Will Andrew Yang actually become mayor? Will he be any good? I have no idea. I do know that he's dead wrong on his signature issue 1/ nytimes.com/2019/11/14/opi…
Far from seeing a huge, job-destroying surge in productivity, we're seeing very slow productivity gains 2/ bls.gov/opub/mlr/2021/…
By the way, the slowdown is really pronounced in manufacturing 3/
Yang says he's "done the math." Which math is that, actually? I can't find it in anything he's written — just anecdotes. 4/
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The difference from 2009, when Republicans managed to demonize everything Obama did, is amazing. Would like to see a serious poli-sci analysis. I can think of several stories 1/
1. Voters aren't scared of an affable old white guy 2. The populist nature of the policies has appeal 3. Rs paying the price for past deficit hypocrisy; nobody believes their posturing 4. The electorate has moved left
I actually don't know which is right 2/
But it's kind of funny to watch Rs keep repeating the magic words — socialism! job-killing! Democrat party! — in the belief that they'll work if only they say them often enough. 3/
Email from Peterson Institute for International Economics: John Williamson died yesterday. A lovely person and a major contributor to international economics — among other things coined the term "Washington Consensus" 1/ piie.com/publications/p…
Williamson also devised the "crawling peg" exchange rate system, which helped developing countries escape from repeated balance of payments crises. 2/ ies.princeton.edu/pdf/E50.pdf
And I've long been indebted to him for the phrase "the doctrine of immaculate transfer," for claims that capital movements can somehow take place without changes in real exchange rates to induce the corresponding trade imbalances 3/
So, will this be Inflation Freakout Week? Maybe, or maybe it will wait a month or two. But soon we'll be seeing some big headline price rises — and it will be important to put them in context. Even if you're worried about a long hot Summers of overheating, this won't be it 1/
Where we are now is that what looks like rapid economic recovery will run into bottlenecks that cause some prices to rise quickly — and temporarily. That is, it won't represent a rise in underlying inflation, it will just be a blip 2/
A fairly recent historical precedent: early 2008, when rising global demand hit bottlenecks in commodity production. Commodity prices really surged 3/
This interview with Brian Deese is excellent, but I find it quite disturbing. Why? Because I've looked for major ways in which I disagree with Deese, and I can't find any 1/ nytimes.com/2021/04/09/opi…?
I've been banging the drum for a while on things like describing short-term spending as disaster relief, not stimulus, making climate policy about job creation not just a carbon price, giving a lot of weight to political salability; spooky to see it all here 2/
Huge contrast with the early Obama years, when I was shouting into the wind about the underpowered stimulus and the foolishness of bipartisan fantasies 3/
That's a pet peeve of mine. Everyone knows that the $'s reserve status changes everything — everyone except people who've actually looked into the issue carefully 1/
I still see constant assertions that the US has a unique ability to run persistent trade deficits bc of $'s role. Except many other countries do the same 2/
Here are current account balances as % of GDP for US, UK, Australia 3/
I've been a bit surprised to see some Republicans opposing Biden's plans by claiming that the Trump tax cut for corporations was a big success. I thought they'd gone into hiding given its dismal failure 1/
I mean, we were promised a huge surge in business investment; here's what actually happened 2/
But silly me. The players involved here have a long history of denying plain facts that conflict with their agenda. Remember how Rs responded to the surge in Obamacare enrollments? 3/ newrepublic.com/article/117205…