Writer at The Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street (
@WSJ
). Markets, economics and global aviation. Vaig cobrir la presentació oficial de Bananity.
Doncs mireu, jo que he treballat a premsa espanyola i catalana us donaré informació gratis: Sí, en aquests mitjans es censura i canvia informació al dictat de amos i accionistes. Sí, les empreses del IBEX-35 truquen per canviar titulars que ENCARA NO S'HAN PUBLICAT.
An issue I feel is underdiscussed : DeFi has all the flaws of traditional finance, yes, but on top of this it basically finances other crypto projects, not houses or factories anywhere. It is as if traditional banks only financed other banks (essentially ONE big credit risk).
Streetwise: Are bitcoin and other crypto tokens crashing because of the excesses that accompany advances in finance, or do they have fundamental flaws? Asks
@jmackin2
Excellent data visualization work by
@eldiarioes
on the Catalan election. It clearly depicts the key driver of the independence wedge: it's not money, immigration or the urban/rural divide, it's about whether you are born in the rest of Spain or not.
Per cert, molta gent em segueix preguntant darrerament sobre la prima de risc espanyola i si pot pujar o no per culpa de Catalunya. He pensat en fer un fil explicatiu al respecte (demano perdó ja preventivament):
Si empreses que jo cobreixo em paguéssin o convidéssin a fer cap feina per elles, el meu diari em faria fora al dia següent. I amb raó. És increïble que això els costi tant d'entendre.
Es veu que é violència dir que quan es va a un mitjà s'ha de parlar en la llengua del mitjà en comptes de en la teva. Tot en ordre: demà comunico al meu cap que els articles li arribaran en català.
El desarrollo de Corea del Sur se produjo via una política industrial orientada a la exportación en la que el estado escogía sectores ganadores, incluyendo sustitución de importaciones, control de precios, dirección de crédito, subsidios y depreciación de la moneda.
Muy buen artículo, sí. Corea del Sur , en 1960, tenía la cuarta parte de renta por habitante que España. Hoy es un 20% superior. ¿Por qué? Porque ha priorizado la educación. Hoy tienen universidades punteras, y compramos coches, televisores, teléfonos, electrodomésticos coreanos.
Tema lloguers: em fascina aquesta idea que el què importa en un acord de govern és posar compromisos per escrit. El què importa és estar disposat a trencar el govern (o no formar-lo) si no es compleixen les teves línies vermelles polítiques. Sense aquest poder, la resta és fum.
What do votes to the Spanish far-right correlate with? It's not really about immigrant density and not even that much about left-right ideology. It's mostly about Spanish national sentiment.
My Heard column: When prices rise because of a shortage of chips the solution is to make more chips, which is what Washington is trying to do. It showcases why fighting inflation by raising interest rates often doesn't make sense.
“What is money?” is a centuries-old question but the blocking of Russia’s reserves has revived its relevance for the world’s nations—particularly China. If accumulating foreign assets is seen as risky, military and economic blocs will drift farther apart.
Here's my column on what I have found to be an incredibly baffling press conference by the ECB's Christine Lagarde. Point by point, the ECB promises to be data dependent and yet ignores all the data:
@moragasai
Escolta Antoni, una pregunta seriosa: com a científics polítics no hauríeu d'invertir més temps en entendre la realitat i menys en dir a la gent què ha de fer tota l'estona? És que no m'imagino un biòleg recriminant a les cabres que no s'alimentin de tofu perquè és molt sa.
My column on Russia and the ruble today: As damaging as blocking the central bank's FX reserves might be, energy sales abroad still bring in a $20 billion surplus every month.
Mai he entès què vol dir "política de trinxeres". La política no és sempre de ser a una trinxera o altra? El que en tot cas és greu és que hi hagi periodistes de trinxeres sempre defensant l'agenda d'organitzacions concretes.
La meva columna d'avui sobre la fàbrica de Nissan a Barcelona, el pla de reconstrucció europeu i les dures realitats de la política industrial pan-Europea: Pot fer que la perifèria encara sigui més perifèrica (fil una mica llarg).
European green reconstruction. Industrial policy. The EU is embracing all these concepts, but productive investments will ultimately benego to core countries that already have the industrial base.
But let's all be clear on what is being argued. We are very likely talking about undermining this recovery from a crisis, which policy has managed to make bearable for the less wealthy, by inducing a recession, in order to kill off a CPI raise tracable to specific bottlenecks.
