Disqus - Latest Comments for yetanothermoderatevoice

Re: No, Republican Presidents Aren't Responsible For Most Of America's Debt

yetanothermoderatevoice — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 11:35:06 -0000

Mr Harsanyi: "I did notice a pattern. The above graph, like many of the other assertions in the article (Democrats cut corporate welfare and social programs? Obamacare held down deficits?), are misleading or highly debatable."

With all due respect, I agree that there are lots of debatable assertions here (e.g. about automatic stabilizers, cyclically adjust balanced budgets etc), but the data in the graph are still the data in the graph. Maybe there's an alternate hypothetical universe in which Trump, Ryan, and McConnell agreed on a balanced budget or a $1Tr budget surplus but we don't live in that universe.

Re: Refuse to Accept the Lies – Before It Is Too Late

yetanothermoderatevoice — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 23:02:07 -0000

Yes I have a question. What do you say about XXY?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

What do you say about large deletions?

https://rarediseases.info.n...

What do you say about the millions of genetic variants:

http://exac.broadinstitute.org

Re: Leader in GOP's reboot calls Obama a 'socialist'

yetanothermoderatevoice — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:29:28 -0000

According to Wikipedia one key element of socialism is social ownership of the means of production". Under that definition, if the government were to take a preferred equity interest in major banks that would be moving towards socialism. If the government subsequently sold those positions, that would be moving away from socialism.

Under that reasoning, how would you characterize behavior of the second Bush Administration versus the first Obama Administration in the banking industry?

Re: 2010 Amgen Tour of California teams announced

yetanothermoderatevoice — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:29:07 -0000

Neal: Where is the photograph in the article taken?

Re: The Ethics of ‘Walking Away” From Your Mortgage

yetanothermoderatevoice — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:36:05 -0000

Mikkel: As always your comments are thoughtful and on point. I agree with the idea about dehumanization - Scott Adams probably does the best job of exposition on that point of view. I'd quibble on corporations being faceless though - that people make the decisions they make seems to be pretty pretty predictable in terms of standard notions of principal versus agent problems. I.e. these "faceless" decisions aren't necessarily in the interests of shareholders any more than they are of other stakeholders and society at large.

I'm a little ambivalent on "local flexibility" and "personal relationships" in business. In addition to the good things to be said for it, they can also form the basis of nepotism, corruption, inefficiency etc.

Re: The Ethics of ‘Walking Away” From Your Mortgage

yetanothermoderatevoice — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 09:25:14 -0000

Adelines Dad (and Rick and Mikkel)

I agree that notionally there is a contract that specifies what happens in the case of defaults (and indeed credit spreads and credit rationing exist precisely because there are defaults). I also agree that a double standard is being applied. If I recall correctly, the idea that people in business (as opposed to individuals) don't have a problem with defaulting was pointed out by Tanta (rest in peace) at CalculatedRisk at least a couple of years ago.

However I think we should be a little leery of being too cavalier about this. It takes time and resources to enforce laws - criminal and civil - that could be invested elsewhere. A society in which people are generally honest, and generally meet their commitments is likely to be much more desirable to live in than otherwise - i.e. there is a positive externality to having an ethical citizenry. Companies and individuals enter in contracts all the time to do productive and value-creating things all the time. What kind of society would it be when your default assumption is that your contract will not be honored?

I think this idea dates to Adam Smith ...

Re: Health Care and the Moderate Republican

yetanothermoderatevoice — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:53:26 -0000

"I would rather have a system that use the free market as much as possible and has limited state intervention. We will probably never have a totally free market system for the simple reason that the Federal and State governments already have a hand in the health care system through programs like Medicare and Medicaid."

Umm, no. We will never have what you would call a free market health care system because health markets diverge radically from the
conditions needed for competitive markets to produce optimal outcomes.

As Goldhill says, Herzlinger (and Porter) are worth reading - they talk about various interventions to foster competition all of which are sensible, but the point is that none of this is "free" in the sense of pure laissez faire.

