A short summary of today's
@JMilei
speech at
@Stanford
@HooverInst
; very technical economics heavy speech covering econ history, growth, general vs. partial equilibrium; dangers of models. Overall, critical of how economics has used market failure to justify state intervention.
Debate between
@cafreiman
and
@jtlevy
on liberalism and democracy
Levy has my respect for being the only person in attendance at
@Liberal_Studies
’ FreedomWeek besides me that is wearing a suit, but Freiman is bringing on the heat 💯
Introduce yourself with seven books:
1. Economic Growth
2. Microfoundations and Macroeconomics
3. The Calculus of Consent
4. Democracy: the God That Failed
5. The Theory of Monetary Institutions
6. Schooling, Experience, and Earnings
7. A Monetary History of the United States
1. The Liberal Archipelago
2. Hayek’s Modern Family
3. Inequality: An Entangled Political Economy
4. National Economic Planning: What is Left?
5. Marxism & Workers Self-Management
6. Wittgenstein, Austrian Economics, & the Logic of Action
7. The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy
Buchanan has ellegantly made his way into Selgin’s review of White’s better money. Definitely worth reading.
A worthwhile, concise discussion on how Bitcoin being banked in a fractional reserve system can alleviate many problems vs bank-less Bitcoin (that many maxis support)
Thanks to
@EmilePhaneuf
@GeorgeSelgin
,
@joakimbook
, and
@PeterSurda
for their contributions to _A Future World Monetary Order: A debate on Lawrence H. White’s Better Money: Gold, Fiat, or Bitcoin?_ Download available here:
In my latest for the American Institute for Economic Research, I put forth an argument that instead of looking at the direct cause of this banking crisis (rate hikes) we ought to look at why banks were so poorly hedged to begin with. Rate hikes were obvious, why wasn’t hedging?
Just got tickets to see
@lawrencehwhite1
debate Frederic Mishkin later this month! Excited to see White, one of my favorite monetary economists, along with Mishkin who wrote one of my favorite textbooks
Proud to announce my research on Private Sector Growth in the United States has been accepted for presentation at the 49th Annual Northeast Business & Economics Association Conference.
Considering I'm 18, and I applied as a long shot, I'm stoked.
This has been a hectic summer! GRE in a week, daily RA work, and working on Honors Thesis.
Was hoping to have time to start studying for PhD Micro and Real Analysis which I'm taking in the fall, but cannot prioritize studying for a Fall sem class when I have summer work.
Just sent in my last official contribution for this summer's RA-ship. I'll continue working on related projects as an RA going into the school year, but will take a much desired break.
Now onto PhD Micro prep. And Real Analysis. And PhD applications. It doesn't end, does it?
99% also don’t understand why the heck their car is safe, yet they continue to buy safe cars. Why? Bc markets allow us to learn from previous mistakes, continue what’s working, and improve upon that.
People will know what banks are safe, and banks will also be more responsible.
Wrote some predictions for what's to come this next year. I'm a bit skeptical that a soft-landing is even possible at this point, and that seems idea has been floated around a lot lately.
While only a sophomore, economics and math major Siddharth Gundapaneni has presented his independent research at an academic conference -- and will do so again this February. Read more:
At my first visit to Cato in June 2022, meeting David Boaz was an absolute pleasure. As a 18 year old that had read everything Milton Friedman that came in front of me, I was fascinated seeing how much these scholars knew, and was blown away by David’s keynote talk that day. RIP.
We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of David Boaz.
David played an indispensable role in the development of the Cato Institute and was a foundational figure of modern libertarian thought.
His contributions to the Cato Institute and to libertarianism are far too vast
The Economics Club I run at my university is hosting a 1v1v1 debate today on the resolution “Is Capitalism Compatible with Democracy.” I’ll be arguing no. Time to channel my inner Buchanan, Barro, and Hoppe.
My econometrics professors end of semester advice to me: “learn the math, learn the technology, but never forget it’s limits and don’t get buried in it.”
