Trilemma Indices Updated

The International Trilemma — sometimes called the Impossible Trinity — is the proposition that a country cannot pursue simultaneously full capital mobility, full exchange rate stability, and full monetary autonomy.

Source: Ito (2021).

In a series of papers Joshua Aizenman, Hiro Ito and I calculated indices to measure each of these dimensions, and evaluated the implications of the choices countries made ( [ACI2010]  [ACI2011] [ACI2016] [ACI2017] [ACI2020]). These indices have just been updated (website here), to 2020 for “monetary independence” and “exchange rate stability” and to 2019 for financial openness (as described in this post).

In the following graphs, you can see the evolution of the choices that groups of countries — industrial (IDC), emerging market (EMG) and non-emerging market less developed countries (non-EMG LDC) — made in the aggregate.

Source: Ito (2021).

Source: Ito (2021).

Source: Ito (2021).

The data are freely available here.

There are other ways to measure the dimensions of the trilemma; see Klein and Shambaugh here, Obstfeld, Shambaugh and Taylor here (among many others).

 

 

101 thoughts on “Trilemma Indices Updated

  1. Moses Herzog

    Just for the record, I strongly disagree with David Autor’s thoughts in his NYT column. His column speaks of a man with good intentions, but largely disconnected from the world around him. For starters, there is no “labor shortage”. You don’t judge an entire labor market from fast food window job adverts and lawn signage. And you don’t gauge a supposed “labor shortage” through click-bait. And his “long-term” “labor shortage” prediction speaks of the gargantuan level of naïveté it takes to believe “trickle down” theory in the year 2021 (much less dumb enough to believe it around 1982).

    I want to see this guy Autor write a sequel NYT column to this inside the next 5 years. Watching/reading Autor explain this “labor shortage” in a sequel NYT column should be roughly as entertaining (i.e. laying side on the floor, head into knees in uncontrollable belly-laughter) as listening to a Black American or Hispanic American explain in the year 2021 how he really believed back in 2016 that donald trump was going to get his manufacturing job back for him.

    1. GREGORY BOTT

      Dude, the shortage is everywhere. It’s in manufacturing bad. Honda is struggling to find people for jobs. Offering 3-5 thousand dollar bonuses. What happens when the bls is forced to put gig workers and small businesses back on payroll reducing unemployment???? Government data is flawed.

      1. pgl

        Oh good grief. People are getting all up in arms whenever the term labor shortage is used whatever the context. Menzie had a good post on this topic a few weeks back. I had to go look for what Jason Furman really said as opposed the usual misrepresentations from Econned (which Moses seemed to support back then for some odd reason) and this interview on CNBC has Furman saying much of what Autor was saying:

        https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/05/25/labor-shortage-factors-us-economy.html

        We definitely have seen an inward shift of the labor curve, which Autor and Furman note could have desirable effects.

        But hey – have this petty little debate with Moses over choices of language. The rest of us will take in the full discussions from people like Autor and Furman.

        1. Moses Herzog

          @ Georgia born and raised “New Yorker”
          The discussion was on transitive inflation, a different topic than a “labor shortage”:
          https://twitter.com/jasonfurman/status/1425498824919945223

          The other commenter was not Econned. Here is the thread so your inept brain can possibly recall, your memory of this exchange is something similar to an old man finding his keys that he placed in the freezer. Well, you DID find the keys. But you don’t remember putting them in the freezer.
          https://econbrowser.com/archives/2021/08/average-and-median-wages-through-time#comment-257854

          If there wasn’t so much damage to your brain’s nerve cells common to people of your friend Barkley’s age, maybe you could remember either the topic or the person you were doing your never-ending twat routine with. Apparently all the alcohol I am supposedly drinking allows me to remember past comment threads much more accurately than our Georgia born and raised “New Yorker” “feminist” who shrugs his shoulders while Biden allows women to be killed and have the crap beaten out of them in Afghanistan.
          https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/world/asia/taliban-women-protest-kabul-afghanistan.html

          Oh wait, I forgot, “feminist” pgl thinks that when Democrats do things which hurt and ruin women’s lives, all the birdies of the forest chirp out cheerful melodies, the butterflies flutter, and rainbows arch down on the land of milk and honey. Ask his two heroes in life, Biden and Andrew Cuomo they’re certain to vouch for him.

          1. pgl

            All that utter BS from someone who did not get the original conversation either. Econned may be full of it but he is more on the ball than drunk old Moses.

            Of course you did not get Autor’s recent oped either but what’s new. Lay off the wine troll.

          2. Dr. Dysmalist

            “twat routine?!” Really?! At no point in my lifetime has that word been acceptable as a noun OR as an adjective, yet THIS is your go-to derogatory descriptor? Beyond pathetic.

            It’s crap like this that maintains your reputation here as a misogynist. You need to continually examine not just your wording but your motivations.

            I don’t care how much you hate pgl or Barkley Rosser. That’s no reason to resort to wording that insults more than half of the human race.

            pgl and Barkley both have a YEARS-long reputation for well-informed, cogent, and well-reasoned commentary on and analysis of economic matters on the web. You … do not. To say the least. Your criticisms of them fall well short of the standards they have set.

            If you want to be known as an ill-informed, thin-skinned, hateful, short-tempered crank, keep doing what you’re doing. If you want a better reputation than that, start doing better. In the past, you’ve proven that you have the capability even if you seldom show it.

          3. Moses Herzog

            @ Georgia born and raised “New Yorker”
            I’m happy you gave this other link, And I hope everyone of the regulars here reads that link, as it just reinforces and provides additional proof that you trash Jason Furman when he agrees with you and lay Furman up as demigod when he agrees. Not to mention the fact, again, Autor was not discussing transitive inflation, Autor was discussing his land-of-make-believe “labor shortage”.

            https://twitter.com/jasonfurman/status/1425498824919945223 <<—-this must be an example of what pgl labels Jason Furman’s “incoherent set of babbling on The Twitter.”

            Let’s all watch the wheels turn in pgl’s “mind”: “Oh wait, no, that was May, or was it August?? or wait, which month is it that Furman was an idiot and which month is he a genius??? Oh yeah, he’s a genius when he agrees with me [ ‘the Georgia born and raised New Yorker’ ] and a blathering idiot, with incoherent set of babbling when he disagrees. That’s how it works, I almost forgot how my Superman Bizarro World playset works

          4. Moses Herzog

            *top part should read “trash him when he disagrees”.

            See, “pgl” made me so confused with which month Furman is a genius and which month he’s a moron “troll” blathering on Twitter, the Georgia born and raised “New Yorker” has now given me Vertigo with his endless bullcr*p.

          5. Moses Herzog

            Yes, a man with the name “Dr. Dysmalist” (I assume this is some fond memory of one of your “He-Man” action figures, or something you found in a cereal box at age 4) is now going to lecture me on language. Let’s go to the Oxford dictionary’s very first definition given of the term twat:
            1 a person regarded as stupid or obnoxious.

            What do you know!?!?!?!?!?!?! That means you, Junior Rosser, and pgl, ALL are twats. BTW, the noun person is not just used exclusive to females, in case you got confused “Dr. Dysmalist” (right hand man to Skeletor???).

