Category: Equitablog

Lena H. Sun and Amy Goldstein: Beneath health law’s botched rollout is basic benefit for millions of uninsured Americans:

Adam Peterson’s life is about to change. For the first time in years, he is planning to do things he could not have imagined. He intends to have surgery to remove his gallbladder, an operation he needs to avoid another trip to the emergency room…. These plans are possible, says Peterson, who turned 50 this year and co-manages a financial services firm in Champaign, Ill., because of a piece of plastic the size of a credit card that arrived in the mail the other day: a health insurance card…. Peterson is among the millions of uninsured Americans who are benefiting from the Affordable Care Act…. ‘I get these messages from acquaintances on Facebook saying, “Let me keep my doctor”‘, Peterson said. ‘Well, what about those of us who didn’t have health insurance before?… I have been walking a tightrope and have had some twists and falls off of it. To not have to worry about this anymore is a tremendous relief’.

Writing from the land of tall fir trees, mandatory Pendleton wool shirts, and constant rain, the thoughtful Tim Duy notes that neither he nor the markets believe what the Federal Reserve is currently saying

Tim Duy: On Challenging the Fed: “Bond yields… breach[ed] the three percent mark at the end of last week. Mortgage rates have been pulled along… the sustainability of the housing recovery will again be questioned…. This very much looks like a challenge to the Federal Reserve’s forward guidance….

Continue reading “Tim Duy: What Is the Fed Going to Do?” →

That upstart stripling whippersnapper Evan Soltas poses macroeconomists an interesting puzzle:

Evan Soltas: How Did We Miss the Swiss?:

We have ignored another economy [besides Japan] that has spent decades with extraordinarily and persistently low nominal growth and overnight interest rates: Switzerland… [where] NGDP growth has averaged 2.7 percent per year and CPI inflation has averaged 0.7 percent per year…. The Swiss National Bank’s monetary policy instrument, the 3-month LIBOR in Swiss francs… hasn’t been lifted above 3.5 percent in… fifteen years… has been perpetually at or just above the zero lower bound.

Continue reading “Evan Soltas Says That Swiss Monetary Policy Is in Need of More Attention: Monday Focus (December 30, 2013)” →

Must-Reads:

1. James Pethokoukis: 3 key ideas from what will be one of the most important books of 2014: “Here is an excerpt of that excerpt…. ‘We’re living in a time of astonishing progress with digital technologies—those that have computer hardware, software, and networks at their core…. Just as it took generations to improve the steam engine to the point that it could power the Industrial Revolution, it’s also taken time to refine our digital engines…. The transformations brought about… will be profoundly beneficial…. [But] digitization is going to… leave behind some people, perhaps even a lot of people, as it races ahead…. There’s never been a better time to be a worker with special skills or the right education… there’s never been a worse time to be a worker with only ‘ordinary’ skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots, and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate.'”

2. Paul Krugman: The Year of the Weasel: Just a brief thought about what didn’t happen in 2013, and what did. What didn’t happen was the same as what didn’t happen in 2012, or 2011, or 2010. Inflation didn’t take off; bond vigilantes didn’t turn America (or any nation that borrows in its own currency) into Greece, Greece I tell you. What did happen was a significant change in what the usual suspects–the people who have been predicting soaring inflation and interest rates, year after year–were saying. Did they admit having been wrong? No, of course not. But their excuses shifted. Through 2011 and even through 2012, it was still mainly “just you wait!”–inflation was coming any day now, or maybe it was already here but sinister statisticians were faking the numbers. In 2013, however, it became “I never said that!”–declarations that they only said that inflation was a risk, not that it would necessarily happen, so the failure of inflation to materialize was no big deal.

   “This is, I’d argue, a significant development, because it gives us a new window into the nature of the disagreement. As late as last year you could view this as a legitimate contest between rival models. But we’ve now seen that one side of the debate not only refuses to take evidence into account, but tries to dodge personal responsibility for getting it wrong. This has gone from a test of ideas to a test of character, and a lot of people failed.”