Fascinat per tots aquests politòlegs que tenen "obeir la llei" com a única dimensió de fer política. Si això és el què s'aprèn en aquesta disciplina, seria socialment molt més útil convertir-ho tot en facultats de Dret.
"Did this crisis really show the financial limits that UK governments must observe? Probably not: Had the BOE bought gilts more decisively, the mini-budget would have been easily absorbed. Also, when it did intervene, the pound shot upward, not downward"
I think many established economists are using disingenuous rhetoric, which goes:
- Heterodox: "You said government debt has to be repaid but the real constraint is inflation!"
- Orthodox: "We always said the real constraint is inflation, look at our models!"
Well, yes and no.
Re the great piece by
@JWMason1
, it always comes down to this chart. In the mainstream story, CPI components look unrelated bc central banks succeed at keeping inflation stable. But it can also show that inflation is a made-up average of disparate things.
Unemployment will hit Europe's regions very differently, research by the
@BIS_org
shows. Once again, Spain and Italy are going to be massively impacted.
I have said this often: A big flaw in the Pettis & Klein framework is that it implicitly uses comparative advantage as the benchmark to which we should return if we could only close the external imbalances. It totally misses that the tension has to do with development policies.
The worst bit is the bizarre appeal to comparative advantage and free trade. It’s bizarre because China cannot necessarily be said to have a comparative advantage in the sectors it now dominates. China got to this point through industrial policy and strategic protectionism
No sóc necessàriament partidar d'ampliar El Prat i sí estic a favor d'una política industrial de veritat, però no entenc aquests arguments. Ampliar un aeroport no terciaritza res. Algú es pensa que no venen més turistes perquè estan massa apretadets a les terminals?
Uns senyors d'Esade que es passejaven per Harvard contractant una Big Four per investigar el troleig que ells van externalitzar a una consultora de "social media intelligence" per tapar la destrucció del club més exitós del mon. 1000 cops més descriptiu que el llibrot de Piketty.
Una cosa lateral que també està quedant al descobert amb el Bartogate és que tot això de les consultories, les auditories i les Big Four és una merda absurda i una flatulència del capitalisme que mou moltíssims milions perquè tothom fa veure que no són una puta CAMAMA.
@Enric_Hernandez
@XSalaimartin
Sr. Hernández, deu ser el primer director de diari de la història que acusa els lectors de buscar clics en lloc de al revés. Tota una fita.
El que passa a Heathrow és que els vols low cost van a Gatwick, Stansted i Luton, el preu del vol pel turista d'espardenya no ha pujat. Tot i estar a més distància, la majoria aniria a Girona i Reus sense cap problema (sobretot en temporada alta).
This is pretty crucial, but I think the obsession with the education system as the explanatory variable is flawed. People don't go to vocational school because there aren't enough stable high-paying industrial jobs in their region, not the other way around.
We began manufacturing in America in 2022. We will make over a million bottles domestically in our first year.
I’ve learned first hand why it is so hard to build things in America.
For us, the biggest barrier hasn’t been wages or regulation.
D'una de les coses que estic orgullós enguany és de no haver opinat sobre temes epidemiològics dels quals no en tinc ni idea. Però deixeu-me trencar aquest silenci per dir: No hi ha límit a les bestieses que propaga certa gent? Si us plau, pareu.
Article molt recomanable a l'ARA: Els inversors mediàtics com Ajram i Lacalle no només ofereixen retorns escassos, sinó que cobren comissions elevades. "El perill de deixar-li els diners a un guru"
Al fin he podido leer éste artículo y se me han ocurrido muchas cosas que decir! Estoy fundamentalmente en desacuerdo con la afirmación de que estas reformas no debería compararse con las práctica del FMI por el mundo. Me explico:
Es pensi el que es pensi de tota aquesta polèmica, segurament cal reflexió de fins a quin punt és lícit emprar l'estabilitat d'un sou acadèmic per dedicar-se a la divulgació mediàtica. Segurament és lícit fins a CERT punt, però costa saber quin.
Per tant, abans de fer grans discursos sobre com de collonuts som tots i com tota la resta és fake news, potser menys prendre la gent per imbècil i intentar reflexionar sobre com fer les coses millor a nivell individual i col·lectiu. Apa, bones festes.
He de dir que m'estava avorrint bastant amb els nous episodis post-Procés, però aquest arc argumental d'Iceta al Senat m'està encantant. Nota a IMDB: 8/10.
@JWMason1
My personal view (which as I always underscore is biased by being a journalist and not an academic) is that to describe reality we either provide a model with proven predictive power or we should restrict ourselves to identifying reasonable causal mechanisms in the real world.
