Grasping Reality with All Tentacles: bradford-delong.com:

• Highlighted
• Teaching
• Reading, Videos, etc.

http://www.bradford-delong.com/highlighted.html

---

Plus: Five Very Recent Must- and Should-Reads:

1. David Autor and Anna Salomons: Does Productivity Growth Threaten Employment?: "Is productivity growth inimical to employment?... https://www.ecbforum.eu/uploads/originals/2017/speakers/papers/D_Autor_A_Salomons_Does_productivity_growth_threaten_employment_Final_Draft_20170619.pdf

2. Ezra Klein: It turns out the liberal caricature of conservatism is correct: "It’s depressing. But it’s true: Marc Thiessen, the George W. Bush speechwriter... is aghast at the Senate GOP’s health care bill... https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/29/15892504/liberal-caricature-conservatism-correct

3. Emily Gee: Coverage Losses by State for the Senate Health Care Repeal Bill: "The Center for American Progress has estimated how many Americans would lose coverage by state and congressional district based on the CBO’s projections... https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/news/2017/06/27/435112/coverage-losses-state-senate-health-care-repeal-bill/

4. Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca: Kansas or California?: "Donald Trump and congressional Republicans[']... claims are baseless... https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/increase-earned-income-credit-and-minimum-wage-by-laura-tyson-and-lenny-mendonca-2017-07

5. Larry Summers: Donald Trump’s alarming G20 performance: "the content of the [of the G-20] communiqué [is] a confirmation of the breakdown of international order that many have feared since the election of Donald Trump... https://www.ft.com/content/ea2849ea-6335-11e7-8814-0ac7eb84e5f1

---

Plus: Five Very Recent Links:

1. Adam Tooze: : "1917 opened a trapdoor to the future, less because of the Russian Revolution than because the US seized its chance to lead. It has continued to do so—until now..." https://www.adamtooze.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Tooze-Prospect-January-2017-1917-.pdf

2. Bill Gardner: Medicaid is good for children and makes them better adults | The Incidental Economist http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/medicaid-is-good-for-children-and-makes-them-better-adults/

3. Hatty Collier: Man behind controversial £350m-a-week for the NHS Brexit bus slogan admits leaving EU could be 'an error': "Dominic Cummings, the Vote Leave campaign director, described the EU referendum as a “dumb idea” in a series of tweets, and said other options should have been tried out first before the vote was called..." http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/man-behind-350m-a-week-brexit-bus-lie-admits-leaving-eu-could-be-an-error-a3579676.html

4. Austin Frakt: Where are the Democrats’ ACA fixes?: "Many hearing the question... will just assume there are no Democratic or progressive ideas to fix the ACA. But there are. I asked for them on Twitter this morning and here’s a taste of what I got, just as of noon today..." http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/where-are-the-democrats-aca-fixes/

5. Benjamin Wittes: On Twitter: "Ok, folks, since people seemed to appreciate my annotation of yesterday's collusion story, here are some thoughts on today's..." https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/884159304386957313

Should-Read: Emily Gee: Coverage Losses by State for the Senate Health Care Repeal Bill: "The Center for American Progress has estimated how many Americans would lose coverage by state and congressional district based on the CBO’s projections... https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/news/2017/06/27/435112/coverage-losses-state-senate-health-care-repeal-bill/

Should-Read: David Autor and Anna Salomons: Does Productivity Growth Threaten Employment?: "Is productivity growth inimical to employment?... https://www.ecbforum.eu/uploads/originals/2017/speakers/papers/D_Autor_A_Salomons_Does_productivity_growth_threaten_employment_Final_Draft_20170619.pdf

Live from the Orange-Haired Baboon Cage: Joseph Britt: On Twitter: "Why not a #thread while waiting for the next crisis, screw-up or outrage?... https://twitter.com/Zathras3/status/884044096003878912

Must-Read: Larry Summers is spending his time describing the elephant in the room:

Larry Summers: Donald Trump’s alarming G20 performance: "the content of the [of the G-20] communiqué [is] a confirmation of the breakdown of international order that many have feared since the election of Donald Trump... https://www.ft.com/content/ea2849ea-6335-11e7-8814-0ac7eb84e5f1

Links for the Week of July 9, 2017

Must-Reads:

• Cardiff Garcia: Slower US inflation isn’t just the result of “transitory” factors: "Despite cautionary remarks from a few of its dovish members, the Federal Reserve seems determined to continue uninterrupted down its course of gradual policy tightening... https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/07/07/2191021/slower-us-inflation-isnt-just-the-result-of-transitory-factors/
• Pedro Nicolaci da Costa: Income gap between upper-middle class and very rich: "Destabilizing levels of income inequality, once a problem reserved for developing nations, is now a defining social and political issue in the United States... http://www.businessinsider.com/income-gap-between-upper-middle-class-and-very-rich-2017-7
• Laurent Bach, Laurent Calvet, and Paolo Sodini: Risk, return, and skill in the portfolios of the [Swedish] wealthy: "Administrative data... the wealthy indeed earn higher returns on their asset portfolios... http://voxeu.org/article/risk-return-and-skill-portfolios-wealthy
• Nick Bunker: On Twitter: "Prime-age (25-54) EPOP up to 78.5%, Prime-age LFPR up as well to 81.6%..." https://twitter.com/nick_bunker/status/883302743401799680
• Roy Elis, Stephen Haber, and Jordan Horrillo: Climate, Geography, and the Evolution of Economic and Political Systems https://economics.barnard.edu/sites/default/files/elis_haber_and_horrillo_march_25_2017.pdf: "The agricultural economies of the hinterlands of the largest city in every country or proto-country circa 1750 predict roughly half of the variance in countries’ per capita GDP today and one-fifth of the variance in countries’ levels of democracy today...
• James Hamilton: Are we in a new inflation regime?: "I’m not saying the Phillips Curve has no basis in facts... http://econbrowser.com/archives/2017/07/are-we-in-a-new-inflation-regime
• Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca: Kansas or California?: "Donald Trump and congressional Republicans[']... claims are baseless... https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/increase-earned-income-credit-and-minimum-wage-by-laura-tyson-and-lenny-mendonca-2017-07
• Dylan Matthews: What’s the point of an anti-immigrant left?: "Beinart’s policy argument is... mistaken... https://www.vox.com/2017/7/2/15847840/beinart-atlantic-left-immigration
• Paul Krugman: Oh! What a Lovely Trade War: "I’m not making a purist case for free trade here... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/opinion/trump-trade-war.html?_r=0

Procrastinating on July 9, 2017

Over at Equitable Growth: Must- and Should-Reads:

• Arnold Kling vs. Brad DeLong on the New Deal: Hoisted from 2007 | Equitable Growth http://equitablegrowth.org/equitablog/arnold-kling-vs-brad-delong-on-the-new-deal-hoisted-from-2007/
• Equitable Growth: Equitable Growth’s Jobs Day Graphs: June 2017 Report Edition: "The prime-age employment rate rose by 0.1 percentage points to 78.5 percent in June. Employment is still recovering and looks to have room to run..." http://equitablegrowth.org/equitablog/equitable-growths-jobs-day-graphs-june-2017-report-edition/
• Nick Bunker: Weekend reading: “Post-Jobs Day” edition | Equitable Growth http://equitablegrowth.org/equitablog/weekend-reading-post-jobs-day-edition/
• Cardiff Garcia: Slower US inflation isn’t just the result of “transitory” factors: "Despite cautionary remarks from a few of its dovish members, the Federal Reserve seems determined to continue uninterrupted down its course of gradual policy tightening... https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/07/07/2191021/slower-us-inflation-isnt-just-the-result-of-transitory-factors/
• Pedro Nicolaci da Costa: Income gap between upper-middle class and very rich: "Destabilizing levels of income inequality, once a problem reserved for developing nations, is now a defining social and political issue in the United States... http://www.businessinsider.com/income-gap-between-upper-middle-class-and-very-rich-2017-7
• Laurent Bach, Laurent Calvet, and Paolo Sodini: Risk, return, and skill in the portfolios of the [Swedish] wealthy: "Administrative data... the wealthy indeed earn higher returns on their asset portfolios... http://voxeu.org/article/risk-return-and-skill-portfolios-wealthy
• Nick Bunker: On Twitter: "Prime-age (25-54) EPOP up to 78.5%, Prime-age LFPR up as well to 81.6%..." https://twitter.com/nick_bunker/status/883302743401799680
• Brian Dow and Dean Baker: Obamacare: Big Problem in Republican States: "The lack of competition in the exchanges is a serious problem... http://cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/the-collapse-of-obamacare-big-problem-in-republican-states
• Roy Elis, Stephen Haber, and Jordan Horrillo: Climate, Geography, and the Evolution of Economic and Political Systems https://economics.barnard.edu/sites/default/files/elis_haber_and_horrillo_march_25_2017.pdf: "The agricultural economies of the hinterlands of the largest city in every country or proto-country circa 1750 predict roughly half of the variance in countries’ per capita GDP today and one-fifth of the variance in countries’ levels of democracy today...
• Diane Coyle: Economics in Transition: Adaptive Markets: "Adaptive Markets, by MIT’s Andrew Lo, gives a superb and fascinating account of thinking on the frontier... https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/economics-in-transition-by-diane-coyle-2017-06
• Martin Sandbu: Central bank rush to ‘normalise’ monetary policy is ill-advised: "An understanding to “normalise” together, if one exists, would not be a suicide pact... https://www.ft.com/content/3ad81df6-6161-11e7-8814-0ac7eb84e5f1
• David Cashin, Jamie Lenney, Byron Lutz, and William Peterman: Fiscal Policy and Aggregate Demand in the U.S. Before, During and Following the Great Recession: "We examine the effect of federal and subnational fiscal policy on aggregate demand in the U.S. by introducing the fiscal effect (FE) measure... https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2017061pap.pdf

