-positive-for not to "cower in fear" tests positive for coronavirus…

Jo Walton: Designing People & Societies: C.J. Cherryh’s "Cyteen" https://www.tor.com/2011/08/08/designing-people-and-societies-cj-cherryhs-cyteen/_: "Cherryh chose to show us Union society first from outside in Downbelow Station, where they are the implacable enemy. I didn’t want to read Cyteen when it was first published because I didn’t want to spend that much time in Union. It becomes clear that Alliance don’t understand Union. Close up it’s… both better and worse than it seemed from outside.... If you were an ordinary CIT in Union, your life would be much nicer and more free than I would have imagined. But for an azi or somebody who isn’t ordinary, it’s much worse.... We also know, because Cherryh had written books set later in the history of this universe, that it doesn’t ultimately work.... I’ve probably read Cyteen forty times, but it always grabs me and won’t let go, and I always see more in it...

Brian Resnick & Umair Irfan: Covid-19 Antibodies, Herd Immunity, & Vaccines, Explained https://www.vox.com/2020/7/22/21324729/getting-covid-19-twice-immunity-antibodies-vaccine-herd-immunity: ‘While there is no guarantee that a successful Covid-19 vaccine will be made, some scientists are optimistic that one or more will be available in record time. One big reason: Most people survive the infection on their own, showing that the immune system can be coached to fend off the pathogen.... Our first line of defense against the virus is the cells within us, but stopping the outbreaks will depend on the whole world working together…

Cicero: Pro Balbo: ‘It has been imputed to [Balbus] also that he has become one of the tribe Clustumina, a privilege which he obtained by means of the law concerning bribery, and which is less invidious than the advantages acquired by those men who, by the assistance of the laws, obtain the power of delivering their opinion as praetor, and of and of wearing the purple-striped toga...

Cicero: Pro Roscio: 'I come now to that point to which my desire does not lead me, but good faith towards my client. For if I wished to accuse men, I should accuse those men rather by accusing whom I might become more important, which I have determined not to do, as long as the alternatives of accusing and defending are both open to me. For that man appears to me the most honourable who arrives at a higher rank by his own virtue, not he who rises by the distress and misfortunes of another...

Herodian: Commodus http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian_01_book1.htm#C1…

Google: Google One https://one.google.com/home?utm_medium=email&utm_source=welcome&utm_campaign=new_member_explore_g1_top&utm_content=cta_explore_g1_top…

Plus:

Follower of Hieronymus Bosch: Christ in Limbo:

I agree with Erik here. The Trump administration isn't "creeping fascism" any more. This is the real thing. Their plan is to have Breitbart, Fox, Sinclair, & QAnon come out hard Wednesday after the election saying "nobody can really tell who won", and then see what happens on the streets: Erik Loomis: American Fascism https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/08/american-fascism-3: ‘Anyone who sees this as bluster and doesn’t take it seriously are equivalent to those who didn’t really take Hitler or Mussolini seriously early on: Reporter: "Is the President saying if he doesn't win this election that he will not accept the results unless he wins?" Kayleigh McEnany: "The President has always said he'll see what happens and make a determination in the aftermath"… .#fascism #highlighted #moral responsibility #noted #orangehairedbaboons #moralresponsibility #2020-08-19

Anton Howes: The Spanish Engine https://antonhowes.substack.com/p/age-of-invention-the-spanish-engine: ‘Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont.... The steam engines invented by Savery and then Newcomen in the 1690s and 1700s mainly exploited the observation that the air had a weight...

Thomas Jefferson: Notes on þe State of Virginia http://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/1314: ‘Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made... will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.... Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid: and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.... We know that among the Romans, about the Augustan age especially, the condition of their slaves was much more deplorable than that of the blacks on the continent of America… .#noted #2020-08-16

Tim Scott, the only African-American senator in the United States republican party, is playing a very difficult political hand with great skill given who his allies and who his constituents are. This is very much worth reading as a window. It is a window into, if not his mind, at least his public presentation of self:

Jane Coaston: Sen. Tim Scott on Police Reform & Why Ending Qualified Immunity Is a Nonstarter for the GOP https://www.vox.com/2020/7/7/21311493/tim-scott-race-policing-justice-act-reform: ‘Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican serving in the US Senate, has an additional, unenviable task beyond his usual legislative portfolio: talking to his colleagues, and Republicans in general, about the issues of race and policing with which he has an intimate familiarity. “I, like many other Black Americans, have found myself choking on my own fears and disbelief when faced with the realities of an encounter with law enforcement,” he wrote in an op-ed in USA Today earlier this year, detailing experiences that began when he was 21 and have continued into his time in Congress.... Sen. Scott and I talked about police reform, qualified immunity for officers and why eliminating it is a “poison pill” for Republicans, race and racism, and our own family experiences of bad policing. He told me Floyd’s death had launched a “tectonic shift on the underlying issue” of police brutality. “I hope that we don’t miss this opportunity” to address it, he said…