Keith Hennessey does a nice job of explaining here

Keith Hennessey explains more

Re: Why Conservatism is Disconnected From Reality

yetanothermoderatevoice — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:37:29 -0000

Rick: Thanks for posting. I always enjoy your comments here.

I think perhaps you are suffering a little bit from "Grouchy old man syndrome". :)

I would characterize "disconnect from reality" a little differently. I think many conservatives are very comfortable with high level principles and aspirational goals (more freedom, market based solutions, etc) but at least with the social conservatives and Tea Party folks, they are not grappling with the implementation of those principles and the tension between those principles. For example, the preamble to the Constitution says that:

"provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare"

Clearly, both of these things take resources, so what really matters is how you much is spent on each, both in absolute and in relative terms, and how they are paid for.

So perhaps another way of looking at your "we live in a modern and complicated society" view is that we have a certain level of "policy technology" that for a given problem provides a set of tradeoffs. E.g. with the current state of criminal detective technology, we have a menu of choices as to the number of guilty people who are set free versus the number of innocent people punished. Absent an improvement in the technology, we are stuck with those choices. So I believe that conservatives should be looking to people like Ronald Coase more than Ronald Reagan ...

Many of these tradeoffs are well known in economics. For example, when a vendor knows what's in their product (and it may be harmful) and a customer does not.

Source

The main area where I think conservative policy is really lacking is in thinking about groups of individuals. For example, during the debate about "private accounts" for Social Security, very few on the right seemed to make the distinction between a retirement savings plan and a retirement savings *insurance* plan. Since you by definition hold an undiversified short position in inflation adjusted income (i.e. your cost of living) ultimately any rational restructuring of social security would at least consist of private *pools* of individuals, not individual private accounts. This needn't be government controlled or sponsored (private annuities are more or less what is needed), but the point is the individual is the wrong level of aggregation.

One person who does, I think, is Arnold Kling.

Philwynk: I think you are mischaracterizing Medicare and Medicaid as price controls, if I understand it. They act more like a large buying block (i.e. a monopsonist) since providers are not under obligation to take Medicare or Medicaid patients.

Secondly "The 20th century showed us, over and over, what happens when nations pursue the progressive dream to its logical conclusion". I think that too is a false dichotomy. Paul Krugman and Jim Manzi have been sniping about this sort of thing recently. What emerges however, is that there are variety of policy mixes amongst OECD countries that don't have any discernible relationship with the long term solvency of those countries. Canada, for example, has provincial level government run health insurance, but has better long term solvency than the U.S.

Re: “V” for Villification: Liberal Paradise, Obama Nightmare (Guest Voice)

yetanothermoderatevoice — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:53:40 -0000

I have to say, I was way disappointed. When I saw the new Battlestar Galactica remake I was spellbound, whereas this remake just seemed lame in comparison with the original ... Seems to me if you're going to call something "reimagined" you have to, well, reimagine. Like Devo's cover of "Satisfaction".

The universal health care reference did seem pretty ham-handed, especially given that just about every other OECD besides the U.S. has it - so what would be their motivation for cooperating with the V's? BSG's messages were equally overtly political, but they didn't lend themselves to such easy answers.

Re: A Great Article On The Fourth Catalyst Of The Financial Crisis

yetanothermoderatevoice — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:22:29 -0000

"The third catalyst — and one that is nearly universally ignored — is global trade policy that enabled the United States to run massive trade deficits and assume the policies we did."

I'm pretty sure all sorts of economists talked about that for years, Martin Wolf wrote a book about it, Menzie Chinn wrote some high profile articles about circa 2006, Brad Setser seemed to talk of nothing else etc. Brad deLong even said that it was the crisis that everybody expected, rather than the one we actually got.

No?

Re: Book Review: True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society

yetanothermoderatevoice — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:47:37 -0000

I know you've been concerned about this for years, and it is a little dismaying to see. I had hoped that technique innovations (e.g. Jon Stewarts juxtaposing of "then" and "now" statements from people to point inconsistences) and disintermediation (e.g. why read the NYT summary of what the CBO director thinks of future entitlement costs? Go to the CBO director's blog and read the primary source) would mitigate, but it doesn't seem so ...