Live from the Republicans' Self-Made Gehenna: Scott Lemieux: But Then They Went Too Far: "Profile in courage Shelley Capito... http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/07/but-then-they-went-too-far

Worth Reading from Grasping Reality: February 2007

Twenty things worth recalling from February 2007:

Arnold Kling vs. Brad DeLong on the New Deal: Hoisted from 2007

Hoisted from 2007: Arnold Kling vs. Brad DeLong on the New Deal http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/02/arnold_kling_vs.html: UPDATE: Bruce Bartlett writes:

I just read your WSJ piece and you make one mistake. If Hoover had been re-elected in 1932, Ogden Mills would have been Treasury secretary, not Andrew Mellon. Mills became secretary on Feb. 13, 1932.

Fallen to Linkrot: Arnold Kling vs. Brad DeLong on the New Deal at the Wall Street Journal's website.

Here are my first drafts for the exercise:

Weekend Reading: John Holbo (2007): The Triple Will to Power

Weekend Reading/Hoisted from 2007: Will to Power http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/02/will_to_power.html: John Holbo has three posts that I think are linked: one about Josh Trevino, one about David Frum, and one about Karl Schmitt. Call it a project to analyze a particular current of thought—Dark Satanic Millian Conservatism. Here Holbo watches Josh Trevino say that we must not be squeamish about dealing death and destruction on people for no reason other than it would be convenient for our Imperial Mission; he watches David Frum say that we must make the lower orders fearful and stressed--the circumstances of the Donner Party are mentioned--in order to make them morally righteous; he watches Karl Schmitt say that it would be insane to go to war to make a profit but that it is our bright shining mission to go to war for no comprehensible advantage at all.

It is a trifecta:

Note to Self: Characteristics of Stock and Bond Returns since 1870

Any approach that postulates that the expected equity return premium of stocks over long government bonds or the expected real return on long government bonds is constant when compared across long periods is almost surely a bad idea. Here are the stock and bond reinvested portfolio accumulations:

Assignment Desk: Quantum Mechanics in Your Face!

So I took Sidney Coleman's wonderful 1994 lecture: Quantum Mechanics in Your Face!. And I grabbed the automatic Youtube subtitles from it, cleaned them up somewhat, and attached them to the video. But...

1. Somebody who knows what they are talking about needs to check the transcript for coherence and accuracy...
2. Somebody needs to prepare slides of the transparencies that Coleman put up on the screen—because in the video they are unreadable...

Any takers?

(Progress on this assignment, if any, will be tracked here...)

For the Weekend: Frederick Douglas: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?

Weekend Reading: Frederick Douglass (1852): What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?: "Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have... http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/

For the Weekend: Quantum Mechanics in Your Face!

Sidney Coleman (1994): Quantum Mechanics in Your Face! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtyNMlXN-sw

• Now if there is anyone who has any questions about the material on the screen at this moment, please leave the auditorium, because you won't be able to understand anything else in the lecture...

• The problem there—the confusion that was removed—was refusing to think of the cloud chamber as a quantum mechanical system. The problem here is refusing to think of Sidney as a quantum mechanical system...

• Now people say the reduction of the wave packet occurs because it looks like the reduction of the wave packet occurs, and that is indeed true. What I'm asking you in the second main part of this lecture is to consider seriously what it would look like if it were the other way around—if all that ever happened was causal evolution according to quantum mechanics. What I have tried to convince you is that what it looks like is ordinary everyday life. Welcome home. Thank you for your patience...