.#noted #2020-08-16

FRED: Continued Claims (Insured Unemployment) (CCSA) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CCSA…

Once again: suppress the virus so that nobody who comes into close contact with an elderly or comorbid relative has great reason for fear, and the economy will then recover. Fail to suppress the virus to that extent, and the economy will remain in depression:

Anne O. Krueger: The Open Secret to Reopening the Economy https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/covid19-virus-will-decide-when-economy-can-reopen-by-anne-krueger-2020-07: ‘Areas that eased their initial COVID-19 lockdowns and now have surging infection rates are a testament to all that has gone wrong in the pandemic. The lesson from day one still holds: until the virus is defeated, there can be no return to normal...

One of the best attempts I have ever seen to think through the mobilization of consent for right-wing anti-democracy in the modern age:

Sergei Guriev & Daniel Treisman: Informational Autocracy: Theory and Empirics of Modern Authoritarianism https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2571905: ‘In recent decades, dictatorships based on mass repression have largely given way to a new model based on the manipulation of information... convincing the public they are competent... propaganda and silence informed members of the elite by co-optation or censorship... a rhetoric of performance rather than one aimed at inspiring fear…

The Bloomberg editorial board says, with respect to the Judy Shelton Federal Reserve nomination, that water is wet:

Bloomberg Editorial Board: Judy Shelton Nomination: The Fed Doesn’t Need This Disruption https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-21/judy-shelton-nomination-the-fed-doesn-t-need-this-disruption: ‘Shelton... was long an ardent supporter of a return to the gold standard, a defunct system that entailed making the dollar convertible into a stable.... More recently, before the pandemic hit and as her nomination was in train, she did an about-face, aligning herself with Trump’s demands for the Fed to stimulate growth by lowering interest rates. Either way, Shelton is unlikely to be a reliably stabilizing force at a time when stability is needed most...

The hope was that a small increase in the share of people with college degrees would, if demand curves had the right slopes, have a large effect on the only-high-school wage discount. It looks as though this hope was in vain:

Kathryn Zickuhr: A College Degree Is Not the Solution to U.S. Wage Inequality https://equitablegrowth.org/a-college-degree-is-not-the-solution-to-u-s-wage-inequality/: ‘The skills gap... fails to account for declining worker power and... monopsony.... Policymakers need to improve the underlying labor market conditions for all workers, instead of shifting responsibility…

The hard truth is that we need another month-long lockdown, but that a month-long lockdown is only worth doing if it is properly followed up. And—given the grifters, ghouls, and easily-grifted gulls on the Republican side of at the aisle—I see no prospect of a proper follow-up until January 21, 2021 at the earliest:

Heather Boushey: 'In another world https://twitter.com/HBoushey/status/1289222754236071941, a sharp drop in activity would have been just a good, necessary blip while we addressed the virus.... We did not get the virus under control https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/business/economy/q2-gdp-coronavirus-economy.html…

Techopia: Why China Does Have an Advantage in the Fourth Industrial Revolution https://www.techopia.co/post/why-china-advantage-fourth-industrial-revolution-ai: ‘We see no reason why the lessons of The Innovator's Dilemma can't apply to nations. China has been investing in new specialisms while the rest of the world watches on.... The first stage of a technology evolution is proving it and evolving it to be adoptable. The second phase is its fuller adoption, disruption of incumbents and productivity benefits. The markets are not always good at funding technologies before these benefits have set in, particularly when these require significant capital expenditure...

Wikipedia: Scipio Aemilianus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scipio_Aemilianus…

Wikipedia: Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Cornelius_Scipio_Nasica_Serapio…

MAD Gaze: _ GLOW: Stylish MR Smart Glasses by MAD Gaze_ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/madgaze/mad-gaze-glow-lightweight-and-stylish-mr-glasses-for-you/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f53vZowtfmo&feature=emb_logo…

Plus:

Randall Munroe: xkcd: Git https://xkcd.com/1597/

It was a supply shock. Now—with the expiry of income support—it is a supply shock an a demand shock. And—if we continue to make no progress in stomping the virus—it will become not just a transitory supply shock but a major reallocation shock as well, as the economy transforms itself painfully into a permanently socially-distanced one.