            Now, if people you hang out with, use this word with an exclusive gender bent, that’s not my problem. What I suspect, no~~what I know, bothers you about me, is not my supposed sexism, which is what you guys run to everytime you can’t grasp onto the facts, but, rather, that I have told you more than once on this blog you are wrong which for some people is really hard to digest, the idea you are wrong about something. That’s one, of many things that makes you, pgl, and Barkley Junior twats.

            By the way, I can also explain parts of speech and meanings to you on “F-words” also since your education has obviously left you short here “Dr. Dysmalist”. Let me know of the your friends on Castle Grayskull need any help also.

          6. Barkley Rosser

            Moses,

            Somebody who falsely denounces somebody else for not agreeing with him that Native American ancestry is evenly distributed across the Euro-American population and then has the stupid chutzpah to provide as supposed evidence a link to a refereed journal article whost Table S7 clearly and unequivocally shows how dead wrong he is and has been but then refuses to admit it and apologize for all his slime is the twat. And, Moses, yes, that is you. Admit you have been engaging in a long stream of erroneous lies.

          7. Barkley Rosser

            Oh my, more ignorant foolishness out of you, Moses. You dare to drag in a dictionary for the meaning of “dismal”? Are you trying to imitate Econned now?

            Apparently you are unaware of the fact that Thomas Carlyle once declared economics to be a “dismal science,” a claim widely and frequently repeated. Obviously to anybody who knows much about economics it is obvious that Dr. Dysmalist picked his name as an amusing takeoff on that moniker. But, of course, you managed to demonstrate yet again you are too ignorant to know much economics, not to mention being basically an awful creepy jerk.

            The funny thing about that claim is that for a long time it was misreported what it was about. It became a textbook story that Carlyle was referring to Ricardo’s Iron Law of Wages, which was really derived from Malthus’s theory of population “pressing against the means of subsistence.” But some years ago Levy and Peart showed that in fact the issue was about slavery. Various classical liberal economists, led by John Stuart Mill, supported ending British allowance of slavery in its zone of rule, with places like Jamaica getting a lot of attention, this issue coming to a head in the 1830s when in fact led by Wilberforce UK did abolish slavery in its realm. As it turns out, Carlyle was a racist supporter of slavery, and he coined his claim about economics being a “dismal science” as a slam against Mill and others who opposed slavery. Somehow this was forgotten and got weirdly revised. But now we know the facts on this matter.

            But, of course, that discourse is clearly way beyond your ken as you do not even know that economics has been widely labeled “the dismal science” as you imitate the nauseating Econned in dragging in irrelevant and misleading dictionary definitions of words. Wow, there is no end to your utter foolishness.

        2. baffling

          i don’t think people are quoting furman properly. his work covers the period from feb 2020 to feb 2021. this covered a period of job loss. people are trying to extrapolate that work to this past summer and fall, and explain why job growth is not what was expected. i think this is a mistake.

          1. Moses Herzog

            @ pgl
            Yeah, you sure got me with your “Andrew Cuomo is our nation’s leader on Covid-19 policy response”. And your “Anyone who criticizes Andrew Cuomo’s official nursing home death count is a ‘donald trump lover’ ” Don’t know when the F__k I’ll ever live that one down. Did Andrew Cuomo give you a special certificate exonerating you of being Georgia born and raised??

        3. EConned

          PaGLiacci – I never misrepresented Furman. Good to know I’m still getting all of this free rent inside your otherwise empty head. Take off that clown nose. HonkHonkHonkHonkHonkHonk

          1. EConned

            Oh, you drink wine? Lemme guess… Chardonnay? Also, you referencing yourself as “our favorite wino” is unbecoming – be as classy as that $12 bottle of Chardonnay in your hand. Honk!Honk!

          2. pgl

            EConned
            September 9, 2021 at 2:35 pm

            Everyone here knows I was referring to Moses – who is clearly is type of dude. But OK – he got shot down by you. To think you have the hots for me? Ewww – no thank you. But I hear Rudy G. will treat you to a good Merlot and cigar.

          3. Barkley Rosser

            EConned,

            Perhaps you have not been paying attention here. Clearly the wine-drinking is a reference to Moses Herzog who has openly bragged on more occasion of his love for “inexpensive wine” and has also on quite a few occasions noted he was indeed consuming it. You kind of missed on this one, EC, although maybe you were trying to be sarcastic. Mostly you just made yourself look maybe as stupid as Moses, although I don’t think you are really that moronic.

          4. EConned

            PaGLiacci and Barkley Rosser – there’s no way that you two are that socially inept and ignorant to not see I was twisting PaGLiacci’s words. Why on earth would I think PaGLiacci was suggesting he was the favorite wino on a date with me? Seriously you two can’t be that lost.

            And specifically for Barkley Rosser who thinks his opinion is worth interjecting where it wasn’t sought – it is obviously “Mostly you just made yourself look maybe as stupid as Moses.”

          5. Barkley Rosser

            Sorry, Econned, you are the one who looks foolish. I remind everyone again of what a fool you made of yourself dragging in cherry picked dictionary definitions here in an argument that turned out not to be correct according to other more authoritative dictionaries.

            I do, however, think you are smarter than Moses, who is seriously stupid, even if you are mostly a troll here, when you are not just being a total con man.

          6. EConned

            Barkley Rosser – your absolutely hollow response is a tacit acknowledgment that you realize how idiotic you’re coming across. With yet another failed response including an attempt to save face with a poor appeal to whattaboutism as you revive and misrepresent a months old conversation to try to save your beet-red face. You state “cherry picked dictionary definitions” but at least you’re reminding everyone that the definitions I cited were correct and they were proper definitions. But just because you were initially ignorant that a specific phrase has various meanings, and that they misaligned with your emotional and biased opinion on a person, there’s no need to show (again) how foolish your (unrequested) thoughts are. You’re nearly as clownish as the fool who can’t seem to keep my name out of their comments.

      2. macroduck

        You seem to have read Author rather selectively.There is very little effect on labor supply from unemployment benefits. Author avoids muddying the issue by not mentioning that some studies have found no measurable effect.

        Your final sentence is a nonsequitor, pure and simple. But then, the rest of what you wrote was worse than a nonsequitor, given the bit about unemployment benefits.

        1. Barkley Rosser

          Scott Sumner and Tyler Cowen are arguing that the finding of no effect from ending UI early is due to red states that did it having low unemployment rates and also getting increases in infections, thereby biasing the data. I think they are overdoing it, but that is their argument, for what it is worth.

          1. Baffling

            It is not biasing the data. It is integral to what has been fueling their actions. Red state governors have simply denied the severity of the virus. They have done everything possible to force people back into an unsafe work environment. That is exactly why those states saw the first spikes from delta. And that is why the expiring unemployment benefits did not produce the desired increase in workers. I am confident if this had been a run of the mill slowdown, and not pandemic driven, the loss of benefits would have brought back more workers. Its not the unemployment benefits that are keeping workers on the sideline. It is government policy that has actually encouraged the spread of the virus that is keeping people on the sideline. That government policy has been driven mostly bu our red state governors.

        2. pgl

          “You seem to have read Author rather selectively.”

          Autor not Author. Now your “you” could apply to either Moses or the BOTT. Neither one seems to have a clue what Autor said in this oped.

