(Dan here…better late than not!)
by New Deal democrat
A better name for The Kids Today: iGeneration
You know the drill. It’s Sunday so I get to ruminate about all stuff that isn’t dry economics.

The oldest member of the Millennial generation is 38. Not only do I not think that The Kids Today would want to be lumped with that age group, but their uncool parents are probably precisely members of that group!

So what to name the generation that came after the Millennials? both “post-Millennials” and “Gen Z” are condescending and probably don’t cut it with The Kids Today. Remember, “Gen X” was originally called “the baby bust,” and Millennials were originally called “Gen Y” or “the echo boom,” before catchier names were found.

A good dividing point is

By Joseph Joyce  
A Guide to the (Financial) Universe: Part 1
A decade after the global financial crisis, the contours of the financial system that has emerged from the wreckage are becoming clearer. While the capital flows that preceded the crisis have diminished in size, most of the assets and liabilities they created remain. But there are significant differences between advanced economies and emerging markets in their size and composition, and those nations that are financial centers hold large amounts of international investments. Moreover, the predominance of the U.S. dollar for official and private use seems undiminished, if not strengthened, despite the widespread predictions of its decline. A guide to this new financial universe reveals a number of

By Jeff Soplop
What Happened to the Political Price for Lying? (Part 2)
Recently I wrote about the political price of lying and how there is a serious disconnect between voters (including republican voters) saying they want honesty in a politician and how they act. My initial conclusion was that many voters are lying to themselves and so, consequently, end up lying to pollsters.
With this in mind, the next question is this: just how dishonest are voters about their priorities? Behavioral science may help fill in part of the picture.
Some of the most salient behavioral research considers how we perceive honesty and integrity in others. In one notable study, researchers focused on how individual beliefs about the nature of intelligence altered these

By Jeff Soplop
What Happened to the Political Price for Lying? (Part one of two)
James Comey’s recent interview on ABC has resurrected questions about the importance of honesty in public officials. One of the key themes of Comey’s interview, and apparently his soon-to-be-released book, is that Donald Trump is “morally unfit” to be president because, among other things, he lies constantly.
Certainly Comey’s statements reflect a broad public despair about how untrustworthy the institution of the presidency is, as shown in the following chart from the Pew Research Center.

Figure 1

The level of public trust in government has actually been on a long-term decline over the last half century. And that decline isn’t limited to the presidency. The following chart

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts)
Thoughts on Capehart on Kagan

I ì’m reading the Washington Post and note one very outstanding op-ed by Catharine Rampell which you should just read. She links to excellent summaries of social science research and notes that Republicans don’t listen to experts and aren’t reality based.But I want to write about a dumb op-ed by Jonathan Capehart. I’m picking on him partly to explain what is so extraordinary about Rampell. The op-ed is a summary and review of a speech by noted neoconserviative Robert Kagan. Writing it did not involve googling. Capehart is, more or less, reporting a speech. He didn’t check claims of fact with various competing published sources. Now I don’t work enough to complain about his

(Dan here…Lifted from Econospeak)
Anniversary of Yeshua bin Yusuf dying on a cross.

Today is “Good Friday” for most of established world ruling Christianity. It is indeed the recognition of the single most historically realistically accepted event of the life of this world historical individual, his death on the cross a bit under 2000 years ago. Three of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and John, two of which reportedly observed this as live personal observers (Matthew and John) agree on the final words of this world-historical individual. Those were according to Matthew and Mark (the oldest of the gospels), “Lama lama, Sabacthania,” (“My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”).  This is , the mother-tongue of Yeshua bin Yusuf, the man who died on a cross just short

The story of globalization from a US point of view continues. Here AB reader Denis Drew is highlighted at DeLong’s website:
Paul Krugman on globalization
Brad DeLong asks ‘what did PK miss?’
Comment of the Day: Dennis Drew: GLOBALIZATION: WHAT DID PAUL KRUGMAN MISS?: “I’m always the first to say that if today’s 10 dollars an hour jobs paid 20 dollars an hour…

…(Walgreen’s, Target, fast food less w/much high labor costs) that would solve most social problems caused by loss of manufacturing (to out sourcing or automation). The money’s there. Bottom 40% income take about 10% of overall income. “Mid” take about 67.5%. Top 1%, 22.5%. The instrument of moving 10% more from “mid” to the bottom is higher consumer prices arriving with the sudden reappearance of

By Steve Roth  (at Asymptosis)
I just had occasion, in replying to a correspondent, to reiterate much of the thinking in my recent MMT Conference presentation. I thought it might be a useful and comprehensible form for some readers, so I’m reproducing it here.
I’ve also explained this at somewhat painful length here.
Correct me if I am wrong but what you are saying extends MMT into the private sector. The govt boosts balance sheets with stimulative fiscal policy. The private sector boosts balance sheets through asset price appreciation. Each creates “money” out of nowhere.
That’s one way of saying it. It adds a mechanism for asset (money) creation beyond “outside” (gov) and “inside” (bank) money issuance.
I’d say: MMT largely and Sectoral Balances