I am on this panel:

Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux: What Economists Fear Will Happen Wiþout More Unemployment Aid https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-economists-fear-will-happen-without-more-unemployment-aid/: ‘A sudden uptick in food insecurity. A wave of evictions. People spending less money at shops and restaurants. More job losses.... Our regular survey... conducted in partnership with the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.... The economists also said we’re more likely to see job losses than workers returning to the workforce if Congress decides not to extend the unemployment supplement in any form. That might seem counterintuitive—how could a policy that seems likely to encourage more people to return to work actually result in more job losses? But recent research has indicated that the 600-per-week payment has been allowing jobless workers to continue to spend money as they would normally, at a moment when hiring still isn’t back to normal.... Asked... which were most likely to bring about their nightmares. As a group, they said a lack of fiscal stimulus loomed almost as large as a bad second wave of COVID-19 infections...

Yes, the coronavirus can be beaten. Schools are reopening and the economy is back to normal in Taiwan. We could beat it too with a nationwide, no more than one month lockdown. But it would have to be nationwide, and it would have to be enforced. Whether a country is able to figure out how to do this is, as Paul Krugman has said, an example fo the marshmellow test:

Christina Farr & Michelle Gao: How Taiwan Beat þe Coronavirus https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/15/how-taiwan-beat-the-coronavirus.html: ‘Taiwan has been praised for its highly effective Covid-19 response. Taiwan, which has nearly 24 million citizens, has had only 451 cases and seven deaths. Taiwan had a plan in place for years, which involved quarantines, contact tracing and wide availability of masks, among other things...

...When Catherine Chou arrived in Taipei after flying from Los Angeles, authorities told her she would need to quarantine for two weeks. For Chou, a citizen, that meant booking herself into a hotel at her own expense, although subsidies are available and the government has paid stipends for some stays. When she first arrived, she got a welcome package including dish soap, nail clippers and laundry detergent. Food was delivered to her doorstep. Several times a day, a representative of the local district’s office phoned her to check in and thank her for doing her part. She’s now almost wrapped up her hotel room stay. Once she’s officially cleared of Covid-19, she’ll be free to go.

After living in the U.S., which is still partially closed in various states, she’s looking forward to simple pleasures like visiting her family at home or sitting in a coffee shop with a good book. Taiwan allowed many of its restaurants and bars to reopen in May. “We have this phrase in Taiwan that roughly translates to, ‘This is your country, and it’s up to you to save it,’” she said. “I’m really glad that they’re taking this quarantine seriously”...

.#noted #2020-08-15

I confess that back in March I was flummoxed by the fact that the American government and the American health sector could not scale-up to test people for coronavirus at the needed scalr. Today I am even more flummoxed by Americas continuing testing deficit. It makes it impossible to even figure out where we are with the virus, let alone plan how to try to fight it successfully at reasonable cost:

Brian Resnick: US Covid-19 Testing & Surveillance Is Still in þe Dark https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/8/5/21351766/covid-19-testing-tracking-hospitalizations-schools-reopening: ‘“It’s like we’re flying blind”: The US has a Covid-19 data problem: And fall is fast approaching...

And another Trump enabler looks around and says “what have I been doing?” It is, frankly, deplorable that it is not until now that Steve Calabresi has decided that Trump is a fascist: Matt Shuham: Federalist Society Co-Founder Calls Trump Bid To Change Election Day ‘Fascistic,’ Impeachable https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/federalist-society-co-founder-calls-trump-bid-to-change-election-day-fascistic-impeachable: ‘The co-founder of the conservative legal organization the Federalist Society said Thursday that Trump’s bid to move Election Day was “fascistic” and worthy of impeachment. Steven Calabresi wrote in a [New York Times op-ed that he’d voted for Trump, protested the Mueller investigation and opposed the President’s impeachment over the Ukraine pressure campaign. But, Calabresi wrote, “I am frankly appalled by the president’s recent tweet seeking to postpone the November election. Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats’ assertion that President Trump is a fascist,” he said. “But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate.” Calabrisi, whose organization has been hugely influential in Trump’s massive record of judicial appointments, emphasized… [that] the decision isn’t his to make, and besides, the United States voted on the appointed date even during the Civil War and the Great Depression. “President Trump needs to be told by every Republican in Congress that he cannot postpone the federal election,” Calabresi said. “Doing so would be illegal, unconstitutional and without precedent in American history. Anyone who says otherwise should never be elected to Congress again”… #noted #2020-08-15

Always worth reading: Duncan Black: Monster Trucks https://www.eschatonblog.com/2020/08/monster-trucks.html: ‘Just pedestrian killing machines: "Furthermore, the specific design trend of the massive hood sticking way out in front of the driver, with a cliff-face front grille obstructing the view several feet out in front of the wheels, is entirely a marketing gimmick.... Take it from the guy who designed the latest GM Sierra HD: "The front end was always the focal point... we spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it's going to come get you. It's got that pissed-off feel," he told Muscle Cars & Trucks. "The face of these trucks is where the action is," marketing expert Mark Schirmer told the Wall Street Journal's Dan Neil.... And as Neil discovered when he was nearly run down in a Costco parking lot, that massive grille creates a massive blind spot…