          1. Moses Herzog

            You’re the one who couldn’t even get past the NYT paywall. and BTW “ltr” didn’t even post the entire column. So, did one of your children show you that rocket science so you could read the last 70%+ of Autor’s fairyland?? I read it before I had to STFU your monopolization on this blog of what are the facts. I wonder how “ltr” and I did that?? I can show a mentally handicapped 10 year old how to do it with a library card in any medium sized or above town, probably not even that.

            I seriously wonder how anyone with a Master’s degree could have pgl’s low reading comprehension. A guy in “flyover country” had to clue pgl in months (over a year??) in advance your NY state governor was a POS. How do you think I did that?? I’m either a Hindu Swami, or I read the New York section of the NYT and added 1+1. I’ll let you choose which scenario you find more likely.

      3. Baffling

        Manufacturing has created some of their own problems. They have not wanted to spend money to train workers. But they only want to hire workers who are already trained. This is one reason they have a hard time hiring. Tech companies have faced a similar situation. They only want to hire folks who can walk through the door and do everything. Guess what? Those folks already have a job, and are expensive to poach. Time to spend more money to train good applicants. Then treat them fair so they do not walk away.

    2. Ivan

      “For starters, there is no “labor shortage””
      That depends on how you decide to redefine the concept “labor shortage”. The latest number of job openings being at a record high of 10.9 million (https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2021/09/bls-job-openings-increase-to-series.html) is plenty of evidence of labor shortage to me. Sure its curable with better salary and work conditions all unfilled positions can be filled given enough changes in laws and offerings. The argument actually is that those forced changes (to fill some of those unfilled jobs) are a benefit for all. If you don’t like to call it “labor shortages” you can call it “Fido” but that doesn’t change the validity of Autor’s argument.

      1. pgl

        Some one actually read Autor’s piece. If you have the time and patience please go over it word for word very SLOWLY for old Uncle Moses.

    3. Dr. Dysmalist

      Point 1: Am I the only one who thinks that a lot of people, including some who should know better, talk about a labor shortage as if the wages being offered ‘should’ be the market-clearing wages rather than being artificially low, i.e., constrained by those with the monopsony power in the labor market, the labor demanders? Personally, I don’t think that a stubborn refusal to offer market-clearing wages entitles anyone to complain about a “labor shortage” that they are helping to cause without the rest of us laughing in their faces.

      Point b: I wouldn’t refer to David Autor dismissively as “that guy.” He’s done very important work on the labor market, including rigorous work to disprove conservatives’ favorite “free market” bromides. He’s a friend to the liberal, and yes, progressive, views of the labor market. Even someone as brilliant as he deserves an occasional mulligan for a poorly thought out take.

      1. macroduck

        On point 1 — this is where the battle over Mr. Overton’s window is being fought. Repeating repeatedly that there aren’t enough workers to fill all the jobs or that people in the U.S. don’t want to do certain jobs is an effort to keep the window from shifting. Enormous effort has gone into creating a belief that the amount one earns is the measure of one’s worth and that those who earn little but want more just aren’t worth it.

        Markets are great in theory, but let’s not get carried away. Market-clearing wage, indeed! Harrumph!

        1. Moses Herzog

          There’s only two options here: Autor is dumb (“naive” for the sensitive types who can’t handle an academic being insulted) when it comes to knowing what is going on the the society around him or he was being disingenuous in order to obtain “clicks” or “hit counts” for his NYT column. Neither of which makes Autor an Earth-bound angel or immune to criticism.

          As I said, I’d love to see Autor write a sequel column to this inside of the next 5 years. I want to hear Autor discuss in late 2026 the “long term labor shortage that brought in American labor utopia”. Or maybe pgl can write the sequel column supporting Autor’s thoughts under the pseudonym “Anonyfatmouth”. It’s bad enough to say there’s a “labor shortage” now, what makes this an egregious column is, Autor is pulling what I call “a Barkley Junior”. That is, he’s strongly implying he believes in a highly unlikely event of a long-term “labor shortage”, so if this highly unlikely (I would argue impossible) event occurs he can say “I’m a genius!!! Remember my September ’21 NYT column??” but enough wiggle room, he can later say “Well, I didn’t really think that long-term labor shortage happen, I was just putting it ‘out there’ for conjecture.” No, no, that’s not how it works. Sh*t or get off the pot.

          1. Barkley Rosser

            Hey, Moses, David Autor, whom I happen to know, is a lot younger than I am. That would make him a Junior Junior! Let us keep this at least vaguely accurate here, please.

          2. Moses Herzog

            @ Barkley Junior
            I actually do not dislike Professor Autor. I think he is a well-meaning individual with a good heart. And I do not doubt if I sat down with the man for beers I would learn much more from him about economics than he would me. However, I strongly disagree with him on this particular matter. I think you greatly flatter yourself by putting your name and his name in the same sentence.

            I also don’t have any doubt that if the man had a uterus (see how restrained/tasteful I was there Menzie??), you and pgl would be insisting what a “sexist” I am again for criticizing Autor’s assessment of current labor markets. But I guess in your case that’s all attaining a PhD adds to your character.

          3. Barkley Rosser

            Look, you worthless scumbag, Moses, we are all waiting for you to openly admit that you have been utterly and totally wrong about your massively repeated claims that Native American ancestry is evenly distributed across the Euro-American population. You could do so by simply admitting that Table S7 in the link you recently provided shows that you are indeed totally wrong on this.

            Of course you are ignoring this request while continuing to make up insulting comments about people, like you stupid effort to smear Dr. Dysmalist, although I shall grant that you have pulled back a bit from your apparent attack on David Autor. I mean, we know that comparing him to me is the worst possible insult there is in your book, although even that was pretty silly given that i have not written a word here about this “labor shortage” issue or his column. But you are so obsessed with mearing me every chance you have that you end up falling on your face so hard it breaks open a hole in the floor into which you disappear.

            So, come on, be mensch, admit you have been wrong wrong wrong about this matter of the distribution of Native American ancestry among Euro-Americans.

          4. Barkley Rosser

            Moses,

            Autor is certainly a more prominent economist than I am, with about as many google scholar citations as Jim Hamilton has, while younger than Jim, which is about ten times as many as I have.

            We have communicated some because we have both been economics journal editors, with him editing the widely-read Journal of Economic Perspectives. We both had to deal with some similar problems, and he actually initially reached out to me as he was aware that I had to deal with a problem similar to one he was having, with mine being a matter of fairly widespread knowledge in the profession.

        2. pgl

          “Markets are great in theory, but let’s not get carried away. Market-clearing wage”

          Anyone who has read Autor’s research would certainly agree with this. But I guess some loud mouth winos here have never bothered to understand Autor’s actual writings.

      2. baffling

        agree on both points. in particular, i have been arguing for a while that wages being offered are simply not appropriate. and the desperation that some fast food and restaurant chains are showing in their labor offers indicates there is still a grave misunderstanding on management’s part about how to value service workers. one problem that currently exists, is many of these companies have developed a very poor business plan that is successful only with low wage labor. those business simply cannot operate in the current labor environment. inevitably, we know where this will lead. owners go bankrupt and blame worker wages. in reality, it was simply poor management, as plenty of well run business continue to operate, and quite successfully at that. and they seem to be profitable even with higher paid wages.