Most of Stiglitz’ lecture was about why inflation is almost entirely driven by supply factors.I disagreed and questioned him further, listing the plethora of measures showing demand is very hot and supply is mostly resolved.He essentially responded saying inflation at 5%% is fine
My presentation at NBEA's annual conference went superb! So much so that I was invited to present again at the Eastern Economics Association's annual conference next February. I'm excited for a much bigger stage.
Reading through Julian Simon's "The Ultimate Resource 2" for a HET class. “The stocks of them [copper] are not fixed but rather are expanding through human ingenuity... More generally, cost and price... will be our basic measures of scarcity.”
Simon shows his Hayekian influence
“There is no reason, neither theory nor evidence, to expect high.. rates to quell inflation, except by slowing.. growth and pushing up un- employment. And this has not happened yet…the Fed’s pat-on-its-own-back for a ‘soft landing’ is a bit of self-indulgent magical thinking.”
@danascoot
Tbf at my university many discussion sections consist of TA's directly giving answers without any explanations, so it's understandable why students think like this.
My ego would get in the way of me asking this...
Map of home prices by county. Three things stick out to me:
- The west is crazy expensive. They desperately need more housing.
- Nashville. Why are you paying that much to live in Nashville?
- Chicago is undefeated here
My presentation at NBEA's annual conference went superb! So much so that I was invited to present again at the Eastern Economics Association's annual conference next February. I'm excited for a much bigger stage.
Proud to announce my research on Private Sector Growth in the United States has been accepted for presentation at the 49th Annual Northeast Business & Economics Association Conference.
Considering I'm 18, and I applied as a long shot, I'm stoked.
As Brent Oil falls below $100, we can observe it has been falling since mid june. And who would've guessed it, gas prices have also been falling since mid june! Looks like corporations just got less greedy again.
Have spent much of this summer on RA work for George Hall and Tom Sargent studying how large expenditures in US history were paid for. In our team, I've focused on the Louisiana Purchase.
So many fascinating, wonky dynamics at play....
The purposeful dishonesty is disheartening, especially coming from someone who writes undergrad textbooks.
PPP loans from the get go were meant to be forgiven, in a sense. Student loans were made on the premise that they would be paid back.
Contracts must be upheld.
This guy's worth about $40 million, and took over $300k in PPP loans from the government just a few years back.
He asked the government to waive his loans, and indeed, his future loan payments were canceled.
Presenting a model of Child Labor Supply, found in Basu 2005, for my University's Economics Club.
Was a great experience, showing people that there is a trade-off in every policy decision, and that things are often not clear cut good or bad.
“Although I can’t say monetary policy has been politicized, I cannot say the same for Federal Reserve regulatory policy” - Former Federal Reserve Governor and Columbia Professor Frederic Mishkin
😳😳😳
Today was a great day. Left my phone at home, went to the park, and read
@GeorgeSelgin
's "Less Than Zero" from start to finish. Spectacular read. Its implications are quite useful in formulating Fed policy the next few years.
More interesting than the Phillips Curve falling apart, has been the utter destruction of the Beveridge Curve. At least some augmentations of the Phillips Curve like the NKPC that have expectations playing a large part are explanatory, but the linearity in the BC is nonexistent
@BrianCAlbrecht
@PeterBoettke
Sowell’s knowledge and decisions, Becker/Mincer’s work on heterogenous human capital, Knight’s Risk Uncertainty Profit, Schumpeter’s equilibrium critiques. Many Austrians may disagree on whether or not some of these can/have advance(d) Austrian Econ, just my view.
If it were about human capital, the quality of what you learned would be what matters regarding calling it a Harvard degree or not. Instead, elites want to draw themselves in an exclusive, pricy circle that represents a signal.