Must-Read: Laurent Bach, Laurent Calvet, and Paolo Sodini: Risk, return, and skill in the portfolios of the [Swedish] wealthy: "Administrative data... the wealthy indeed earn higher returns on their asset portfolios... http://voxeu.org/article/risk-return-and-skill-portfolios-wealthy

Must-Read: Federal Reserve not marking its beliefs to market edition:

Cardiff Garcia: Slower US inflation isn’t just the result of “transitory” factors: "Despite cautionary remarks from a few of its dovish members, the Federal Reserve seems determined to continue uninterrupted down its course of gradual policy tightening... https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/07/07/2191021/slower-us-inflation-isnt-just-the-result-of-transitory-factors/

Must-Read: As I often say, income stagnation among the income-distribution slots in the bottom half of the population is a thing—even with very generous valuations applied to cheap and ingenious high-tech information-age electronic devices and services. And slow growth in income over the past generation for the slots between the 50th and the 80th percentile is a thing as well. But one other factor in American political economy is that those from the 80th to the 99th percentiles feel hard done by—even though the incomes of those slots have increased at what would in any other age be taken as a healthy clip, especially if one values the high-tech information-age generously.

But they are unhappy too. Why? Relative income factors. They do not compare themselves not to the mass of the population or to historical long-run rates of income growth. They compare themselves to the top 0.1%—the top 150,000 households, about 6000 of them in Greater San Francisco and about 500 of them in Greater Kansas City. And they compare themselves to the top 0.001%—1500 households, about 60 in Greater San Francisco and about 5 in Greater Kansas City, and feel small: e^{(6 x 35)} = 8, after all:

Pedro Nicolaci da Costa: Income gap between upper-middle class and very rich: "Destabilizing levels of income inequality, once a problem reserved for developing nations, is now a defining social and political issue in the United States... http://www.businessinsider.com/income-gap-between-upper-middle-class-and-very-rich-2017-7

The Labor Market for Prime-Age Males Is No Longer Worse than at Any Other Time since the Great Depression!

That is all:

From November 2008 through April 2017: men born in 1983 have never seen a labor market for them anywhere in the previous post-Great Depression range, until now...

Still pretty bad, though...

Must-Read: Nick Bunker: On Twitter: "Prime-age (25-54) EPOP up to 78.5%, Prime-age LFPR up as well to 81.6%..." https://twitter.com/nick_bunker/status/883302743401799680

Should-Read: Brian Dow and Dean Baker: Obamacare: Big Problem in Republican States: "The lack of competition in the exchanges is a serious problem... http://cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/the-collapse-of-obamacare-big-problem-in-republican-states

Should-Read: David Cashin, Jamie Lenney, Byron Lutz, and William Peterman: Fiscal Policy and Aggregate Demand in the U.S. Before, During and Following the Great Recession: "We examine the effect of federal and subnational fiscal policy on aggregate demand in the U.S. by introducing the fiscal effect (FE) measure... https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2017061pap.pdf

Should-Read: Martin Sandbu: Central bank rush to ‘normalise’ monetary policy is ill-advised: "An understanding to “normalise” together, if one exists, would not be a suicide pact... https://www.ft.com/content/3ad81df6-6161-11e7-8814-0ac7eb84e5f1

Should-Read: Diane Coyle: Economics in Transition: Adaptive Markets: "Adaptive Markets, by MIT’s Andrew Lo, gives a superb and fascinating account of thinking on the frontier... https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/economics-in-transition-by-diane-coyle-2017-06

Must-Read: Roy Elis, Stephen Haber, and Jordan Horrillo: Climate, Geography, and the Evolution of Economic and Political Systems https://economics.barnard.edu/sites/default/files/elis_haber_and_horrillo_march_25_2017.pdf: "The agricultural economies of the hinterlands of the largest city in every country or proto-country circa 1750 predict roughly half of the variance in countries’ per capita GDP today and one-fifth of the variance in countries’ levels of democracy today...