      3. pgl

        I just read the stupid rant where Moses thinks he took you on. Yea – his attempts at insulting are loud but they are the usual feeble nonsense you would expect from a drunk. I loved this line especially:

        “I have told you more than once on this blog you are wrong which for some people is really hard to digest, the idea you are wrong about something. ”

        Of course this lying troll cannot be bothered to say what on earth you ever got wrong. Now we do know lying Moses gets almost everything wrong but he makes up for it but repeating his stupid lies over and over and over again.

        And do note he is now questioning the credential of Dr. Autor because this drunk troll has no clue what Autor was even saying.

        One would think our host would end Moses’s continual destruction of an otherwise excellent economist blog but trust me – this garbage is going to go on and on and on. Just sit back and have a chuckle at the most insane troll ever.

  2. Moses Herzog

    Menzie, I’m not picking on IHME, I like IHME the same as you, but this is more of a “Did you see this?!?!?!?” kind of a thing. One of the IHME guys was on the Michael Medved show. You may not know Medved’s name, but he is a kookball. I mean kookball as in Stephen Moore kookball. Loony.
    https://twitter.com/IHME_UW/status/1434848857121230851

    I understand the idea of “getting the message out”. But, Menzie, did you want to give a 90 minute lecture on reserve currencies at/to the Mises Institute?? Please answer “NO” as that is the correct response here.

    1. Moses Herzog

      Nope, you’re still an idiot. And Xi Jinping still hasn’t been thrown over a terrace guardrail by the countryside proletariat. Which of the two would be a more shocking change of circumstances is debatable.

      1. Moses Herzog

        BTW, one of my more mundane wishes, is someone will create a computer program, where I can type comments like the one just above, and they will transmit as an audio file, read in the exact voice and sardonic tones of Basil Fawlty when he’s half-muttering something to Sybil.

      2. J. Barkley Rosser, Jr

        Sorry, Moses, the idiot here is you. On the most recent thread you denounced me for not understanding that Native American ancestry is evenly distributed among the Euro-American population. You then provided a link to an article that clearly showed not on that they are not but that they are indeed skewed as I have noted all along. You then have the temerity in a comment above to comment on me somehow losing brain cells.

        You seem to be the one without sufficient brain cells, boy. The only question is whether you never had them or have lost them due to excessive alcohol consumption or whatever. In any case, you are the last person here in any position to declare somebody else an “idiot.”

        1. pgl

          What should we take from this comment?

          “Dr. Dysmalist
          September 8, 2021 at 8:08 pm”

          You probably have noticed that Dr. Dysmalist has offered a lot of smart comments on economic issues including the latest issue I have raised – the interesting NYTimes piece by Autor.

          But you favorite foil old Uncle Moses cannot distinguish between discussions of inflation v. the labor market. Yea – Moses is stupid in so many ways.

          But he goes on and on with his pointless and dishonest insults which our new excellent colleague has called out.

          Maybe it is time for you and me to just ignore the worthless troll Moses as his garbage has alas polluted this blog for far too long.

          1. baffling

            i am curious when these 100 or so folks decided to actively engage in leaving the country. was it in march, when the first alerts came out to evacuate because us forces were leaving? or was it in august, after the taliban took over the city? if they made an early, legitimate effort to leave the country but still fell behind, then shame on us. but if they waited until the taliban was knocking on the door, i have less sympathy. they still deserve our help. but i am not going to leave service members behind to protect people that procrastinated. that is putting service members on the line for unnecessary reasons.

        2. Moses Herzog

          @ Barkley Junior
          There you go, defending your racist boyfriend again. I know you don’t like me calling the man who said Xi Jinping was going to have some kind of proletariat coup toppling him “some time in the next 80 years” an idiot. And he’s right, really, I believe it was only about 5 excess deaths of brown people in Puerto Rico after Maria. How could I argue with that, really?? I’m sorry I’m so “harsh” on your blog penpal of Princeton Way. I apologize. I can’t match the level of genius of people who placate your exaggerated thoughts of yourself on this blog, I really cannot match it. Are you going to write a recommendation letter for JerseySteve to jet a job at Stephen Miller’s “America First Legal” or did you think “Sons of Confederate Veterans” of Richmond Virginia was a more suitable flavor?? Was Steve’s problem on his low excess death count numbers related to a “Skewed distribution”?? Don’t mention that on his recommendation letter and get back to us how it went.

          1. Barkley Rosser

            Moses,

            I realize you are really desperate to show you are not just the stupidest idiot this site has ever seen after the disaster of you providing that link that showed indeed very clearly the skewed nature of the Native American ancestry across the Euro-American population, but making snarky remarks about Steven Kopits will not get you out of the hole.

            As it is I disagree with him on a lot of things. But he happens to be whole lot smarter than you are. Not even remotely close. Sorry, you lose.

            Oh, and I have no idea why you brought up Schumer. I was not even aware that he had made the obviousliy false statement that all Americans who want out have gotten out. I have several times repeated here the number “about 100” still in there who want out, the number put forth by the Biden admin, although I have no idea what the number really is, and probably some of these people are going back and forth on what they want to do, so it is fuzzy.

            However, I note that all the shouters denouncing Biden for daring to leave any Americans there and how reidiculous it was of him to trust the word of the Taliban on anything, certainly this matter, well, Moses, since you read the NY Times and so many other news sources I presume you saw the report that the Taliban have let a plane with 200 people leave the Kabul airport. I do not know how many Americans were on that flight, but it certainly looks like they are planning to keep their promise to let Americans who want out get out, at least for some time. Yet again, you are looking pretty foolish.

            Oh, and I am fine with Lee’s statue coming down. Heck, one of the two letters Lee wrote after the war making it clear he wanted no statues or monuments to him put up was to my relative. The other was to the Gettysburg Battlefield Commission. Sorry, while you think you can tar me as some kind of racist because of my relatives, that will also not fly. You just look more and more silly and stupid, not to mention the awful creep you are.

          2. Barkley Rosser

            Oh, a bit more, Moses.

            I think the time has come for you to publicly admit that you have been utterly and totally dead wrong about the whole Native American ancestry thread from Day One, every thing you said, your smears of Warren, your false claims that Native Ancestry is evenly distributed across US whites, and all the rest of it. You wasted huge amounts of time and space on this blog with your stupid insults based on fraud and lies. You need to apologize to all readers here for what you pulled with this. It was and remains despicable, not just a sign of you being a totally creepy moron.

          3. Moses Herzog

            I just had to go back to some of these great memories from the only album ever commercially released that is better than Led Zeppelin’s “Physical Graffiti”. Another double album titled “The Best Hymns of Kopits and Barkley”:
            https://econbrowser.com/archives/2021/07/public-service-announcement-real-rates-are-still-low#comment-255971

            https://econbrowser.com/archives/2021/07/public-service-announcement-real-rates-are-still-low#comment-255988

            Barkley Junior said: “Your claim that “even the most wild forecasts do not see $100 per barrel before the end of 2022r” shows you do not closely follow the oil sector blogs. In the last month or so they have been reporting on “groups of investors” who are making exactly that forecast for 2021 as Steve Kopits has done, although maybe pulling back from. Again, I think it highly unlikely, as I have repeatedly said, and as I just said above, the US shale sector being the most likely reason. But they are slow to ramp up production. What could happen, especially if we see some supply snag in some major exporter, could be a short term runup to $100 or even higher, but with that not staying for long as indeed various supply sources would kick in. But again, those sources are by and large not that instantaneous enough to offset a sudden surge in price, and we have historically seen quite a few of these, with prices within short periods of time tripling or quadrupling. So, if you think this is out of the question, you are just exhibiting your clearly massive ignorance on this topic.