The last time I went into my children’s pediatricians’ office, they had two doctors, three nurses, and four papers shufflers there—and the paper shufflers were mirrored by four more paper shufflers at the insurance companies, all trying to keep whatever the pediatricians were deciding to do from being covered by insurance. But, as Kevin Drum rightly points out, that is not the only overhead of our insane healthcare financing system. We patients spend a lot of time working for the insurance companies for free as well: Kevin Drum: How Big Is the Underground Cost of Health Care? https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/07/how-big-is-the-underground-cost-of-health-care/: ‘the health care system... massively inefficient and prone to errors, most of which end up falling on patients to fix... on hold making appointments... medication errors... arguing with insurance companies... back-and-forth... telling doctors what some other doctor said... miscommunications caused by the fact that doctors typically know nothing about the actual operation of their own industry. Etc.... elements of the health care system that are outsourced to patients themselves. It never gets accounted for, but for all practical purposes the health care system relies on the unpaid labor of patients... I have never seen a study that tries to compare this underground cost among countries... .#noted #2020-08-15

Briefly Noted:

Hamilton Project: Black Households & COVID-19: Impediments to Economic Security https://www.hamiltonproject.org/events/black_households_covid_19_impediments_to_economic_security: ‘how COVID-19 has exacerbated racial economic inequality... Maya Rockeymoore Cummings... Jevay Grooms... Bradley Hardy... Trevon Logan... Stephanie Rawlings-Blake... & Danyelle Solomon…

Philip Stephens: An Election to Decide America’s Place in þe World https://www.ft.com/content/876ba013-65d1-47aa-b8b0-79445efa7f71: ‘November’s contest will be as consequential for the world as any since Franklin D Roosevelt…

Ashley Nunes: Ride-hailing’s Collapsing House of Cards https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/08/13/1597305329000/Ride-hailing-s-collapsing-house-of-cards/: ‘Ride-hailing’s profitability aspirations ultimately conflict with its desire to upend the global auto market. These companies have a choice. By the virtue of raising or lowering fares they can either excite investors or thrill consumers. But they can’t do both…

Jim Sleeper: The Inevitability of Defending Henry Kissinger https://newrepublic.com/article/158897/barry-gewen-kissinger-nixon-foreign-policy: ‘Kissinger’s and Nixon’s bloody maneuvers—in Cambodia, in Vietnam—weren’t as necessary or inevitable as their admirers and apologists assert. Gewen cites the condemnations not so much to engage with them as to give his own assessments an aura of truth-seeking candor…

Andrew J.Jalil & al.: Eating to Save þe Planet: Evidence From A Randomized Controlled Trial Using Individual-Level Food Purchase Data https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306919220301548?via%3Dihub: ‘Climate change-health educational intervention reduces meat consumption.... "Win-win" message (EAT-Lancet Commission) leads to sustainable dietary change.... International food policy debate on interventions to meet global climate change goals…

Cecile Gaubert & Oleg Itskhoki: Superstar firms & þe Comparative Advantage of Countries https://voxeu.org/article/superstar-firms-and-comparative-advantage-countries: ‘We find that large individual firms appear to be a quantitatively important force in driving the comparative advantage of countries and its evolution over time. The granular structure of the world economy arguably offers incentives for governments to adopt trade and industrial policies targeted at individual firms…

Lacedaemonia as tourist trap: Plutarch: Life of Lycurgus http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Lycurgus*.html: 'The boys make such a serious matter of their stealing, that one of them, as the story goes, who was carrying concealed under his cloak a young fox which he had stolen, suffered the animal to tear out his bowels with its teeth and claws, and died rather than have his theft detected. And even this story gains credence from what their youths now endure, many of whom I have seen expiring under the lash at the altar of Artemis Orthia...

Plus:

Joel E. Cohen: How to Count Humans https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/lancet-population-growth-study-july-2020-by-joel-e-cohen-2020-08: ‘the global population is likely to peak in 2064 at 9.7 billion, before declining to 8.8 billion by 2100.... 23 countries... at most half their 2017 size by 2100.... By contrast, Nigeria’s population is expected to grow 3.8-fold between 2017 and 2100: Stein Emil Vollset & al.: Fertility, Mortality, Migration, & Population Scenarios For 195 Countries & Territories From 2017 To 2100 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30677-2/fulltext…

We kinda-sorta understood the economies of the past: the agrarian-age economy based on agriculture in handicrafts, the succeeding commercial-age economy to which was added commerce, the industrial-revolution economy based more on manufacturing and non-animal power sources, and then modern economic growth based on mass production and engineering communities. But now we have a problem. Our problem now is that, increasingly, our computer age information and attention economy works differently. And we do not understand it terribly well:

John Quiggin: Intangibles = Monopoly https://crookedtimber.org/2020/08/11/intangibles-monopoly/: ‘The fact that the most profitable companies, particularly tech companies, don’t have all that much in the way of capital assets compared to their market value. What they have is monopoly power, which has been increasing steadily over time...