Re: Market Recovering. Economy Not. A Problem?.

yetanothermoderatevoice — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:45:40 -0000

AustinRoth: yes, it's true that the market tends to be a leading indicator. What I can't fathom is why, in this case. E.g.
1. Do we know anything more about the solvency of banks than we did a couple of weeks ago? (especially given that FASB just loosened the accounting rules)
2. The exposure of Western Europe to the equivalent of sub-prime sovereign debt in Eastern Europe is staggering.
3. Chinese exports dropped something like 25%.
4. There is a year hangover in housing inventory.

One intriguing idea is that implicit stimulus of the contraction in oil prices - James Hamilton has a post up today on that. So things may be just grim, not apocalyptic.

Re: Clinton Adminstration and Republican Congress, unindicted co-conspirators

yetanothermoderatevoice — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:26:29 -0000

I thought we already had a much richer discussion of this with (maybe by Mikkel Fishman) with links to the Fed's Kroszner, Barry Ritholtz, Martin Wolf, etc etc.

Re: In Sacramento, The Homeless Shelters Are Full; Tent City “Houses” 1200 People

yetanothermoderatevoice — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:05:42 -0000

With respect to the addendum, there is a catch name for the idea ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re: Ack, My Head Hurts. What Is Happening?

yetanothermoderatevoice — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:26:40 -0000

It sure would be nice to see monetary policy along with fiscal policy in Bartlett's article.

Re: It’s the Democratic Congress, Stupid!

yetanothermoderatevoice — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:16:39 -0000

Tony: "The sad thing about all of this drama is that it doesn’t mean anything that positively impacts the life of one single American citizen."

I'm not so sure this is true. Rush is advocating a particular point of view that apparently plays well at CPAC. His right to do so is in the Constitution, so I think this sort of discussion of ideas was envisaged as an important of the working of the country from the get-go. Over time vigorous discussion tends to lead to better outcomes. (See, for example, "One Economics, Many Recipes" by Dani Rodrik) That will affect the lives of citizens.

"the fact that Obama and the Democrats have no clue on how to fix the economy "

Actually this is not a fact, this requires an assessment of what Democrats know, and whether or not that is sufficient to fix the economy. If we take policies at their word, then I think you can find substantial support for their views among a substantial number of economists, and disagreement among others. People have been studying economics for a long time, and it is not as if they have *no clue*. A good summary is here: http://www.econbrowser.com/...

And a rather pessimistic assumption on the state of economic science to address this problem here:
http://economistsview.typep...

CStanley: "So, are you actually afraid the policies will fail and Limbaugh will be proven right?"

If only it were so simple. Obama is trying a massive policy intervention where there are a myriad of variables that might affect the outcome, and moreover, we don't get to observe what happens if we *don't* do anything. Let's say two years from now unemployment is at 6% - can we say one way or another if Obama's plan worked?

Re: Obama Enabler of the Irresponsible (Guest Voice)

yetanothermoderatevoice — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 08:54:41 -0000

The problem is right here:

"It’s a fact: people respond to incentives and disincentives. We work because we get paid, or don’t speed because we fear a ticket. People will act either responsibly or irresponsibly depending on the consequences. Obama’s bailout plans remove negative consequences to bad decisions."

1. It is, to a certain degree, self-referential that people respond to incentives. The problem is that we don't have very good models of what incentives people are perceiving or how they respond to them. Even John Cochrane doesn't know what's happening here - he refers to investors "pathologically" sitting on cash right now. (http://faculty.chicagobooth...
2. It is a *value judgment*, not a scientific pronouncement, to say that people act responsibly or irresponsibly depending on the consequences, because you have to define what constitutes responsible. For example, portfolio managers who operate ERISA pension plans are *required* to invest for the sole benefit of plan participants. While avoiding investment in, for example "sin" stocks like tobacco or alcohol might appear to be "responsible" from one perspective, it is "irresponsible" from another.
3. Actions that appear individually responsible may be irresponsible in the aggregate. It might be responsible for each fisherman to catch as many fish as possible to best feed their family, but if everyone does this, fish stocks may be irreparably damaged so that everyone starves.