            And again, we have seen #100 per barrel in nominal terms quite a bit (and a lot more in current real terms). So in nominal terms the average price for the whole year was above $100 per barrel for both 2011 and 2012, and the price got above $100 in 2008, 2013, and 2014. In real terms the average crude price was basically above $100 per barrel for the whole first half of the teens, and we did not have an outbreak of inflation or stagnation, although it is possible that this was another factor in the economic policy uncertainty that was going on in that period that EConned got so worked up about.

            Anyway, a $100 per barrel of crude would really not be that big of a deal if it happened sometime later this year, especially as I think it would not stick around for awhile. This is not 2011, and even then it was not that big of a deal.”

            https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil <<—-$68.43 as I write this.

            [ Content Sigh…….. good times…….. ]

            Oh. let me add Barkley's deep thoughts on Iran here, which he and Juan Cole have "extensive and profound" knowledge on Iran. Better than mine, because, like, credentials, and they're like , geniuses, and stuff.
            https://econbrowser.com/archives/2021/06/five-year-inflation-breakeven-sp500-and-the-dollar#comment-254782

          4. Moses Herzog

            BTW, Barkley says oil could be priced anywhere between $40 and $100 between now and end of year 2021, so like, a PhD in mathematical economics really has paid off handsomely with some deep insights on markets, I gotta tell yeh. Barkley also wants you to know the sun will rise tomorrow morning wherever you live on planet Earth so, I don’t know if Barkley considers that proprietary knowledge or not. Rush to your brokerage website now before the sun rising data gets baked into market prices..

          5. Moses Herzog

            @ Barkley Junior
            Menzie Chinn, and/or any academic who specializes in that field has had an OPEN INVITATION for over a year to tell me the opposite of what the paper you quoted said, that the data is “skewed” rather than a near uniform distribution. When Menzie and or those specializing in the field (you’ll excuse me if I ask them to identify themselves and their credentials on this specific topic) tell me I’m wrong (they won’t and haven’t because the data is in the very paper you quoted but attempted to hide the link to the actual paper said it was near uniform) I’ll be more than happy to review the topic.

            You’ll excuse me if a man who can’t figure out probably the most commonly quoted economic statistic in the mainstream press (SAAR Quarterly GDP) correctly, counts for ZERO weight/substance in anything he says for me. Would you believe an economist who couldn’t for example quote nonfarm payrolls right, and got it wrong by over 30% higher than the eventual quoted number, while criticizing those who got the nonfarm payrolls right within say 1,000??? Beings you like chatting with Kopits so much, probably you would quote them. But I would not, neither would a take anything that person says seriously, PhD or not.

          6. Menzie Chinn Post author

            Moses Herzog: Once again, there are many subfields in economics; I would not expect a theoretician or an industrial organization specialist to be aware of the SAAR convention (and if they were from abroad, certainly not, where SAAR is not the default).

          7. Barkley Rosser

            Wow, Moses, you think this quote about my view that the price of crude could be anywhere between $40 and $100 somehow proves that I am not very smart? Yes, it has been holding in the neighborhood of $70 for some time, but this is still only September. You are sort of jumping the gun here. Do keep in mind that I accurately forecast that OPEC would impose global oil price increases on the world before you were even born.

            Of course you are avoiding the real bottom line here, your total foolishness in posting a link to a refereed journal article claiming it showed you right that Native American ancestry is evenly distributed across the Euro-American population when its Table S7 clearly shows your claim to be absolutely dead wrong. Not only that, the figure supports, if not proves, that the distribution is probably skewed, as I have argued from the beginning, and in fact is basically a truism among those who actually know anything about population genetics, which I do and you very clearly do not.

            So, Moses, it is time for you, if not to apologize as I demanded, to in fact admit that Table S7 shows you to be dead wrong about all those claims you made so many times here. Do it, jerk.

          8. Barkley Rosser

            Oh, a bit more on oil prices, quite aside from noting that both I and Steven Kopits, despite his unwise comments on Puerto Rico, know a lot more than you do, Moses.

            So indeed, quite some time ago I said it was likely prices would be in the $40-$100 range by the end of the year. If indeed the price range that has held in recent months holds to the end of the year, then my forecast will be correct, with this price roughly in the middle of that range.

            Oh, I know, although you have not articulated it very well or clearly, your fuss is that I have not made forecast for a narrower range, shame on me. But in fact the history of oil prices, which Steven and I sure as heck know a lot more about than you, Moses boy, involves numerous episodes over more than the last century of sudden increases or decreases in global oil prices by several orders of magnitude, changes in percent terms far beyond what seems to be this wide $40-$100 range I allowed for possibly happening this year. I would be fine if oil prices stay where they are, but in fact we are in a highly fragile and uncertain period with a lot of dramatic things going on from the pandemic to major climatic events to substantial political upheavals, with possibly much more dramatic things happening in the next three and a half months on any of these or even several other fronts that could push global oil prices substantially in one way or the other.

          9. Moses Herzog

            Menzie, would you criticize “a theoretician or an industrial organization specialist” or a fellow credentialed economist, if they were in essence harshly criticizing other economists, working for commercial businesses or well respected government institutions for how they came to a number estimate (Quarterly GDP), when they didn’t know how that number was in fact tabulated by the “final arbiter” (i.e. BEA) of that number?? Especially if broad swaths of the general public, were well aware of this fact??

            “His highness” in Virginia didn’t “just put a number out there”. If you go back and look at the comments he was being critical about how other respected individuals came up with their numbers. Wouldn’t any person have half an idea how the numbers are tabulated, when their number is 30% off the respected institutions’, and respected private forecasters’ numbers??

          10. Menzie Chinn Post author

            Moses Herzog: Having taught macro to econ undergrads for over 30 years, and upper division undergrad econ majors for 20 years (and talked a number of times on public radio), I can say that the SAAR convention is *not* well known amongst the general public.

          11. Barkley Rosser

            Holy cow, Moses. Not only are you not going to admit that Table S7 in the paper you provided a link to clearly shows that the distribution of Native American ancestry across the Euro-American population is not remotely near being “even,” and indeed sure looks like it is skewed, which it is well known that it is among people who know about these things, you now look like you are doubling down on your inaccuracy in all this with your totally stupid invitation to any academic to somehow show that the paper I cited says that the distribution is not a “near uniform distribution.” Again, go look at Table S7 of the paper you linked to: it is clearly not “near uniform distribution.” Have you not looked at that Table or are you blind?

            As it is you are repeating yet again one of the stupidest things you have ever seen here, which was pointed out as being just flagrantly completely wrong when you fist said it, but you have kept on repeating it and repeating it, and you appear to be doubling down on it yet again. What the paper said was a uniform distribution, and I apologize to people that I shall now capitalize this so Moses can read it, was THE DISTRIBUTION ACROSS THE GENE, NOT THE DISTRIBUTION ACROSS THE POPULATION! It is amazing how many times you have actually provided the quote itself that says is across the gene, and then you have repeatedly jumped to falsely asserting that means it is uniformly distributed across the population.