I.F. Stone (1954): On Russia, America, and the American Press https://www.bradford-delong.com/2006/09/if_stone_on_rus.html: ‘If there is indeed a monstrous and diabolic conspiracy against world peace and stability, then isn't McCarthy right? If "subversives" are at work like termites... are they not likely to be found in the most unlikely places and under the most unlikely disguises?... To doubt the power of the devil... is... to incur suspicion of being oneself in league with the powers of evil. So all the fighters against McCarthyism are impelled to adopt its premises.... Nowhere in American politics is there evidence of any important figure (even Stevenson) prepared to talk in sober, mature, and realistic terms of the real problems which arise in a real world where national rivalries, mass aspirations, and ideas clash as naturally as waves of the sea. The premises of free society and of liberalism find no one to voice them, yet McCarthyisms will not be ended until someone has the nerve to make this kind of fundamental attack on it… .#noted #1954-01-01

Henry Farrell (2009): Death to the Keynesian Insect That Preys on the Life of the People! https://crookedtimber.org/2009/12/06/death-to-the-keynesian-insect-that-preys-on-the-life-of-the-people/: ‘It’s super-duper awesome! Charles Rowley, familiar to long time CT readers for his ruminations on the corruption of the profession of political science... and his bizarre attack on Avner Greif... now has his own blog. It’s everything that one might possibly hope for. My favorite so far is the bit telling us that: "the massive fist of free market ideas once again will smash through the false consciousness of Keynesian dreams, and voters will rush to elect leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan..." ‘cos it’s a level of rhetorical styling that I haven’t seen since I used to pick up the newsletter of the Maoist International Movement.... But the Obama=Sykes, Larry Summers=Fagin “post” runs a very close second... #noted 2020-08-12

An excellent and brand-new working paper by John Sabelhaus: John Sabelhaus: Restoring þe Federal Estate Tax Is a Proven Way to Raise Revenue & Address Wealth Inequality https://equitablegrowth.org/restoring-the-federal-estate-tax-is-a-proven-way-to-raise-revenue-and-address-wealth-inequality/: ‘There are four principal reasons why expanding the estate tax could well be the most effective and efficient way.... First, policymakers have repeatedly cut the estate tax over the past 20 years, without regard for the true economic and distributional consequences.... Second... the estate tax, in practice, is better described as an effective backstop to the federal income tax.... Third, the very failure to collect taxes on the true incomes of the very wealthy increases wealth inequality within generations and amplifies the inequality due to intergenerational wealth transfers.... Fourth... reviv[ing] the estate tax—doing so would greatly improve the overall fiscal outlook of the federal government, and in a highly progressive way… .#equitablegrowth #noted #2020-08-14

I have talked about this before. But now it is back on the agenda in a much more salient way for a large number of reasons, of which perhaps the largest is the police murder of George Floyd:

Bradley Hardy & Trevon Logan: Race & þe Lack of Intergenerational Economic Mobility in þe United States https://equitablegrowth.org/race-and-the-lack-of-intergenerational-economic-mobility-in-the-united-states/: ‘Geographic and racial differences in economic mobility are particularly important from a policy perspective for three reasons. First, racial differences in mobility can exacerbate racial differences in other areas.... Second, inequalities in opportunity are antithetical to our nation’s creed.... Third, structural differences in mobility limit the potential for overall U.S. economic growth.... The historic links between intergenerational economic mobility and race and income inequality.... The known policy remedies for persistently low intergenerational economic mobility among African Americans.... A mix of policies to promote more equitable housing and educational opportunities alongside moves to boost income security and wealth accumulation… .#equitablegrowth #noted #2020-08-14

Better news from the labor market than I was expecting: while the coronavirus plague is still on the increase nationwide, that has not spilled over to further depress the economy—at least not yet. However, to the extent that we could suppress the virus cheaply and easily by accepting a deepening of the recession, we would be fools to be pleased that we are not doing so:

Equitable Growth: 'Regular continued claims, or the number of workers who are now insured, fell to 15.2 million the week ending August 1... 10.4 percent https://twitter.com/equitablegrowth/status/1293889469851095041.... For the week ending August 8, 831,856 workers filed for regular unemployment benefits.... States reported that another 488,622 workers filed for initial PUA, the program that extended eligibility to some workers, such as caretakers, the self-employed, and those without enough earnings history, who are not eligible for regular jobless benefits.... Experts warn that President Trump’s presidential memorandum on UI is regressive (it excludes those receiving less than $100 in unemployment benefits) and extremely difficult to implement (states might have to set up entirely new delivery systems)… .#noted #2020-08-14

If Uber cannot be profitable if the government requires it to pay its workers enough that they make at least minimum wage, than Uber is not a value-adding firm. It is, rather, a value-destroying firm—like the state-owned enterprises of behind the Iron Curtain. Capital should flow to something that can be profitable when it pays workers minimum wage. Workers should take up better-paying options. If Uber needs a playing field especially tilted towards it to survive, it is a net negative for the economy. That's just Econ 1:

Corey Husak: 'Uber‘s CEO... [is] asking for a complete re-shaping of labor law https://twitter.com/CoreyHusak/status/1293630881349992449 just to fit their profit scheme.... Their real innovation was finding tricks to pay drivers less than their competitors... [by] making workers contractors instead of employees.... Larry Mishel at EPI found that after deducting expenses, Uber fees, taxes, and the benefits they’d make as employees, Uber drivers take home only $9.21/hr, of the $22/hr they generate in fares.... A lack of benefits makes them among the most exposed to the effects of the #coronavirus recession. A normal person looks at this and thinks “Drivers need support. Uber should follow minimum wage laws.”... However, paying workers more would hurt profits, so Uber claims they couldn’t possibly provide their drivers the same rights and benefits as most other employers…

Minnesota as the most likely tipping-point state. Democratic edge (in order): Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire, Michigan. Republican edge (in order): Florida, Arizona, Nebraska (2), North Carolina, Ohio: 538: 2020 Election Forecast https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/… .#highlighted #noted #politics #2020-08-13

The ghouls who ran Herman Cain's twitter feed while he fought for his life & then drowned in his hospital bed continue the grift: Rob Beschizza: Herman Cain Tweets From Beyond Þe Grave https://boingboing.net/2020/08/13/herman-cain-tweets-from-beyond.html: ‘Herman Cain... banal pro-Trump propaganda... a grim month-long spectacle seemingly pumped out by political handlers willing to speak with Cain's voice even as that voice ceased to exist. I speculated that the tweets would continue after his death, a melding of Trumpian incompetence, obscenity and indifference. I was asked to stop posting on grounds of "Rob, He Just Died", but sadly that exortation was not made to whoever is wearing Cain's corpse today on Twitter… .#noted #orangehairedbaboons #2020-08-13

Reporters without Borders: The Uncensored Library https://www.uncensoredlibrary.com/en…

Wikipedia: Adalbert von Bredow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalbert_von_Bredow: ‘Von Bredow married Dr. Elise Cäcilie Friederike Kühne in 1849. It took a lot of convincing to get her to go out with him... [a] known and respected academic and long head of university departments…

Aliette de Bodard: The Inaccessibility of Heaven https://uncannymagazine.com/article/the-inaccessibility-of-heaven/: ‘Night. A night like any other in Starhollow: the headlights of cars, small and lost between the skyscrapers; the smell of hydromel and wine wafting from those few bars still open; and above me, the distant light of the stars, a constant reminder of the inaccessibility of Heaven…

Julie E. Czerneda: The Big Idea https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/08/12/the-big-idea-julie-e-czerneda-2/: ‘Alien Squabbles? Worlds in Conflict? Come to the Web Shifter’s Library! The library in question is the All Species’ Library of Linguistics and Culture. It began, quite simply, as a way for trouble to find my characters: Esen-alit-Quar, the semi-immortal shapeshifting Web-being, and her Human friend, Paul Ragem…

Rob Beschizza: Ilhan Omar Thrashes Well-Funded Primary Challenger https://boingboing.net/2020/08/12/illhan-omar-thrashes-well-fund.html: ‘Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar fended off a well-funded challenger in yesterday's primary election and is and is now all but certain to retain her seat in November's general. Antone Melton-Meaux raised millions in the 5th district race but conceded…

Elizabeth Choe & al.: Becoming the Next Bill Nye: Writing and Hosting the Educational Show https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biological-engineering/20-219-becoming-the-next-bill-nye-writing-and-hosting-the-educational-show-january-iap-2015/instructor-insights/…

Williams-Sonoma Taste: Chicken with Mustard Cream Sauce https://blog.williams-sonoma.com/chicken-with-mustard-cream-sauce/…

Naked Wines http://nakedwines.com…

Mark Frauenfelder: "Phoenix Checklist": The Plan https://boingboing.net/2019/02/28/heres-the-cias-phoenix-c.html: 'The "Phoenix Checklist" is a set of questions developed by the CIA to define and think about a problem, and how to develop a solution...

