Open thread Jan. 17, 2022 – Angry Bear, angry bear blog

From the NYT opinion pages comes Paul Krugman’s description of the two basic problems of a declining population in a country, Dr. Krugman ues China as an example.

China’s population declined last year, for the first time since the mass deaths associated with Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward in the 1960s. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that China has announced that its population declined. Many observers are skeptical about Chinese data. I’ve been at conferences when China released, say, new data on economic growth, and many people responded by asking not “Why was growth 7.3 per cent?” but rather “Why did the Chinese government decide to say that it was 7.3 per cent?”

In any case, it’s clear that China’s population is or

“Open Thread January 6, 2023,” Angry Bear, angry bear blog

By David Zetland (originally published at The one handed economist)

I had heard of Douglass, but man oh man, I had no idea of his brilliance.

His “Composite Nation” speech is full of wisdom and hope, offering a path to that “shining city on a hill” that Americans have had such a hard time reaching — mostly due to a desire to preserve “tradition” over “progress.”

(Listen to this Malcolm Gladwell episode on a segregationist in the 1970s — a man who has many imitators, led by T***p, in today’s America.)

Here are some excerpts that deserve your attention:

“We have for along time hesitated to adopt and may yet refuse to adopt, and carry out, the only principle which can solve that difficulty and give peace, strength and security to the

Open thread Dec. 30, 2022, Angry Bear, angry bear blog

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“This Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession With Growth Must End,” NYT. Portions are (or much) taken from David Marchese’s interview with Herman Daly in 2022. Economist Herman Daly passed on, October 28 in Richmond, Virginia. at the age of 84.

What made Herman Daly unique was his embracing of “the counterintuitive possibility our current pursuit of growth, rabid as it is causing such great ecological harm. In turn, the pursuit might be incurring more costs than gains. ” 

AB: I altered the Daly statement slightly to impose a statement rather than the question Economist Daly poses. Other’s opinion may differ.

Daly posits the prioritization of growth ultimately being a losing game. A position the economist Herman Daly has been exploring for

Open thread Dec. 27, 2022, Angry Bear, angry bear blog.

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By Joseph Joyce

The 2022 Globie: Money and Empire

Every year we name a book the “Globalization Book of the Year” (aka the “Globie”). The prize is (alas!) strictly honorific and does not come with a monetary award. But announcing the award gives me a chance to draw attention to a recent book—or books—that are particularly insightful about globalization. Previous winners are listed at the bottom of the column (also see here and here).

This year’s recipient is Money and Empire: Charles P. Kindleberger and the Dollar System by Perry Mehrling, Professor of International Political Economy at the Pardee School of Global Studies of Boston University. The book is an intellectual biography of Charles Kindleberger, who came to MIT in 1948 after having

Open thread Dec. 23, 2022, Angry Bear, angry bear blog

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From the New York Times comes this list of trends in real estate, houses, mortgages, and the impact on buyers and sellers.

The State of Real Estate

Whether you’re renting, buying or selling, here’s a look at real estate trends.

Rising mortgage rates. Faltering home sales. Skyrocketing rents. We spoke with economists, mortgage brokers and real estate agents to plot the course ahead.

Looking for a house in this tight market? Consider an octagon.

Hybrid work, layoffs and higher interest rates are leaving lots of office space vacant and hurting the commercial real estate business.

American home buyers are older, whiter and wealthier than at any time in recent memory, while discrimination is holding Black buyers back in all steps of

From Dan and Bill, and contributors to all our readers.

From the Washington Post comes this map of temperatures over much of North America, a result of the artic blast and winter storm begun today, Thursday. In the Boston area rain is expected. The temperature tonight actually is rising from from about 43 degrees F. to the low 50’s F. , to continue throughout Friday, and then eventually falls to 12 degrees F. by Saturday morning. How is your weather?

Tags: weather

By David Zetland (originally published at The one-handed economist)

I’m not shy about criticizing the weakest elements of economics (there are many), so it’s sometimes a good idea to remind myself (and you!) of the strengths of economics, i.e., those characteristics that make it useful.

Here’s an example based on a test-question I just asked:

You are a baker facing higher energy (natural gas) prices. Higher prices result from (choose one for each): (i) A change in demand or quantity demanded? (ii) A change in supply or quantity supplied? (iii) Which impact came first?

The start of the right answer lies in the question (“higher natural gas prices”), which result from Russia’s (recent) invasion of Ukraine, i.e., impacts from closing and

“Open thread Dec. 2, 2022,” Angry Bear angry bear blog

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A Tale of Two Recoveries podcast from the Roosevelt Institute compares the recoveries between now and the Great Recession. What’s Changed since the Great Recession?

The shifts in economic policy thinking over the last decade helped produce today’s record-breaking recovery.

Heidi Shierholz:

“The economy is not like the freaking weather, right? Like it really is a policy choice. The difference in the speed of the recovery really, really underscores just how unbelievably important fiscal policy is, like Keynesian stimulus, to generating a strong recovery in the economy.”

Joelle and Heidi discuss how to measure a recovery and the shifts in economic policy.

Fun fact: The US economy’s rebound from the COVID recession has been five times

“Open thread Nov. 29, 2022,” – Angry Bear, angrybearblog.com

By Joseph Joyce

The Struggle for Hegemony

The restrictions by the Biden administration on the sale of semiconductor chips and the equipment to manufacture them represent a new stage in the division between China and the U.S. The belief that increased trade would lead to a convergence of Chinese and U.S. interests faded years ago. The history of globalization shows clearly that the chances of Chinese as well as Russian acceptance of a liberal order overseen by the U.S. were unlikely, and a struggle for control inevitable.

The study of hegemonic power can be used to illustrate how discord can arise over the distribution of the global benefits of economic growth. MIT economic historian Charles Kindleberger made the case in The World in

“Open thread Nov. 18, 2022,” Angry Bear, angry bear blog.

(Dan here…lifted from One handed Economist by David Zetland’s Interesting Stuff)

Read: “…because of how people actually use Twitter, the lines between “comedy club” and “town square” and “room full of monetizable user data that drive advertising revenue” aren’t always apparent.” Related: “From being asked to review every product you buy to believing that every tweet or Instagram image warrants likes or comments or follows, social media produced a positively unhinged, sociopathic rendition of human sociality. That’s no surprise, I guess, given that the model was forged in the fires of Big Tech companies such as Facebook, where sociopathy is a design philosophy.“

This wasn’t supposed to be a website that hosts popularity contests where if you lose, you die.

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“Open thread Nov. 15, 2022,” Angry Bear, angry bear blog

“Open thread Nov. 8, 2022 Election Day,” Angry Bear, angry bear blog.

By Joseph Joyce

Making Friends in the New Global Order

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen gave a talk at the Atlantic Council last April on the future role of cooperation in the global economy. In October Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and its Minister of Finance, gave an address at the Brookings Institution that presented a similar perspective on how the global economy must be reorganized to meet security demands. Their speeches raise questions about how the new arrangements would operate, and how the rest of the world would fit into the proposed framework.

Yellen declared that the war between Russia and Ukraine had “redrawn the contours of the world economic outlook…” The sanctions imposed by the U.S., the other

“Open thread November 4, 2022″ – Angry Bear, (angrybearblog.com).

“Open thread October 28, 2022,” – Angry Bear, angry bear blog

Tags: Open Thread November 1 2022