Re: We Are All "Schulbs" In This Financial Mess

yetanothermoderatevoice — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:37:08 -0000

T-Steel, CStanley, Mikkel:

Re: The Coming Collapse Of 2009 ?

yetanothermoderatevoice — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:30:10 -0000

I recommend the highly regarding "Calculated Risk" blog (http://www.calculatedriskbl...), although if you think you feel bad now, having explicit data on why you ought to feel bad thrown at you may make you feel worse!

Re: One Data Point To Rule Them All

yetanothermoderatevoice — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:00:51 -0000

mikkel: all true - my point was very narrowly constrained to PWT's argument that the government should not intervene to moderate business cycles. A combination of "modern" interest rating targeting monetary policy plus constant tax rates over a business cycle seems to have moderated the business cycle somewhat. The longer structural factors and regulatory distortions you mention are another matter entirely.

Here is a great historical chart of debt levels from the FT by the way:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b...

Re: One Data Point To Rule Them All

yetanothermoderatevoice — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 10:33:34 -0000

Mikkel: nice article. you might enjoy similar comments from Vox today:
http://www.voxeu.org/index....

PWT: while it is true that a new, appropriate equilibrium in line with market fundamentals could be reached, the dynamics of the adjustment process are of concern, and that's in the happy case where are there aren't multiple equilibria, some of which are not so nice. For example if the process of market adjustment involves temporary 20 percent unemployment (i.e. an overcorrection) on its way back to 5 percent, this is not a trivial matter.

"I believe that it is intended to prevent the natural business cycle. The shallow recessions that we've had recently, especially 2001, are prime examples of why the government should not intervene against market forces. The mechanisms that allowed for the shallowness of the previous recession, have compounded the pain of this current recession."

The problem with this reasoning is that debt has increased by about $5Tr over the past 8 years, and the government continued to run deficits, on average over the business cycle well in excess of the ameliorating effects of productivity growth. In contrast, tax rates under the Clinton administration were set so that the automatic stabilizer effect was working (i.e. the budget moved steadily into surplus, and the debt continued to drop as the late 90's boom progressed). This suggests that competent execution of fiscal policy under the usual conservative rule of being balanced over the business cycle can work, whereas structural deficits do not.

Re: Card Check. What's it all about, Alfie?

yetanothermoderatevoice — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:20:42 -0000

Mark Perry's analysis of labor costs has been disputed, accurately, I believe - see Felix Salmon's explanation:

http://www.portfolio.com/vi...

Re: Obama Versus McCain: What Is a Moderate To Do ?

yetanothermoderatevoice — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:14:32 -0000

These are indeed strange times, and rather than help you, all I can offer is more confusion. McCain's health care plan owes its key ideas to Obama's advisor, Jason Furman (http://gregmankiw.blogspot..... Moreover, Obama says that his health care plan explicitly acknowledges the pragmatic view that the employer system works for the people who already have it, so he doesn't want to change it.

In other words, the conservative is advocating a radical change based on the ideas of the liberal's policy advisor. The liberal, meanwhile, is advocating a conservative, incremental approach. It's no wonder you're confused.

Re: Troopergate: Small Person, Small Beer

yetanothermoderatevoice — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:09:21 -0000

"If there is anything refreshing about this sordid affair it is that the 12 sitting members of Alaska’s Legislative Council voted unanimously to release the 263-page investigative report, and eight of the members are Republicans."

I'm not sure this is refreshing. My understanding, from reading the occasional snippet of the Alaska newspapers that pop up on memeorandum, is that Ms. Palin was at odds with the Republican Party establishment in Alaska. So I don't count their votes, by themselves, as evidence of disinterested pursuit of ethical government, nor evidence of her guilt. Perhaps it is just petty payback.

Re: McCain and the Meltdown

yetanothermoderatevoice — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:22:23 -0000

This might either illuminate or muddy the water ...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8...