By Jeff Soplop
Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and the Economics of Privacy
Cambridge Analytica – the data firm that provided consulting services for the Trump Campaign – has come under intense scrutiny for the firm’s capture and exploitation of vast quantities of user data from Facebook. These practices have added new urgency to questions about how information is collected online and how to protect users’ privacy rights.
From The New York Times:
“The firm had secured a $15 million investment from Robert Mercer, the wealthy Republican donor, and wooed his political adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, with the promise of tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. But it did not have the data to make its new products

Lifted from comments by PGL:
The dollar has devalued since Trump became President:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TWEXB
Barry Eichengreen has some interesting thoughts here:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/what-explains-dollar-weakness-by-barry-eichengreen-2018-03
“One of the big ones in the circles I frequent is dollar weakness. Between January 2017 and January 2018, the broad effective exchange rate of the dollar fell by 8%, wrong-footing many of the pundits. I include myself among the wrong-footed (others can decide whether I qualify as a pundit). Tax cuts and interest-rate normalization, I expected, would shift the mix toward looser fiscal and tighter monetary policies, the combination that drove up the dollar in the Reagan-Volcker

(Dan here. Spencer sends this e-mailed post):
by Spencer England
Real trade balance and 1st Q real GDP growth
Figure 1
With the federal deficit jumping from 3.5% to 5% of GDP  the US will be expanding its current account deficit by a like amount.  You can see it in the January trade balance where the real trade balance has expanded from around $60,000 ( real 2009 ) to around $70,000 ( real 2009 )   or 16%.   The real trade deficit is the flip side of the federal budget deficit as the US turns to foreign capital inflows to finance the deficit.  We only have January real trade data reported so far, but it is obvious that the flip side of the Trump deficit is the plunging trade ( current account) deficit that was a major negative for 4th Q real GDP and is

By Jeff Soplop (Dan here…not so heavy post)
The Simpsons’ Predictive Powers Demonstrate the Limits of Forecasting
The long-running TV show The Simpsons is attracting much attention for some of its uncannily accurate predictions. The United States’ curling team’s defeat of Sweden in the Olympics – something The Simpsons predicted in 2010 – being the most recent example. And, of course, there is the notorious episode from 2000, which referenced a Trump presidency.
Given these examples and other predictions that have come true, I’m left wondering whether The Simpsons’ writers are good folks to ask for stock tips. Theories about the show’s prescience abound. They include those who believe its creator, Matt Groening, is a Freemason with supernatural occult

By New Deal democrat   (Dan here … lifted from Bonddad)
Real M1 and M2 growth the lowest since 2010
In view of yesterday’s inflation report, I take a look at the recent big deceleration in both real M1 and M2 over at XE.com.

By Steve Roth    (via Asymptosis)
Wealth and the National Accounts: Response to Matthew Klein
I’m both abashed and delighted that the truly stand-out econ writer Matthew Klein has offered wonderfully fulsome praise of one of my pieces, Why Economists Don’t Know How to Think about Wealth, and some very interesting discussion as well. Some responses here. Please excuse me if I repeat some of the points from the first article.
>His key point is that changes in net worth caused by asset prices fluctuations are just as important as standard measures of income and saving.
That’s important, but there are really three key points I’d really like to come through:
1. Wealth matters. Net worth and total assets. Those are absent from the Flow of Funds matrix, because

(Dan here…better late posted here than not…. )

 by New Deal democrat

HEADLINES:
+313,000 jobs added
U3 unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1%
U6 underemployment rate unchanged at 8.2%
Here are the headlines on wages and the chronic heightened underemployment:

Wages and participation rates
Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now: declined -40,000 from 5.171 million to 5.131 million
Part time for economic reasons: rose 171,000 from 4.989 million to 5.160 million
Employment/population ratio ages 25-54: rose 0.3% from 79.0% to 79.3%
Average Weekly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel: rose $.06 from  $22.34 to $22.40, up +2.5% YoY.  (Note: you may be reading different information about wages elsewhere. They are citing average wages

By Joseph Joyce
Not All Global Currencies Are The Same

The dollar may be the world’s main global currency, but it does not serve in that capacity alone. The euro has served as an alternative since its introduction in 1999, when it took the place of the Deutschemark and the other European currencies that had also been used for that purpose. Will the renminbi become the next viable alternative?
A new volume, How Global Currencies Work: Past, Present and Future by Barry Eichengreen of the University of California-Berkeley and Arnaud Mehl and Livia Chiţu of the European Central Bank examines the record of the use of national currencies outside their borders. The authors point out that regimes of multiple global currencies have been the norm rather than an

Hi folks…I am in a next town over at a friends and am online again.   Am also thinking getting a generator due to changes in climate….:)