            It really is more than past time for you to admit you have been wrong wrong wrong about this whole thing.

            And as for the SAAR business, which you also gone on about repeatedly, I did not know what it was and I did get confused at a certain point in Spring 2020 about what some data meant. When it was pointed out that I was mistaken, I readily accepted that I was. However, I was correct about the overall pattern of what happened and called much of it ahead of time, even though at certain points I made some erroneous statements about some numbers.

            As it was, many of made mistakes during the confusing and dramatic period about what was going on. You did too, Moses. You never would admit what shape the GDP pattern was going to be clearly because you were way off.

            Then there was the spectacle of when I was the first person here to accurately report that May 2020 has seen the most rapid increase in consumption ever seen. You jumped all over me, issuing your usual stream of insults to accompany your perfervid claim I was wrong. But then Menzie had to correct you and point out that I was right.

            Tell you what, Mose, if you stop going on about my not knowing what SAAR was and related to that making some erroneous statements about some data back then, I shall not remind people about how you were wrong about the rate of consumption growth in May 2020.

            However, I am not going to let you off the hook on this matter of the distribution of Native Ancestry in Euro-Americans. You yourself have provided a link that clearly shows you are and have been totally dead wrong, but here you are again apparently doubling down on your utterly false and stupid claim.

            Oh, maybe I should remind you that I have actually not only personally known several of the most famous population geneticists, but have actually published on the topic. Some other disciplines in which I have published refereed journal articles include psychology, finance, sociology, philosophy, mathematics, computer science, management, and physics. In fact I have just had another paper accepted for publication in a physics journal, a pretty prominent one as a matter of fact, Entropy.

            So, please, do fess up that you recognize how wrong you have been and continue to be about this matter of the distribution of Native Ancestry among Euro-Americans before you make up yet more fake insults about various people here.

  3. ltr

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-08/Chinese-mainland-reports-19-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-13nHJUob3W0/index.html

    September 8, 2021

    Chinese mainland reports 19 new COVID-19 cases

    The Chinese mainland recorded 19 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, all from overseas, the latest data from the National Health Commission showed on Wednesday.

    In addition, 11 new asymptomatic cases were recorded, while 390 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation.

    This brings the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland to 95,083, with the death toll unchanged at 4,636.

    Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-06/Chinese-mainland-reports-18-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-13kp2fMfFE4/img/5e6ae4d463a249cc81cd4870308eaeaf/5e6ae4d463a249cc81cd4870308eaeaf.jpeg

    Chinese mainland new imported cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-08/Chinese-mainland-reports-19-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-13nHJUob3W0/img/b8f6a6e9d9f94cceb7900809f27bfbab/b8f6a6e9d9f94cceb7900809f27bfbab.jpeg

    Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-08/Chinese-mainland-reports-19-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-13nHJUob3W0/img/b18eae1d3b89489b875bbe628995f79d/b18eae1d3b89489b875bbe628995f79d.jpeg

  4. ltr

    http://www.news.cn/english/2021-09/08/c_1310175482.htm

    September 8, 2021

    Nearly 2.12 bln doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered in China

    BEIJING — Nearly 2.12 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in China as of Tuesday, data from the National Health Commission showed Wednesday.

    [ Chinese coronavirus vaccine yearly production capacity is more than 5 billion doses. Along with over 2.119 billion doses of Chinese vaccines administered domestically, another 990 million doses have been distributed to 105 countries internationally. A number of countries are now producing Chinese vaccines from delivered raw materials. ]

  5. macroduck

    Menzie,

    I assume the decline in monetary independence anon developed economies since the early 1990’s mostly reflects the EMU.

    Any notion of what’s driving the more recent decline among other groups of countries?

    1. Menzie Chinn Post author

      macroduck: Yes, you are right on IDC drop in monetary independence. For other groups, the decline in monetary independence certainly in 2020 is concurrent monetary loosening as US re-visits ZLB.

  6. ltr

    https://cepr.net/new-york-time-says-republican-critics-of-biden-package-are-worried-it-will-lead-to-lower-unemployment/

    September 6, 2021

    New York Times Says Republican Critics of Biden Package Are Worried it Will Lead to Lower Unemployment
    By DEAN BAKER

    It seems a strange concern, but I suppose it’s what we would expect from a political party that is determined to block every effort to contain the pandemic. According to a New York Times article * on opposition to President Biden’s plan to increase spending on various social program by $3.5 trillion (1.3 percent of GDP) over the next decade:

    “To critics, the legislation represents a fundamental upending of American-style governance and a shift toward social democracy. With it, they worry, would come European-style endemic unemployment and depressed economic dynamism.”

    Many European social democracies have consistently had lower unemployment rates than the United States. According to the most recent data from the OECD, the unemployment rate in Denmark is now 4.3, in Germany 3.6 percent, and in the Netherlands 3.1 percent. It’s now clear what measure of “economic dynamism” these critics use, but using productivity growth, the measure most often used by economists, the dynamism of European economies is comparable to the U.S. economy.

    * https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/us/politics/democrats-biden-social-safety-net.html

    1. ltr

      https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/us/politics/democrats-biden-social-safety-net.html

      September 7, 2021

      From Cradle to Grave, Democrats Move to Expand Social Safety Net
      The $3.5 trillion social policy bill that lawmakers begin drafting this week would touch virtually every American, at every point in life, from conception to old age.
      By Jonathan Weisman

      WASHINGTON — When congressional committees meet this week to begin formally drafting Democrats’ ambitious social policy plan, they will be undertaking the most significant expansion of the nation’s safety net since the war on poverty in the 1960s, devising legislation that would touch virtually every American’s life, from conception to aged infirmity.

      Passage of the bill, which could spend as much as $3.5 trillion over the next decade, is anything but certain. President Biden, who has staked much of his domestic legacy on the measure’s enactment, will need the vote of every single Democrat in the Senate, and virtually every one in the House, to secure it. And with two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, saying they would not accept such a costly plan, it will challenge Democratic unity like nothing has since the Affordable Care Act.

      That is largely because the proposed legislation would be so transformative — a cradle-to-grave reweaving of a social safety net frayed by decades of expanding income inequality, stagnating wealth and depleted governmental resources, capped by the worst public health crisis in a century.

      The pandemic loosened the reins on federal spending, prompting members of both parties to support showering the economy with aid. It also uncorked decades-old policy desires — like expanding Medicare coverage or paid family and medical leave — that Democrats contend have proved to be necessities as the country has lived through the coronavirus crisis.

      “Polls have shown for a very long time that these issues to support American families were important, and were popular, but all of a sudden they became not a ‘nice to have’ but a ‘must have,’” said Heather Boushey, a member of Mr. Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers who has been developing such policies for decades….

  7. ltr

    http://www.news.cn/english/2021-09/09/c_1310178357.htm

    September 9, 2021

    China’s consumer inflation remains stable, factory prices climb

    BEIJING — China’s consumer inflation remained generally stable in August, while factory-gate prices registered expansion largely due to increasing commodity prices, official data showed Thursday.

    The country’s consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 0.8 percent year on year in August, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.

    The figure was lower than the 1 percent year-on-year growth recorded in July.

    The slower growth was partly driven by a drop in food prices, which declined 4.1 percent last month. In particular, the price of pork, a staple meat in China, slumped 44.9 percent from a year earlier.