@kalihollowayftw
Hi, Harvard real-degree here. You're spot on. The "extension school" is a source of laughter and annoyance for students and alumni. (I think Columbia has one, too -- same thing there.) It's basically an "anyone can enroll, so long as you pay", no more stringent than a community
I'll go top 10 libertarian economists:
Per Bylund
John Cochrane
Roger Garrison
Larry White
Bob Murphy
Elinor Ostrom
George Selgin
Greg Mankiw
Robert Barro
Walter Block
Top 10 living libertarian thinkers, no particular order:
Ron Paul
Lew Rockwell
Hans Hoppe
Tom Woods
Jeff Deist
Scott Horton
Gene Epstein
Bob Murphy
Judge Nap
David Gordon
Who you got?
And
@nntaleb
berates economists when half of financial “experts” predict recession without any understanding of business cycles.
Not to mention how little these “experts” understand the Fed - see how poorly priced treasury futures have been last one year
3/ Meanwhile, less than 50% of stocks within the S&P 500 have actually been moving higher over the last 50 days
Many people see this weak participation as evidence that we're about to see a large market crash
@MarcGoldwein
I have a hunch that state level gas tax suspensions have also been inflationary on gas prices, but any and all energy commodity inflation has been attributed to Russia-Ukraine
A lot of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level, more than I originally realized, rests on the assumption that bonds and money are perfect substitutes.
It’s not just that QE is ineffective if bonds and money are substitutes.
The entire mechanism of how P rises relies on this…
The only way to make Bitcoin viable as a currency and not a speculative asset is for people to embrace decentralized (and in some cases centralized) exchanges. A robust credit intermediation process is necessary for any money that desires to be of use to the masses.
Argentina cuts rates and government spending, promises less future deficits. Consequently monthly inflation reaches it's lowest rate since October, monotonically decreasing since Milei took office.
Glory to the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level + Sargent and Wallace (1981)?!
Very subtle point by Scott Sumner, that applies to a lot more than asset pricing!
Ex: Unemployment being at 4% tells us the economy is probably quite strong.
Unemployment rising from 4.1% - 4.3% may tell us things are getting bad. Not that things are bad.
The difficulty of macroeconomics is that multiple theories can always explain the same data. NGDP, Fiscal Theory of the Price Level, and a Non-linear NK Phillips Curve all explain the recent inflation and disinflation.
The question is what describes the structure of the economy.
@debfernandez4
@BlackKnight10k
@johniadarola
And what has he done for POCs? Oh yes, he’s passed a total of 4 bills in Senate. “Oh but they must’ve helped poor people right” Nope, 2 of them were renaming post offices. He’s all talk.
At
@PrasagaOfficial
we’re working towards the first cryptocurrency that brings the attractiveness of technology that 21% of survey respondents cite, without the volatility necessitated by rigid supply models, observed in BTC and ETH.
@RepRibble
@MarcGoldwein
I would not trust NY state assembly to lower taxes after a salt deduction removal. They’d probably raise taxes just for the heck of it.
(See Klein & Boumans on informational control engineering origins of paper )
As highlighted by
@joshgans
( ) paper was rejected by AER for being “distressingly arid.” Was published in Journal of Econ Theory
@cutupcado
@Pat_Horan92
@AaronSepulvedaC
If everyone held x dollars of CDs vs everyone held x dollars in cash, that represents very different demands for money, which wouldn't be made clear in demand or velocity of m2.
It’s not a good thing that our debt is so high.
But the fact that we’re a pretty well functioning country with such massive debt is a testament to the power and world’s acceptance of the US Economy.
If you spend $1 million everyday it will take you 2,740 years to reach $1 trillion.
The U.S. national debt is now $35 trillion and rising by $1 trillion every 100 days.
EVERY…100…DAYS
Unfortunately as it stands, most of not all centralized exchanges are untrustworthy. There’s not one I would place my crypto within a mile of.
The only DEX’s I place significant trust in are the ones who’s developers I know well.
@lorakolodny
@vtg2
Agreed, but most people supporting this tweet had no issues when journalists were banned previously. Y'all can argue Elon is running things poorly, but don't act like you are/were for free speech. Not talking about 1a, i mean free speech.