Procrastinating on July 6, 2017

Over at Equitable Growth: Must- and Should-Reads:

• Public Spheres for the Trump Age: Fresh at Project Syndicate | Equitable Growth http://equitablegrowth.org/equitablog/public-spheres-for-the-trump-age-fresh-at-project-syndicate/
• Hoisted from the 2007 Archives: Clueless Brad DeLong Was Clueless: Central Banking and the Great Moderation http://equitablegrowth.org/equitablog/hoisted-from-the-2007-archives-clueless-brad-delong-was-clueless-central-banking-and-the-great-moderation/
• Josh Barro: GOP healthcare bill will poll badly no matter what: "Now I have to call those providers' offices and get duplicate receipts and upload them and allow seven to 10 days for processing... http://www.businessinsider.com/gop-healthcare-bill-polls-bad-changes-2017-6
• Patrick Iber: On Twitter: ".@davidsess has a phenomenal review/essay of @dandrezner's The Ideas Industry in the latest @NewRepublic... https://twitter.com/PatrickIber/status/874438806287659008
• Paul Krugman (2015): When Values Disappear: "Back in the 60s and 70s... there was much talk about the disintegration of... African-American values... https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/when-values-disappear/
• James Hamilton: Are we in a new inflation regime?: "I’m not saying the Phillips Curve has no basis in facts... http://econbrowser.com/archives/2017/07/are-we-in-a-new-inflation-regime
• Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca: Kansas or California?: "Donald Trump and congressional Republicans[']... claims are baseless... https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/increase-earned-income-credit-and-minimum-wage-by-laura-tyson-and-lenny-mendonca-2017-07
• Dylan Matthews: What’s the point of an anti-immigrant left?: "Beinart’s policy argument is... mistaken... https://www.vox.com/2017/7/2/15847840/beinart-atlantic-left-immigration
• Paul Krugman: Oh! What a Lovely Trade War: "I’m not making a purist case for free trade here... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/opinion/trump-trade-war.html?_r=0

Should-Read: Josh Barro: GOP healthcare bill will poll badly no matter what: "Now I have to call those providers' offices and get duplicate receipts and upload them and allow seven to 10 days for processing... http://www.businessinsider.com/gop-healthcare-bill-polls-bad-changes-2017-6

Should-Read: Dan Diamond: On Twitter: Many GOP senators, home for recess, woke up today to front-page stories about the local damage their health bill would cause... https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/881613460014063623

Should-Read: Patrick Iber: On Twitter: ".@davidsess has a phenomenal review/essay of @dandrezner's The Ideas Industry in the latest @NewRepublic... https://twitter.com/PatrickIber/status/874438806287659008

Should-Read: Paul Krugman (2015): When Values Disappear: "Back in the 60s and 70s... there was much talk about the disintegration of... African-American values... https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/when-values-disappear/

Must-Read: James Hamilton: Are we in a new inflation regime?: "I’m not saying the Phillips Curve has no basis in facts... http://econbrowser.com/archives/2017/07/are-we-in-a-new-inflation-regime

Must-Read: Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca: Kansas or California?: "Donald Trump and congressional Republicans[']... claims are baseless... https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/increase-earned-income-credit-and-minimum-wage-by-laura-tyson-and-lenny-mendonca-2017-07

Comment of the Day: Investingidiocy: How Leveraged Should Your Stock Market Investments Have Been? http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/07/here-we-have-robert-shillers-stock-market-index-data-since-1871-the-cumulative-real-return-from-investing-in-the-sp-compos.html#comment-6a00e551f08003883401b7c908de51970b: "So... Optimal Kelly. Right?..."

This is what happens (or would have happened). That's the baseline for discussing what one should have done (and what one should do). But it doesn't lead to any immediate conclusions, as issues are complex...

Public Spheres for the Trump Age: Fresh at Project Syndicate

Fresh at Project Syndicate: Public Spheres for the Trump Age https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/universities-in-the-age-of-trump-by-j--bradford-delong-2017-07: BERKELEY – In many societies, universities are the main bastions of ideological and intellectual independence. We count on them to transmit our values to the young, and to support short- and long-run inquiries into the human condition. In Donald Trump’s America, they are more important than ever.

Unlike universities, for-profit media enterprises have never been up to the task of nurturing a robust “public sphere.” Inevitably, their coverage reflects enormous pressure to please the base – their advertisers or investors – or at least to avoid giving offense. That is why the American writer and political commentator Walter Lippmann – no stranger to journalism – ultimately put his trust in public intellectuals working in universities, think tanks, or other niches. Read MOAR at Project Syndicate

Ten Years Ago at Grasping Reality: July 1-4, 2007

Worth highlighting and remembering: first, something to remember this holiday:

• Happy Fourth of July! http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/happy-fourth-of.html: Herodotos of Halikarnassos: "When held in subjection they would not do their best, for they were working for a taskmaster, but, when freed, they sought to win, because each was trying to achieve for his very self..."