3. Tyler Cowen: Her: “As I tend to find Jonze’s work contrived I didn’t expect much, but I was bowled over by what is a must-see movie for anyone interested in tech, or the social sciences, or–for that matter–cinema. Two of its starting premises are a) we as humans now face shadow prices which lead us to deemphasize the physical world of things and live in a world of information, and b) if we are going to have AI, which consumes real resources, which Darwinian principles will govern what kinds of personal assistants survive or do not?  Will they enslave us, will they be our dogs, our friends, our trading partners, or something else altogether?  This movie is the single best place to start on that question.”

Continue reading “Things to Read at Lunchtime on December 29, 2013” →

Tyler Cowen has seen the thing, and writes:

Tyler Cowen: Her: “As I tend to find Jonze’s work contrived I didn’t expect much, but I was bowled over by what is a must-see movie for anyone interested in tech, or the social sciences, or–for that matter–cinema.

Two of its starting premises are a) we as humans now face shadow prices which lead us to deemphasize the physical world of things and live in a world of information, and b) if we are going to have AI, which consumes real resources, which Darwinian principles will govern what kinds of personal assistants survive or do not?  Will they enslave us, will they be our dogs, our friends, our trading partners, or something else altogether?  This movie is the single best place to start on that question.

Continue reading “Lunchtime Must-Watch: Spike Jonze’s “Her”” →

James Pethokoukis: 3 key ideas from what will be one of the most important books of 2014:

Here is an excerpt of that excerpt….

We’re living in a time of astonishing progress with digital technologies—those that have computer hardware, software, and networks at their core…. Just as it took generations to improve the steam engine to the point that it could power the Industrial Revolution, it’s also taken time to refine our digital engines…. The transformations brought about… will be profoundly beneficial…. [But] digitization is going to… leave behind some people, perhaps even a lot of people, as it races ahead…. There’s never been a better time to be a worker with special skills or the right education… there’s never been a worse time to be a worker with only ‘ordinary’ skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots, and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate.

In Race Against the Machine, Brynjolfsson and McAfee offered a numbers of ideas — there are even more in the new book — to help carbon-based lifeforms compete. Among them: 1) pay teachers more so better students want to become teachers; 2) hold teachers more accountable for performance by eliminating tenure; 3) encourage more high-skill immigration; 4) create special visas for entrepreneurs; 5) teach entrepreneurship throughout higher education; 6) create a database of “startup-in-a-box” templates; 7) lower governmental barriers to starting a business; 8) upgrade the nation’s transportation, energy, and communication infrastructure; 9) increase government funding for basic research such as that carried out by DARPA and NIH; 10) resist efforts to regulate hiring and firing; 11) lower payroll taxes; 12) decouple benefits, such as health insurance, from jobs; 13) don’t rush to regulate new innovation business structures such as crowdsourcing; 14) eliminate inefficient, crony capitalist distortions such as the home mortgage deduction and the Too Big To Fail big bank subsidy; 15) shorten copyright periods and increase the flexibility of fair use.

Here is the key thing: Even if you  are a technopessimist, that list of policy ideas makes pretty good sense anyway as way of boosting growth and helping more Americans flourish and prosper.

Paul Krugman: The Year of the Weasel:

Just a brief thought about what didn’t happen in 2013, and what did. What didn’t happen was the same as what didn’t happen in 2012, or 2011, or 2010. Inflation didn’t take off; bond vigilantes didn’t turn America (or any nation that borrows in its own currency) into Greece, Greece I tell you. What did happen was a significant change in what the usual suspects–the people who have been predicting soaring inflation and interest rates, year after year–were saying. Did they admit having been wrong? No, of course not. But their excuses shifted. Through 2011 and even through 2012, it was still mainly “just you wait!”–inflation was coming any day now, or maybe it was already here but sinister statisticians were faking the numbers. In 2013, however, it became “I never said that!”–declarations that they only said that inflation was a risk, not that it would necessarily happen, so the failure of inflation to materialize was no big deal.