The way he uses “information” here is very different than the way Hayek uses it, and even different than the way he (Acemoglu) uses it earlier in the thread.
Google, Facebook, etc do not, cannot, and will not know the desires of each individual.
Digital technologies and AI, at least in the way that they have developed, have created a tendency for power and information to be concentrated in the hands of a handful of companies, such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft.
I’m not sure why so many are insistent that the minute inflation is less a worry, rates should be low again. Sure some low rates would certainly change a lot in the financial sectors e.g. M&As being low, low share issuance, etc.
But to me, no clear macroeconomic reason to cut.
@arindube
Even taking as given the battle against inflation has been won by March, why should Fed cut?
1) This could unanchor expectations, and cause inflation to run up a bit again
2) the higher rates are in normal times,the less of a worry ZLB is during next recession (more room to cut)
A brief list of things that the press has declared white supremist in the last two years:
Exercise
Healthy food
The scientific method
Being on time
Reading old books
Using correct grammar
Christianity
The nuclear family
Opposing the sexualization of children
Self defense
@MarcGoldwein
encouraging savings bond purchases is huge! Not just to deal with inflation, but so people are better equipped with some money that isn’t eroded when the recession comes
I’ve heard this distinction made in economics as well. Some say Stokey Lucas and Prescott & Ljungqvist and Sargent are reference books. Are there any technical teaching equivalents?
@HilbertSpaess
Well at some level, not the author's fault: math curricula tend to use what are more or less reference books as teaching books, the two should be distinguished
@AgnesCallard
@ben_golub
@Bellmanequation
, Cho, and Sargent 2002 (and other related papers) also have discussion of how government’s that are uncertain of their models (underconfident) are often prompted to change their models from accidental experiments that work out. Similar to overconfident behavior
Hearing Trumpies complain about inflation is laughable. Trump and Hawley’s support for $2,000 checks would have us in a worse situation then we’re in now. Trump supporters just love to complain for the sake of it, and play the victim in every situation.
Fractionally reserved layer 2s on Bitcoin have potential. Though it’s even more efficient when the crypto manages its own supply in response to demand; as
@PrasagaOfficial
will do.
@besttrousers
Yes, Blinder makes the same point in "Central Banking in Theory and Practice."
The optimal balance is a subjective determination, and in my own opinion, given Bitcoin is only 15 years old (compared to 2 millenia of Gold), it's too early to tell!
I'm especially excited for
@gp_mihalache
@neocentrist
Makes it much easier to raise sales taxes bc people are less likely to feel the pain of the increases. Same issue arises with withholding income tax. Seeing clearly how much is being taken hurts - and it should.
Both have obvious convenience benefits, but bad in the long-run.
Is currency reform even needed or is the threat of fiscal austerity (with the follow through not needing to be immediate) enough for painless disinflation?
It seems in some years we can augment Sargent (1982) to be “The Ends of Five Big Inflations” adding in Argentina!
Math stats final tonight at 8, masters time series forecasting tomorrow morning. And I’m busy studying Bayesian stats, notably not covered on my Math Stats final. If only I were capable of making good decisions…
@LucasOfSunshine
In the early months of covid many New Yorkers, myself included, looked favorably upon how he handled covid. His daily press conferences reminisced of FDRs fireside chats, he kept the people in the loop of whatever was happening, and kept people calm. And then it all fell apart
Wow this is incredible. Of course I’ve done nothing even close to this level, but the feeling is discovering something on your own that someone else already has done is both painful and incredible.
Sahm Rule is punching far above its belt and is being written about too much.
Models of expectations & their impact, along w/ business cycles, are being talked about too little.
Is this failure on economics being too difficult to read, or are econ journalists not doing enough?
@mattyglesias
I don’t see what’s wrong with old people in congress. If constituents feel that an old person represents their views best, so be it. If you don’t want old people, vote em out in your constituency. But term limits for congress are unnecessary in my view.