Plus:

Kirby Ferguson: QAnon, Conspiracy Theories, and the Rise of Magical Thinking https://kottke.org/20/08/qanon-conspiracy-theories-and-the-rise-of-magical-thinking: ‘1. Obsession with symbols and codes (e.g. pizza as a “deep state” code for child trafficking). 2. Dot connecting (e.g. linking 5G with Covid-19). 3. Behind every event is a plan concocted by a person (e.g. Soros and the “deep state” conspiracy). 4. Purity (e.g. the Satanic panic and heavy metal music). 5. Apocalypse is nigh (e.g. the “deep state” again). 6. Preoccupation with good and evil (e.g. liberals are not only wrong but evil)…

Plato: The Republic http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1497/1497-h/1497-h.htm: ‘Come, then, and I will tell you the story of Er...

Bob Pozen: Proactive Indexing: Index Funds & IPOs https://mailchi.mp/6bfedcf64bb7/proactive-indexing-index-fundsand-ipos?e=7e7976b4fc: ‘Index funds could generate excess returns if they bought IPO stocks when they were initially offered.... There is risk…

Raghuram G. Rajan: Should Governments Spend Away? https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/government-spending-debt-burden-on-future-generations-by-raghuram-rajan-2020-08: ‘Painful reminders of what happens when countries cannot service their debts.... The notion that anyone should be made whole because the pandemic “wasn’t their fault” immediately becomes untenable…

Sean Guynes: The Ursula K. Le Guin Reread https://www.tor.com/series/the-ursula-k-le-guin-reread/…

Matt Mikalatos: The Great C.S. Lewis Reread https://www.tor.com/series/the-great-c-s-lewis-reread/…

Duncan Black: Down Up https://www.eschatonblog.com/2020/08/down-up.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/bRuz+(Eschaton): ‘I'd like to ask some of the people who spun out their fantasies of how to open schools safely if any of them actually believed anything they suggested was possible, or if it was just a propaganda effort…

David Corn: The Republican Party Is Racist and Soulless. Just Ask This Veteran GOP Strategist. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/racism-republican-party-stuart-stevens/: ‘Stuart Stevens says he now realizes the hatred and bigotry of Trumpism were always at the heart of the GOP…

Josh Tyler: Star Trek: Lower Decks Review: The Best Trek Since DS9 https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/star-trek-lower-decks-review.html: ‘That the people making [it]... actually know something... is a much bigger deal than it might seem.... JJ Abrams... loudly declared he didn’t like Star Trek.... Abrams handed... over to his acolyte Alex Kurtzman... [who] wouldn’t know a Tholian from a Gorn if they were standing right in front of him…

Plus:

Scott Lemieuxc: Real Americans https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/07/real-americans: ‘Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically…. That logic may have swayed Kushner. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision maker as to what [plan] was going to come out”.... For you young people out there, it’s almost impossible to convey how long the idea that Democrats are snooty elitists who don’t care about anyone outside coastal urban areas was taken as a given in mainstream political coverage.... John Kerry was disciplined enough not to make a gaffe so… Maureen Dowd… [made] up a quote about NASCAR…. But when reactionaries from Wallace to Palin to Trump talk about REAL AMERICA, they mean it—it structures their entire worldview. Jared’s belief that the lives of people in blue states (who are less affluent than he is) are worth nothing is just a blunter statement about the ethos that governs Republican politics. It’s no different when Wisconsin Republicans declare they have the permanent right to minority rule because cities shouldn’t really count and the Republicans on the Supreme Court wink at multiple provisions of the Constitution to agree with them. They’re completely straightforward about it, and yet it gets much less attention than John Kerry ordering Swiss cheese on a cheesesteak...

Not much of a dialogue. But it is a story. Sokrates is speaking:

Plato: The Republic: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1497/1497-h/1497-h.htm: 'Come, then, and I will tell you the story of Er, the son of Armenius, a valiant man. He was supposed to have died in battle, but ten days afterwards his body was found untouched by corruption and sent home for burial. On the twelfth day he was placed on the funeral pyre and there he came to life again, and told what he had seen in the world below...

Virtual Economic History Seminar https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/crei/virhist: 'Following the Spring 2020 seminars co-organised by Petra Moser, Katherine Eriksson and Melissa Thomasson, we will continue meeting on Mondays 11-noon Vancouver / 2-3pm Washington DC / 7-8pm London.... Co-organised with Bitsy Perlman and Felipe Valencia Caicedo… .#economichistory #noted #remoteinstruction #2020-08-11

The House Republicans caucus could not govern when they were in the majority. The House was then run by a caucus composed of non-Tea Party Republicans negotiating with Nancy Pelosi, so that she would give permission for enough Democrats to vote for a bill to make up a majority.