Com a columnista sempre em reconforta confirmar que, fins i tot entre una munió de mals anàlisis de diverses bandes, sempre hi ha algú que té una opinió molt pitjor.
Vídeo. Que et deixin parlar en tant ets ‘part d’un mateix poble’ és inquietant. I requereix, com és el cas, que algú et doni -o, pel mateix preu, et tregui- aquesta mena de passaport. I està passant. Torna a passar a Europa.
If 50,000 new immigrants are to scrape by in Spain on, say, €10,000 a year each, that’s €500 million that has to come from somewhere in the economy, every year. If they are to live comfortably, twice that, a billion euros a year. Where can the money come from?
What's the problem with that? Even if we accept monetary policy was the key variable that tamed inflation (it's at least debatable), we are talking about a massive, sudden hikes that affected inflation by inducing recessions. This wasn't micromanagement, it was brute force.
Un pilar de la professió és que el periodista no ha de ser mai la notícia. Esdeveniments com les eleccions al EUA ens serveixen per recordar periòdicament que això és una trola com una casa de pagès: el que més motiva als periodistes és que ens mirin mentre ens fem l'important.
Whether MMT as a whole is correct or not, what seems evident is that the endogenous money view (which is much older) has made incredibly successful predictions in the last 20+ years. I find it wild that so many people are still insisting on the Quantity Theory of Money framework.
Sempre que un periodista en una entrevista diu "doncs a mi mai m'han dit què he d'escriure o dir" tinc ganes de trucar a l'Area 51 perquè li facin un anàlisi paranormal a fons. Perquè a la resta ens ho han dit mil vegades, sobretot a Espanya.
Sí, a les emissores de ràdio s'hi imposen quotes de tertulians segons convingui pel moment polític o el partit de torn. Sí, als presentadors d'aquests programes se'ls demana despatxar gent. Sí, els semàfors dels diaris són política i res tenen a veure amb interpretació lliure.
As an argument, "the natural rate of interest forced me to pass an act through Congress" sounds a bit like "it was God's will that I buy another electric guitar". I can try it, but not sure it's gonna fly.
LoL. Kelton mixing the normative with the positive, and just being wrong. Policymakers were forced into this by the natural rate, and will normalize instruments when and if the natural rate reverts.
A very nice chart from UniCredit on inflation and consumption. The two takeaways: 1) Most prices are really irresponsive to demand (they move along the horizontal axis) 2) Most items are just retracing whatever happened during the lockdown period.
I think today's EU deal is another example of why the "bad equilibrium" view is probably more appropiate to describe the eurozone than either wishful thinking optimism or this annoying tendency to announce its demise every 10 minutes...
Can it be argued that shortages (just as in the 1970s) will induce the kind of spiral that we need to kill off with a monetary circuit breaker? It can, but let's say openly that we are talking about creating unemployment. There is no evidence to expect gentle micromanagement.
Según estos datos, el PIB de ambas regiones es 91.3% relativo al del 4° trimestre del 2019. Igual hasta el decimal. Las mates de primaria atacan de nuevo.
En un SXXI en que la cosa va de captar talento y crear lugares agradables, politizamos la sociedad, te preguntamos tus apellidos y te imponemos el idioma en el que estudian tus hijos.
Regalo concedido, chavales.
Though CS was far above all regulatory ratios, a last-minute acquisition still had to be arranged. It seems to confirm that market panics don't go away as capital & liquidity buffers increase--the threshold for a panic simply moves in lockstep. Or, at least, so think regulators.
And would this reduction in demand fix the massive skew towards goods consumption v services that is making bottlenecks worse? Or is another channel posited? This is IMO why causal mechanisms have to be part of the argument, rather than assuming them away.
Un itinerari per solucionar de debò el problema del lloguer: El govern DUPLICA d'un dia per l'altre el tipus d'IVA i ITP aplicat sobre l'habitatge, amb una exempció per aquells que venguin l'immoble al sector públic a preu de mercat. Objectiu: fer públic 50% del parc en 10 anys.
In fact, the experience of the past decade proves that central banks have been very ineffective at what was supposed to be their main function. So where does the empirical case for using monetary policy to control inflation comes from? Mostly the 1970s-80s.
On a bit of personal news, today I start a new gig as a writer for WSJ's Heard on the Street column section. Still writing (mostly) about markets & economics, so please keep sending your ideas to me so I can steal them.