Two on how clueless I was on what was about to come down in the economy:

• Brad DeLong having no clue what is coming: Central Banking and the Great Moderation http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/central-banking.html

• Felix Salmon is clueless about what is coming down: Subprime Mess: It's Not Derivatives' Fault http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/subprime-mess-i.html: It's not the derivatives, it's the loans, says Felix Salmon: "I'm sure it's been happening a lot in idle conversation, but it's still disheartening to see it happening in on the front page of a WSJ section: confusing illiquidity problems in the subprime market with more theoretical worries about derivatives..."

How Leveraged Should Your Stock Market Investments Have Been?

How Leveraged Should Your Stock Market Investments Have Been?

J. Bradford DeLong and Siyuen Chen

Here http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data.htm we have Robert Shiller's working, updated data series for the U.S. stock market over the long run: starting in 1871—back when the stock market was overwhelmingly railroads—with the Cowles Commission Index then spliced to the S&P Composite http://delong.typepad.com/2017-06-30-shillerdata.csv.

If you had taken 1 in real value, invested it in the stock market in January 1871, reinvested the dividends, and paid no taxes, you would have 16,000 today. Such are the returns to patience, risk-bearing, diversification, and capital ownership in the extraordinary economic boom that was the extended American century.

Live from America's Better Self: Noah Smith: On Twitter: "1/Happy Birthday, America! In honor of the Fourth of July, here is a thread full of Daniel Inouye quotes...." https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/882155883878207488

Must-Read: I must say: many—most?— of those who made their careers at the Old New Republic—advancing in the world by catering to the prejudices and bigotries of Marty Peretz—acquired some very bad habits of rhetoric and argument thereby, which still poison what they say and think.

Indeed, in many cases I think that they can no longer think honestly and accurately.

Give me a ticket-punching card-carrying member of the Juicebox Mafia any day.

Dylan Matthews on Peter Beinart:

Dylan Matthews: What’s the point of an anti-immigrant left?: "Beinart’s policy argument is... mistaken... https://www.vox.com/2017/7/2/15847840/beinart-atlantic-left-immigration

Must-Read: Well, I'll make the purist case for free trade: The China shock was a shock. Shocks are bad for those who get hit, and are much, much worse when the overall macroeconomy is not at full employment. Because foreigners don't vote, blaming trade rather than accepting responsibility is the modal response of politicians to any shock that can be linked to trade in any way. We economists need to push back against that modal political response:

Paul Krugman: Oh! What a Lovely Trade War: "I’m not making a purist case for free trade here... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/opinion/trump-trade-war.html?_r=0

Monday Smackdown: Bernard Lewis Makes His Bid for the Stupidest-Man-Alive Prize (Hoisted from 2007)

2007: Bernard Lewis Makes His Bid for the Stupidest-Man-Alive Prize http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/03/bernard_lewis_m.html: Has Bernard Lewis always been this stupid, and did I just not notice?

Washington Wire—WSJ.com: Bernard Lewis drew a standing ovation from a packed house of conservative luminaries Wednesday night in a lecture that described Muslim migration to Europe as an Islamic attack on the West and defended the Crusades as “a late, limited and successful imitation of the jihad” that spread Islam across much of the globe. Lewis gave the nearly hour-long speech at the annual black-tie dinner of the American Enterprise Institute after receiving the group’s Irving Kristol Award. Among the attendees were Vice President Dick Cheney, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton and ex-Pentagon official Richard Perle. Notably absent was I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby....

Hoisted from the 2007 Archives: Clueless Brad DeLong Was Clueless: Central Banking and the Great Moderation

Hoisted from the 2007 Archives: Wow! I had no clue in mid-2007 what was about to come down.

I had no idea of how the money-center universal banks had exposed themselves to housing derivatives, how strongly the right-wing noise machine would lobby against the Federal Reserve's undertaking its proper lender-of-last-resort job, or how hesitant and ineffective the Federal Reserve would turn out to be in the summer and fall of 2008:

Hoisted from YHWH's Archives: Sonia Sotomayor

We remember the right-wing slime machine's opposition to the confirmation of Justice Sotomayor because she had excessive "empathy": Here we have The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Time, and the truly execrable Atlantic, the printing presses of which should melt in a fire.

A higher authority—YHWH—weighs in:

Hoisted from Other People's Archives: YHWH: 1 Kings 3 KJV: "And Solomon said...

...Thou hast shewed unto thy servant David my father great mercy, according as he walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee; and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.

