One paper with a seemingly interesting but simplistic bit of econometrics was not that important. There was already a large and pretty messy literature [cross country debt/growth empirics are unavoidably thus.
Nov 9, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
idk how anyone could describe what Musk has done to Twitter as ok. A short screed on disinformation on this platform: nature.com/articles/d4158…
One thing that struck me about this was how making the API now expensive to use, and therefore beyond the resources of most researchers, has the effect not of raising money, but stopping scrutiny of the poison on the platform.
Oct 17, 2023 • 23 tweets • 4 min read
'Breaking up the Treasury' to improve growth is IMO saying that chair-shuffling is holding us back. As a supporter of independent central banks, I'm not averse to believing that chair shuffling is important sometimes. But I'm sceptical in this case.
The key restraints on growth are the pressures [myopia, communicating difficult ideas] of electoral politics, the primacy of Parliament [obvs these are also the enablers of bad things that happen in autocracies or anarchies!]; the shortage of money; growth is very hard.
Sep 30, 2023 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
The 20mph limit policy is a good one to discuss as an example of how we work out whether decisions should be made locally or centrally.
There are two ingredients to the decision. Who has the best information about the likely costs and benefits of the 20mph limit? Who is most affected by the limit and experiences those costs and benefits?
Sep 11, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
To be brutally honest, the reasons for this chaos had something to do with you and @bbclaurak - at least this is a widely held view - and neither of you are right to tell that story and weigh up its causes.
@bbclaurak The BBC was not just a window onto events; it was an institution whose management was creaking under the pressure put on it by the culture wars, the polarisation over Brexit, a lack of money, and the government, and its own fear over the future of the license fee.
Sep 5, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Even if you accept that the deficit had to be cut as fast as the Tories wanted to do it [highly contentious] this could have been done with taxes, not spending, so this decision not to fund rebuilding schools was a corollary of an ideological preference for a smaller state.
Of course, many contested that the deficit should have been cut as fast as it was, given macroeconomic conditions [and how that put all the burden of countering the recession on interest rate and QE policy].
Aug 4, 2023 • 8 tweets • 1 min read
Tragic that either ideology or poor grasp of economics prevents Payne from understanding the damage Brexit did to the economy and our prospects as a ‘science superpower’ (whatever that means).
This in the very same thread he bemoans the lack of facility with data and code like thinking (!) others display but he benefited from!
Jul 18, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
'There is no money left'. False.
I bow to those who have been inducted into the dark arts of winning elections who think this is a good thing to say. But whether it is or isn't, saying things that are not true has its own corroding effect on politics and the discourse. 0/10.
What is the strategy? 'There is no money left. Oh how sensible you all are. Have my vote. Thanks. We won! Oh look, there is money left after all?! Hurrah.'
Jul 9, 2023 • 16 tweets • 2 min read
Sunak inherited extremely bad fundamentals; ailing NHS; Brexit harming the economy; Putin invasion pushing up the cost of living; demented right wing of his own Party.
His agency is hard to assess. Probably quite limited judging by his decision to reappoint the previously sacked populist Suella Braverman.
Jul 5, 2023 • 21 tweets • 4 min read
I'll try and answer. I've not seen if you already had a proper response so sorry for duplicating if you have. QT-ing as your questions are spot on and an answer is of general interest.
Too much money chasing too few goods - that's it. Whatever caused inflation to rise in the first place, it can't happen without that fundamental thing being true. And undoing it is almost always the cure, whatever the cause.
Jul 3, 2023 • 47 tweets • 7 min read
Thought I would try to pull together what I remember of the sequencing of the disaster that Musk has wrought on himself. None of this is really original. Probably a lot of it is contentious but maybe it helps just to tell a single linear story so you can fashion your own.
I think it was set in stone a long time ago before Musk thought openly about purchasing. He loved the celebrity, attention, immediacy, loved how it helped him boost his other projects. He craves approval. Hates restraint.
Jun 29, 2023 • 26 tweets • 4 min read
Fiscal rules are not entirely arbitrary. Strict adherence to them is; and typically not credible either.
The great power of states [just going to focus on democracies] is partly a circularity. Because they work and generate good things, they are consented to, and because they are consented to, they are expected to continue to generate those good things and future consent.
Jun 21, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Thanks. QT'ing as this is of general interest. The cause doesn't matter. Inflation is made by demand and supply together. We can't affect supply reliably or quickly enough, hence we are where we are and monetary policy is the main tool.
If supply were expected to improve quickly on its own, then the BoE's MPC would be justified in not responding, because by the time monetary policy had most of its effects, the shock would have one away of its own accord.
Jun 21, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
@mrjamesob heard an extract of you casting doubt on whether raising rates would bring down inflation citing Richard Murphy.
There is an awful lot of very careful empirical work demonstrating that it does indeed work, by economists in central banks and academia, using data from many different countries.
Jun 20, 2023 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
KB really is a disgrace to the debate on education and culture. Alarmist, hectoring ranting based on anecdotes. Unscientific. Irresponsible. Divisive.
A classic example of the genre playing out at the moment on her timeline:
Jun 20, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
This is worth a read but it makes some errors. vice.com/en/article/epz…
For starters I am almost certain that when they say 'GPT3' they mean 'ChatGPT' which is based on what OpenAI call 'GPT3.5'.
Jun 20, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This is not well framed advice. There are trade-offs. Greater ICU capacity could have meant reduced reliance on lockdowns and less use of the balance sheet to encourage compliance with them.
Making contact with the axe George Osborne is grinding, he could have cleaned 'the balance sheet' with tax rises, not spending, and we could have had a more resilient NHS going into the pandemic.
Jun 8, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
This makes no sense. It is always easy to return to Europe, because the benefits of doing that vastly outweigh the costs. Europe is large and near. We trade a lot with them. US alignment matters very little. Pacific trade also very little. They are far away.
Stating that is not nostalgia, it's just economic common sense. I'm certainly nostalgic for a time when prominent commentators and politicians understood these things. But perhaps that is looking at the past through rose tinted spectacles.
Jun 8, 2023 • 24 tweets • 4 min read
Lockdowns saved only 1700 lives in the UK? I note that there are about 1300 hospitals. So no lockdowns would have the effect of increasing the flow of covid patients into hospitals resulting in 1. 3 more deaths per hospital? Ie not at all?
Let's note that this a paper published by @iealondon , famously clear-sighted and non-ideological throughout the whole episode.
Jun 8, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I love this intervention. 1. 13 years into a Conservative government, whose responsibility is the curriculum [never mind that what she is saying is garbage]? 2. the inversion of Marxist false-consciousness theory. It's just beautiful. 3. Also the theory word salad in the name
Critical race theory. Social justice warriors. Critical justice theory. Social race warriors. Critical warrior justice. We must stop all this.
Jun 8, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The other thing about private schools that I think is unhealthy is that they amplify seggregation in society. Rich kids are not as exposed to poor ones and don't learn about those lives; and vice versa.
This might have two effects; ignorance about the extent and causes of poverty and whether it's deserved or not; and legitimizing the view of life as caste driven, obscuring our fundamental codependence.
5 subscribed