Aquesta matraca que no paro de sentir és una collonada immensa. El problema no té res a veure amb les suposades expectatives hegemòniques de l'afició, és que aquesta plantilla per pura racionalitat hauria de jugar mil cops millor. Punt final.
📺 DIRECTO
@JijantesFC
@DBR8
: "El error, por parte del club y que él también tiene parte de culpa, es el discurso de tener que ser un equipo hegemónico."
😰 "Se ha dado cuenta que el enfoque del proyecto no era el correcto. Se ha vendido un club muy potente cuando ahora no lo
Doncs jo crec que sí que assenyala unes diferències culturals que són certes. Però cal ser molt barrut per vendre això com una teoria de "lo que yo llamo nacionalismo". Senyor cosmopolita, sàpiga que hi ha molts països al món on la gent no es passa el dia a les cases dels altres.
At a moment in which availability of actual stuff has proven to be the real economic constraint, suggesting that a low public debt/GDP ratio somehow frees you from this constraint is very bizarre IMO. Why would having low debt make more lithium suddenly available, for example?
@TheStalwart
@M_C_Klein
The debt brake may or may not be optimal, but it has meant that German debt is at very low levels, which now gives Germany massive fiscal space to shift its energy needs away from Russia and improve its military. Isn't this actually an endorsement of trying to keep debt low?
The best thing about the ECB's anti-fragmentation tool is that it finally admits eurozone nations can technically issue limitless amounts of debt because and have it mutualized. Only when a country is politically punished does the ECB take action to enforce said punishment.
Let's be clear here for the broader audience because I hear this all the time: No it wouldn't. Without dividends (ceteris paribus) stock returns would be close to what they were, since all those earnings would have accumulated as cash. Stock markets track earnings, not dividends.
It had been a while since I had visited
@ricardo_hausman
's Atlas of Economic Complexity site and I'm truly impressed by the revamp. It provides so many tools for macro analysis to finally take product complexity and international specialization seriously!
I love the concept that the real issue here is that these tech giants are great at predicting social behavior. They are terrible at it! We are talking about algorithms that advertise fridges to to you for a month after you just bought a fridge.
Avui fa un any, estava convençut que em feien perdre el temps anant a Sant Julià de Ramis, perquè la policia mai atacaria l'indret on votava el President de la Generalitat amb tota la premsa internacional a davant. Visionari tu.
4/ Krugman then cites Japan as an example of a country that has sustained very high debt/GDP ratios, but fails to mention that the BOJ has been the only net buyer of long-term government bonds in Japan.
To take the specific case as an example: No, there is very little evidence that micromanaging interest rates affects inflation in any predictable fashion (we can posit some effects with relative accurancy, such as impact on asset prices, but going further has proven tricky).
On some topical personal news, when I come back from paternity leave in May I will be taking over the European financial industry coverage at Heard on the Street and (sadly) moving away from aerospace. As always, my timing isn't the greatest.
Whew, this Lionel Messi news. Whew. Sure is something. Did not expect that. Going to be very interesting to see what happens next. Gotta watch it closely, because whatever happens, I'm sure there will be interesting implications. *popcorn*
Fa temps que dic: 1) La solució a la crisi de l'habitatge és que l'administració tingui un % molt elevat del parc 2) Per fer això cal comprar, no només construir 3) Després de la crisi, els bancs centrals eren la solució si haguessin comprat cases i no bons. Doncs entra la Xina:
Spain's fiscal stimulus in context: Relative to estimates of cyclically-adjusted GDP, it is among the SMALLEST in Europe. It's below India's and on par with countries like Russia and Indonesia. (UBS calculations)
I don't necessarily object to aggregating polls or building models with them, but it is assertions like these ("we always said that this was possible 10% of the time") that truly irk me. They can never be proven true or false and therefore turn the whole exercise into a cop-out.
@NathanJRobinson
I'm sure assholes like you would give "my profession" a hard time in pursuit of whatever vainglorious angle you're trying to play. But 10% things happen 10% of the time and empirically based on our forecasts that's exactly how often they do happen.
ie "Our model says that X causes Y, and given some real-world empirical correlation between the two that is good enough, no examination of real-world causal mechanisms is needed."
@AlexGutierrezM
Sóc molt fan d'aquesta visió en què la Generalitat està composada per uns genis de la comunicació que han entabanat tota la premsa internacional.
Ahir els suïssos van votar en contra d'una proposta que volia impedir que els bancs continuïn creant diners del no-res. Sona molt bé, però crec que la proposta tenia errors de base fonamentals (alerta, fil molt pedant):