This is, I’d argue, a significant development, because it gives us a new window into the nature of the disagreement. As late as last year you could view this as a legitimate contest between rival models. But we’ve now seen that one side of the debate not only refuses to take evidence into account, but tries to dodge personal responsibility for getting it wrong. This has gone from a test of ideas to a test of character, and a lot of people failed.

Underpinning the value of gold is that if all else fails you can use it to make pretty things. Underpinning the value of the dollar is a combination of (a) the fact that you can use them to pay your taxes to the U.S. government, and (b) that the Federal Reserve is a potential dollar sink and has promised to buy them back and extinguish them if their real value starts to sink at (much) more than 2%/year (yes, I know).

Placing a ceiling on the value of gold is mining technology, and the prospect that if its price gets out of whack for long on the upside a great deal more of it will be created. Placing a ceiling on the value of the dollar is the Federal Reserve’s role as actual dollar source, and its commitment not to allow deflation to happen.

Placing a ceiling on the value of bitcoins is computer technology and the form of the hash function… until the limit of 21 million bitcoins is reached. Placing a floor on the value of bitcoins is… what, exactly?

At the moment, it’s only a $10 billion bubble–or, if you are going to convince me that it is not a bubble, you are going to have to find me a market player willing to become a bitcoin sink…

Timothy B. Lee has smart things to say:

Continue reading “Watching Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Etc…” →

Must-Reads:

1. Wonkblog: Emily Oster’s graph of the year: Why is the U.S. falling behind in life expectancy?: Emily Oster: “Amidst all the focus on health insurance, I think it’s crucial not to lose focus on the fact that–insurance or not–the United States is lagging behind in health status. This chart–from a broader report–demonstrates not only how low our life expectancy is relative to other developed countries, but also how far we have fallen even in the last 30 years. Why are we not realizing the same gains that countries with comparable incomes are?”

2. Menzie Chinn: British Economic Triumphalism in Perspective: “Prime Minister Osborne has lauded the recent UK growth numbers as validation for the policy of austerity (recently relaxed, although he doesn’t mention that). Paul Krugman refers to the the Three Stooges in explaining the deficiencies of this logic. And Richard Portes (head of CEPR) states: ‘The current policies have been disastrous…. My view is pretty much the view I had a little over three years ago when I said the austerity program would be a disaster. And it has been. It has been responsible for the painfully slow recovery.’ So who is right? Well, I think it useful to compare the US and the UK. The former embarked upon a policy of fiscal stimulus, and then retrenchment, but nothing compared to the retrenchment implemented in the latter. And in the US, per capita GDP growth was much more rapid than in the UK.”

3. George Zornick: The dark money in climate change: “Robert J. Brulle… [finds] that climate-denial money has largely been driven underground to dark-money sources. About 75 percent… untraceable, primarily via conservative foundations and shadowy tax-exempt groups that obscure their funding sources…. ExxonMobil and Koch Industries… have withdrawn their publicly traceable funding in recent years, and that withdrawal tracked closely with an increase in untraceable funding. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what’s happening there. So why is industry money going underground?… Environmentalists have been able to achieve in the past decade or so is making climate denialism (1) seem increasingly kooky and unfounded, and (2) seem like the efforts of an industry that is protecting itself rather than one that wants an honest debate about the science…. The rush by ExxonMobil and other industry funders to obscure their funding of climate denialism could be a confirmation of those vulnerabilities…. If you force transparency into the system, corporate giving could at least moderate. The trends in climate denial funding suggest again that’s probably the case.”

Continue reading “Things to Read on the Evening of December 27, 2013” →

Wonkblog: Emily Oster’s graph of the year: Why is the U.S. falling behind in life expectancy?:

Emily Oster:

Amidst all the focus on health insurance, I think it’s crucial not to lose focus on the fact that — insurance or not — the United States is lagging behind in health status. This chart — from a broader report — demonstrates not only how low our life expectancy is relative to other developed countries, but also how far we have fallen even in the last 30 years. Why are we not realizing the same gains that countries with comparable incomes are?