Procrastinating on July 3, 2017

Over at Equitable Growth: Must- and Should-Reads:

• Jay C. Shambaugh: On Twitter: "More evidence of slowing inflation lately: core pce prices up just 0.1 p.p. in May. 12 month change 1.4% (down from 1.6% in 12 months prior..." https://twitter.com/JayCShambaugh/status/880804850002526208
• Doruk Cengiz, Arindrajit Dube, Attila Lindner, and Ben Zipperer>: The effect of minimum wages on the total number of jobs: Evidence from the United States using a bunching estimator: "We estimate the total impact of the minimum wage on a ected employment by comparing the excess number of jobs just above the new minimum wage... http://www.sole-jole.org/17722.pdf
• Martin Sandbu: The minimum wage wars are heating up: "The best thing Seattle could do now is to push ahead with its full experiment... https://www.ft.com/content/365f7e10-5d72-11e7-b553-e2df1b0c3220
• Steve Jobs (2007): Introducing iPhone
• Jay C. Shambaugh: On Twitter: Slowing Inflation: "More evidence of slowing inflation lately: core pce prices up just 0.1 p.p. in May. 12 month change 1.4% (down from 1.6% in 12 months prior..." https://twitter.com/JayCShambaugh/status/880804850002526208:
• Ezra Klein: Conservatives believe Medicaid is worthless, so slashing it is harmless. They’re wrong: "Expanding Medicaid saves lives at a cost of $327,000 to $867,000 per life saved... https://www.vox.com/health-care/2017/6/29/15885796/medicaid-senate-gop-health-bill-benefits-bcra
• Ezra Klein: It turns out the liberal caricature of conservatism is correct: "It’s depressing. But it’s true: Marc Thiessen, the George W. Bush speechwriter... is aghast at the Senate GOP’s health care bill... https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/29/15892504/liberal-caricature-conservatism-correct
• Sarah Kliff: On Twitter: "A stunning pair of charts of the CBO report from my colleague @alv9n https://t.co/nZHz8OMurV" https://twitter.com/sarahkliff/status/879460806198538241
• Atul Gewande: How the Senate’s Health-Care Bill Threatens the Nation's Health: "The Senate bill would also ultimately make people who buy insurance on the A.C.A. exchanges—people without coverage from an employer or from Medicaid—pay far more money for far worse coverage... http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-senates-health-care-bill-threatens-nations-health

Monday Smackdown: Kevin Hassett Self-Smackdown: I Think the (Extremely and Absurdly Low) Quality of Hassett's Analysis Here Speaks for Itself, Don't You?

Kevin A. Hassett (2007): Does Economic Success Require Democracy? http://www.aei.org/publication/does-economic-success-require-democracy/: "Sadly, no. In fact, the politically unfree countries are enjoying more economic growth than the politically free ones...

Links for the Week of July 2, 2017

Must-Reads:

• Jay C. Shambaugh: On Twitter: Slowing Inflation: "More evidence of slowing inflation lately: core pce prices up just 0.1 p.p. in May. 12 month change 1.4% (down from 1.6% in 12 months prior..." https://twitter.com/JayCShambaugh/status/880804850002526208:
• Ezra Klein: Conservatives believe Medicaid is worthless, so slashing it is harmless. They’re wrong: "Expanding Medicaid saves lives at a cost of $327,000 to $867,000 per life saved... https://www.vox.com/health-care/2017/6/29/15885796/medicaid-senate-gop-health-bill-benefits-bcra
• Ezra Klein: It turns out the liberal caricature of conservatism is correct: "It’s depressing. But it’s true: Marc Thiessen, the George W. Bush speechwriter... is aghast at the Senate GOP’s health care bill... https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/29/15892504/liberal-caricature-conservatism-correct
• Tara Golshan, Dylan Scott, and Jeff Stein: We asked 8 Senate Republicans to explain what their health bill is trying to do: "Vox asked GOP senators to explain their hopes for it. Who will benefit from the legislation? What problems is this bill trying to solve?.. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/16/15810524/senate-ahca-explain-please
• Tierney Sneed: 5 Points On The Brutal CBO Score Senate Republicans Must Overcome: "The new score offers Senate GOPers nowhere to hide... http://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/senate-repeal-bill-cbo-score-politics
• Nicholas Bagley: Crazy waivers: the Senate bill invites states to gut important health insurance rules: "The bill goes further to grease the wheels for waivers... https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/23/15862268/waivers-federalism-senate-bill-essential-benefits
• David Anderson: Reading the BCRA CBO Score: "The Congressional Budget Office is due to release their score on the Senate’s BCRA bill at some point today. Here are a few things to remember as you read the score... https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/06/26/reading-the-bcra-cbo-score/
• Benjamin D. Sommers, Atul A. Gawande, and Katherine Baicker: Health Insurance Coverage and Health—What the Recent Evidence Tells Us: "Perhaps no research question better encapsulates this policy debate than, 'Does coverage save lives?... http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb1706645#.WUriDI_R7Z4

Hoisted from His Archives in 2007: Glenn Fleishman on iPhone: "It truly feels like something dropped out of the future..."