    On a monthly basis, CPI increased 0.1 percent, lower than the figure registered in July. Food prices increased 0.8 percent while non-food prices decreased 0.1 percent.

    Due to sporadic outbreaks of COVID-19, heavy rains and high temperatures, prices of vegetables and eggs rose 8.6 percent and 8.4 percent, respectively.

    Prices of industrial consumer goods dropped 0.2 percent mainly due to the decline of international crude oil prices, while prices of services remained unchanged as travel service consumption such as air tickets and hotel bookings was impacted due to COVID-19 prevention and control measures.

    Senior NBS statistician Dong Lijuan said continued government efforts had led to ample supply in the consumer market and stable prices in August.

    China has set its consumer inflation target at approximately 3 percent for the year 2021, according to this year’s government work report.

    On the industrial side, China’s factory prices continued to pick up in August amid booming demand and rising prices of bulk commodities….

    [ China is managing the effects of producer price increases sector by sector. ]

    1. ltr

      The way in which pork production in China has been reorganized, with an advanced technology emphasis though sustaining small producers strikes me as especially impressive.  This in the wake of an international “swine fever” epidemic.

      There is an emphasis on advanced technology applications all through Chinese agriculture. This does not mean fewer farms, just increased reliance on advanced technology:

      https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-09/China-cultivates-new-rice-varieties-to-enhance-food-supply-13okvTyG4SI/index.html

      September 9, 2021

      China cultivates new rice varieties to enhance food supply

      China is continuing its efforts in cultivating new rice varieties, reinforcing the country’s food supply.

      The second generation of super hybrid rice Chaoyouqianhao recorded a yield of 1,107.5 kg per mu in Caoba Town, Mengzi City, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, on Sunday, achieving an average yield of over 1,000 kg per mu for the fourth consecutive year. The regular rice yield only ranges from 300 to 600 kg per mu….

      1. Moses Herzog

        Sure, pork dumplings are mighty tasty in China, but have you tried the water??
        https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-22/china-is-investigating-heaps-of-dead-pigs-along-the-yellow-river

        These stories pop up, about thousands of pigs being thrown into waterways in China, at minimum, every 5 years (the intermittent time is actually shorter, but I’m using the largest time interval it can conceivably be in the name of factuality). Now, this happens over and over and over and over. The same as these wet markets stories, and how live animals of different species are transported in cages, and crap on top of one another happen over and over and over and over. I viewed these wet markets and street markets with my own eyes in Northeast China upwards of a dozen times. But Barkley wants you to know the Covid-19 came from a lab (Well, “that’s the ‘main theory’ now”), because David Ignatius had a little bird at the CIA with nothing to do with his time but whistle imaginary birdie anecdotes to a washed-up WaPo columnist says research scientists in China love spreading viruses at the local Pizza Hut.

        There you have it folks, the news, from Virginia’s Lake White Trash.

        1. Barkley Rosser

          There you go lying yet again, even when it was pointed out that you were lying on this matter previously. I never said Covid came from a lab. This s lie, you worthless piece of…. I said it might have, which is indeed the widely currently accepted view. And I also accurately (so far) predicted that we shall probably never be able to determine for sure where it originated for reasons I have noted here numerous times but will not repeat so not to upset China! China! China! who posts so frequently here and is so easily frightened by things people say to her here.

  8. ltr

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-08/Chinese-mainland-reports-19-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-13nHJUob3W0/index.html

    September 9, 2021

    Chinese mainland reports 28 new COVID-19 cases

    The Chinese mainland recorded 28 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, all from overseas, the latest data from the National Health Commission showed on Thursday.

    In addition, 9 new asymptomatic cases were recorded, while 376 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation.

    This brings the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland to 95,111, with the death toll unchanged at 4,636.

    Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-06/Chinese-mainland-reports-18-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-13kp2fMfFE4/img/5e6ae4d463a249cc81cd4870308eaeaf/5e6ae4d463a249cc81cd4870308eaeaf.jpeg

    Chinese mainland new imported cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-09/Chinese-mainland-reports-28-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-13pnmc0teBW/img/38ad2554e1ea402e870ebbcfa80ead3f/38ad2554e1ea402e870ebbcfa80ead3f.jpeg

    Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-09/Chinese-mainland-reports-28-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-13pnmc0teBW/img/f10ad932994741569ff8cc636d1872e6/f10ad932994741569ff8cc636d1872e6.jpeg

  9. ltr

    http://www.news.cn/english/2021-09/09/c_1310177498.htm

    September 9, 2021

    Over 2.12 bln doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered in China

    BEIJING — More than 2.12 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in China as of Wednesday, data from the National Health Commission showed Thursday.

    [ Chinese coronavirus vaccine yearly production capacity is more than 5 billion doses. Along with over 2.124 billion doses of Chinese vaccines administered domestically, another 990 million doses have been distributed to 105 countries internationally. A number of countries are now producing Chinese vaccines from delivered raw materials. ]

  10. pgl

    Qatar worked with the US State Department and the Taliban to get more people on flights out of Afghanistan:

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/09/asia/afghanistan-kabul-airport-flight-intl/index.html

    The good news is that these efforts will continue. Our Sec. of State notes there are about 100 more Americans that want to leave Afghanistan and he is working continuously on these efforts.

    This is all great news and we should keep their feet to the fire. Of course we have this rather worthless loud drunk troll who is under the mistaken impression that Senator “talk to Chuck” Schumer is in charge of all of this. I call him “talk to Chuck” as he wants to give people he has the solution for everything including bad hair days. But no – Schumer is not in charge of our State Department unless you are a serial drunk angry troll.

    1. Ivan

      My feelings about those remaining 100 is a little bit like the unvaccinated. Why were they still there 2 month ago before it became so difficult to move around and get out. They off all people should have seen it coming from miles away. Trump signed the US surrender agreement more than a year before.

  11. pgl

    McConnell made sure Merrick Garland would not be a Supreme Court justice, which was supposed to be his gift to those anti-choice zealots who wanted to get rid of Roe v. Wade. But Garland is not going way as the DOJ has decided to take on Texas even as the Supremes ducked!

    https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/09/doj-announces-lawsuit-over-texas-abortion-law-510921

    In the meantime – I’m sure you have seen where the Texas Governor has declared rape no longer exists in his state. Never mind that Texas has the highest number of reported rapes than any other state. There may be a reason for this – the state is slow to prosecute rapists. It seems there are 6000 rape kits that have not even been tested. So I guess this Governor is incompetent at fulfilling that little promise he made the other day.

    1. Moses Herzog

      What, no “TPM” or “VeteransToday dotcom” links from you now?? This is a very encouraging sign your children may have introduced you to things above 4th grade reading level. This is a big step for you. Whichever child introduced you to “Politico” website obviously has their mother’s genes.

      1. Menzie Chinn Post author

        Moses Herzog: Just to be clear, I have linked (positively) to TPM and Politico on this blog. That doesn’t mean I approve of all their reporting, but I do think they are legitimate news sites (as opposed to ZeroHedge and Breitbart, for instance).

        1. pgl

          Can I be clear? Moses has seriously polluted your blog with his pointless garbage. But it is your blog so if you want to have it wasted on such insulting garbage – fine by me.