Now it looks like Mitch McConnell has decided that his Senate caucus has the same degree of dysfunction: it looks as though he will sign on to whatever economy-rescue bill Pelosi agrees on with Mnuchin.

Here Karl Smith gives his take on how that happened:

Karl W. Smith: Coronavirus Relief Bill Has Republicans in Disarray https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-22/coronavirus-relief-bill-has-republicans-in-disarray: ‘The pandemic has left GOP lawmakers deeply splintered, not just over tactics or strategy but on basic principles. There are roughly four factions...

...If they don’t find a way to heal their fractures, U.S. workers and the overall economy will suffer even more.... Republicans... have traditionally supported government-led action and unrestrained spending only to battle foreign foes; with some notable exceptions, they have preferred to leave domestic issues to the private sector or the states....

The pandemic has pushed [one] group over the edge. Congress has spent almost half as much fighting Covid-19 over the last four months as it spent in nearly 20 years fighting the war on terror.... They are not prepared to spend another dime....

There is another group... that sees the main issue as the reckless promiscuity of the original Cares Act... that... gave potentially hundreds of billions of dollars to people who didn’t need it and created an unemployment insurance system that paid people not to work....

A third faction continues to believe that Covid-19 should be treated as external threat and that the full force of the U.S. government should be enlisted against it. That means more money for public health, schools and biomedical research, as well as continuing aid for struggling workers and businesses....

Lastly, there are a few senators who are not enthusiastic about more spending, but could tolerate it if it were accompanied by longer-term measures to help the economy....

Bringing them all together will require what the party is most lacking right now: a clear vision of how get out of this crisis with as little death and devastation as possible.... What that vision might consist of is anyone’s guess…

.#coronavirus #moralresponsibility #noted #orangehairedbaboons #2020-08-05

Republican Death Cult: Scott Lemieux: BREAKING! Completely Botching Pandemic Response Not Good for Incumbent President https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/08/breaking-completely-botching-pandemic-response-not-good-for-incumbent-president: ‘On one level, it’s depressing that this isn’t costing him more support[. But] he has almost no margin for error.... And in states where he goes down he’ll take Republican Senate candidates with him. And if that’s not enough, the decision by Senate Republicans to interrupt unemployment benefits and delay relief is highly likely to make the political situation for Trump and his Senate candidates even worse. As I’ve said before, this is a case where for once the interests of the Republican Party and the public interest are directly aligned — and they’re completely fucking it up anyway… .#noted #2020-08-05

The Kinda Socially Isolated Ghost of Henry Hunt: 'This, and Galadriel dropping a burn so sick Feanor https://twitter.com/EvanCooney0717/status/1290728350504423435 had to go lie down for another thousand years in the Halls of Mandos, are two moments that are SO much better with full context...

...Capn' Case: Wait what? I forget that part of the tome lad can ye refresh me?

Evan Cooney: 'I was asked to do a thread https://twitter.com/EvanCooney0717/status/1290728350504423435 on why “lore context” for Gandalf’s fight with the Balrog in the Lord of the Rings is so important and makes the scene much more intense and powerful than first impression. So here we go...

...Let’s focus on what is said. To keep this post relatable, I’ll stick with the lines from the Peter Jackson movies instead of getting too deep with the books, also Jackson does the scene justice IMO: “I am a servant of the secret fire” is a reference to the secret fire of Illuvatar, the monotheistic god of the Tolkien universe. The secret fire refers to his power to give life. Here, Gandalf reveals and identifies himself as not an old decrepit wizard, but one of the Maia.

What is happening during the coronavirus plague to work-life balance among those with small children? Some preliminary answers: Umair Ali, Chris M. Herbst, & Christos A. Makridis: The Impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. Child Care Market: Evidence from Stay-at-Home Orders https://equitablegrowth.org/working-papers/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-the-u-s-child-care-market-evidence-from-stay-at-home-orders/: ‘This paper quantifies the short-run impact of... containment policies on search behavior and labor demand for child care.... Using plausibly exogenous variation from the staggered adoption of SAHOs across states, we find that online job postings for early care and education teachers declined by 13% after enactment... driven exclusively by private-sector services. Indeed, hiring by public programs like Head Start and pre-kindergarten has not been influenced by SAHOs. In addition, we find little evidence that child care search behavior among households has been altered. Because forced supply-side changes appear to be at play, our results suggest that households may not be well-equipped to insure against the rapid transition to the production of child care. We discuss the implications of these results for child development and parental employment decisions… .#noted #2020-08-05