Glenn Fleishman: Glenn Fleishman Likes His iPhone http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/07/glenn-fleishman.html: "My Real iPhone Review: I haven't had time to write up all my impressions of my first day with an iPhone...

...but I am perfectly happy to admit that it exceeded my expectations, partly because I was prepared to be slightly let down by some of the bigger promises.... What's still valid about my hesitation in recommending the first-generation iPhone is that AT&T's EDGE network truly is too slow for anything but simpler text-heavy Web sites and for email, and that viewing Web pages and other text that's designed for wide-column layout is hard to read on screen. The former problem will be solved with an updated piece of hardware that uses the third-generation (3G) cell network. The latter problem could be solved in software, by offering an option to rewrap text streams into narrower columns for better legibility.

Live from Cyberspace: I recognize the wisdom of Seth Lloyd's declaration that "one of my goals in life is to learn as few pieces of software as possible". Nevertheless, the Youngs now tell me that Python https://www.python.org is the wave of the future—specifically, a Python server connecting to a Jupyter Notebook https://jupyter.org client running inside a web browser.

But installing Python/Jupyter on my laptop made me remember an oddity of our culture once again. The experience of interacting with any UNIX system has a strong elective affinity with being a character in a fantasy novel—mysterious, incomprehensible forces and incantations that can go wrong in dangerous and inexplicable ways.

My notes on installation:

Ten Years Ago in Grasping Reality: June 29-30, 2007

• Two Links for 2007-07-01 http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/06/links-for-20-10.html
• Risks in the CDO Market: Felix Salmon: "There is cause for concern, to be sure. But there isn't cause for panic..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/06/risks-in-the-cd.html
• The Undervaluation of the RMB http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/06/the-undervaluat.html: Brad Setser: "I do not doubt that determining whether or not a currency is misaligned is difficult – and different models produce different results.  But some cases are easier than others.  $500b [a year] in intervention does provide a bit of a clue..."
• Treason to Libertarian Bro-hood is no vice, but rather a virtue!: The Nine Circles of Libertarian Hell http://distributedrepublic.net/archives/2007/06/30/nine-circles-libertarian-hell/
• A Note on "Al Qaeda" http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/06/a-note-on-al-qa.html: Jim McDonald: "What’s with that? They aren’t insurgents any more. Or Sunni fighters, or Shiite militias. or even Baathist dead-enders. All the bad guys are Al Qaeda. Kinda reminds me of Vietnam: 'How do you know he’s Viet Cong?' 'He’s dead, isn’t he?' Six years after 9/11 this is the only card left in Bush’s hand. If he’s so hot on Al Qaeda isn’t it time to find Osama bin Forgotten? Y’know, the guy who actually attacked us?"
• Media Matters Is Shrill! http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/06/media-matters-i.html: Media Matters on the clown show that is Fred Hiatt's Washington Post editorial board: "In September 2005 and January 2006, The Washington Post editorial board endorsed the nominations of John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito.... However... this term... the Post has repeatedly excoriated opinions written or supported by Roberts or Alito..."
• Ten Links for 2007-06-30 http://www.bradford-delong.com/2007/06/links-for-200-9.html

Should-Read: Sarah Kliff: On Twitter: "A stunning pair of charts of the CBO report from my colleague @alv9n https://t.co/nZHz8OMurV" https://twitter.com/sarahkliff/status/879460806198538241:

Weekend Reading: McSweeneys: I Only Protested the Affordable Care Act Because the President Was Black. Please Don’t Take Away My Health Insurance

David Bradley Isenberg: I Only Protested the Affordable Care Act Because the President Was Black. Please Don’t Take Away My Health Insurance: "Back in 2009, when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was being debated in Congress, I was fuming with anger... https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-only-protested-the-affordable-care-act-because-the-president-was-black-please-dont-take-away-my-health-insurance>