          1. Moses Herzog

            Are you absolutely sure you “give your permission”??? Have you checked with Barkley Junior on this?? Aren’t you two co-chairmen of “Social Graces” Committee here?? Don’t you allow Menzie to appropriate or annex your authority here. That would be outrageous.

        2. Moses Herzog

          I respect your thoughts a lot Menzie (I feel you know this, if you don’t you should know it by now). And maybe I’m splitting hairs here, but TPM rips off too much material from other sites for me to take them serious. It is a very large proportion of the content on TPM.

          Now, if I was to self-reflect a little, I have quoted Zero-Hedge from time to time here, and I suppose you could call me out as being a little hypocritical there. But 98% of the time when I quote ZH it’s usually ECONOMIC/FINANCIAL data that can be cross-verified. And it’s data that is pretty hard to find on other sources, unless you have a Bloomberg terminal or an across platforms subscription to Bloomberg. So, what I’m saying is, if one is selective, and the data is difficult to find in other places (JP Morgan newsletters, JP Morgan graphs, GS graphs, GS letters). Sometimes TPM is running stuff 48+ hours after it broke and writing it like it “just broke”. That’s subjective, but for me, there’s a strong difference there,

          BTW, I like Politico, them and NYT are probably my two “go to” sites for political information, that’s why I was being facetious about pgl, FINALLY quoting a solid source.

    2. Ivan

      The Texas governor apparently know how to completely get rid of rape. Question is why has he not implemented it before?

      1. pgl

        Texas had more reported rapes in 2019 than any other states. And it is not surprising as their enforcement of the rape laws is awful. 6000 rape kits went untested. 6000 victims took the time and humility to do a rape kit and the uncaring law enforcement officials did not take the time to check the results? Abbott is insulting our intelligence with his “bold” remarks.

        1. Baffling

          When it comes to women’s rights and minorities , sometimes i have a hard time distinguishing between the republicans in texas and the taliban in afghanistan. Perhaps we are now dealing with the taliban of texas? Both walk around armed in public, threatening anybody who disagrees with their politics while keeping women and minorities in their place. Its amazing how the taliban has infiltrated texas in this way.

    1. pgl

      “While my personal saving and investment transactions have complied with the Federal Reserve’s ethics rules, I have decided to address even the appearance of any conflict of interest by taking the following steps,” Rosengren, president of the Boston Fed, said.

      Their ethics rules are this weak? OK, a lot of Big Four accounting firm partners trade in the stocks of the companies they serve as financial auditors and turn around and make similar claims. I guess corruption is “perfectly legal”.

  12. ltr

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/opinion/foreign-terrorists-domestic-extremists.html

    September 9, 2021

    Foreign Terrorists Have Never Been Our Biggest Threat
    By Paul Krugman

    It may seem like a terrible thing to say, but a fair number of people — especially in the news media — are nostalgic about the months that followed 9/11. Some pundits openly pine for the sense of national unity that, they imagine, prevailed in the aftermath of the terrorist attack. More subtly, my sense is that many long for the days when the big threat to America seemed to come from foreign fanatics, not homegrown political extremists.

    But that golden moment of unity never existed; it’s a myth, one that we need to stop perpetuating if we want to understand the dire current state of American democracy. The truth is that key parts of the American body politic saw 9/11, right from the beginning, not as a moment to seek national unity but as an opportunity to seize domestic political advantage.

    And this cynicism in the face of the horror tells us that even at a time when America truly was under external attack, the biggest dangers we faced were already internal.

    The Republican Party wasn’t yet full-on authoritarian, but it was willing to do whatever it took to get what it wanted, and disdainful of the legitimacy of its opposition. That is, we were well along on the road to the Jan. 6 putsch — and toward a G.O.P. that has, in effect, endorsed that putsch and seems all too likely to try one again.

    It’s now a matter of public record that the immediate response of Bush administration officials to 9/11 was to use it as an excuse for an unrelated project, the invasion of Iraq. “Sweep it all up, things related and not,” said Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, to his aides while the Pentagon was still burning.

    And some media organizations did eventually acknowledge their role in helping war advocates exploit the atrocity. The New York Times, in particular, published an extensive and frank mea culpa. *

    * https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-the-times-and-iraq.html

    1. ltr

      https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2021/Costs%20of%20War_U.S.%20Budgetary%20Costs%20of%20Post-9%2011%20Wars_9.1.21.pdf

      September 1, 2021

      Estimated Costs of Post 9-11 Wars, FY2001 – FY2022 and Future Veterans’ Costs
      By Neta C. Crawford

      Appropriations Department of Defense (including $42 billion request for FY2022)   ( $2,101 * )
      State Department/USAID (including $8 billion appropriation for FY2022)   ( $189)
      Interest on Borrowing for DOD and State Department Overseas Contingency Operations Spending   ( $1,087)

      Increases to DOD Base Budget Due to Post-9-11 Wars   ( $884)
      Post-9/11 Veterans’ Medical and Disability through FY2022   ( $465)
      Homeland Security Prevention and Response to Terrorism   ( $1,117)

      Total War Appropriations and War-Related Spending through FY2022   ( $5,843)

      Estimated Future Obligations for Veterans Medical and Disability, FY2023 – FY2050   ( c. $2,200)

      Total War-Related Spending through FY2022 and Estimated Obligations for Veterans’ Care through 2050   ( $8,043)

      * Billions of Current Dollars, Rounded to Nearest Billion

  13. pgl

    Biden finally gets around to saying get vaccinated or get fired. He should have done this 6 months ago but hey. Now for those of you who have been wondering what Bruce Hall has been up to, I think this would be of interest. The Henry Ford Health System has sensibly ordered employees to get vaccinated so naturally Bruce Hall and his ilk are suing them:

    https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan/2021/09/09/51-employees-sue-henry-ford-health-system-over-covid-vaccine-mandate/?outputType=amp

  14. Macroduck

    On a mostly unrelated subject, the latest Chinese credit data are a bit worrying: yahoo.com/amphtml/finance/news/1-china-july-bank-loans-090507956.html

    Credit growth improved in August after a sharp slide in July, but remains lower than a year ago.

    With the ECB and the Fed intending to taper, credit contraction vs year ago presents a timing problem. Speculation is that the PBOC will ease, but last time that happened, there was no follow-through. Xi is meanwhile pursuing a fairly disruptive set of adjustments to business in China (and Hong Kong).

    Chinese credit developments have arguably been more influential on global economic performance than the Fed or ECB while the latter two have maintained zero rates and expanded balance sheets at full throttle. Open question whether that would remain true during tapering or tightening.

    In any case, the G3 credit impulse has swung sharply lower in recent weeks and that usually leads to economic slowing within 12 months. Since rebound growth has been strong, a slowing is already expected. How slow depends on credit trends, among other factors.

    1. Moses Herzog

      @Macroduck
      Interesting…….. Definitely like/respect your thoughts on this. “FT” is a good place to check “this space” of the Chinese credit markets. Alas their paywall can be a hassle. I’m gonna do what I can to poke around there, Most of the hardcopy WSJ stuff I can access, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as “FT” on this topic. If I find it I’ll put it in whatever Menzie’s most recent thread is and hope it doesn’t annoy him too much on wandering off posted topic. He’s been highly tolerant on this with me, so let’s hope he keeps his good nature.

Comments are closed.