The FT-IGM US Macroeconomists survey is out (it was conducted over the weekend). The results are summarized here, and an FT article here (gated). Here’s some of the results.
For GDP, assuming Q4 is as predicted in the November Survey of Professional Forecasters, we have the following picture.
Figure 1: GDP (black), potential GDP (gray), November Survey of Professional Forecasters (red), November SPF subtracting 1.5ppts in Q1, 05ppts in Q2 (blue), FT-IGM December survey (sky blue squares), all on log scale. FT-IGM GDP level assumes 2021Q4 growth rate equals SPF November forecast. NBER defined recession dates peak-to-trough shaded gray. Source: BEA 2021Q3 2nd release, Philadelphia Fed November SPF, FT-IGM December survey, and author’s calculations.
In the figure above, I’ve used the SPF forecast of 4.6% SAAR in 2021Q4; the Atlanta Fed’s nowcast as of yesterday (12/7) was 8.6% SAAR. A new nowcast comes out tomorrow.
Interestingly, q4/q4 median forecasted growth equals that implied by the Survey of Professional Forecasters November survey (which was taken nearly a month before news of the omicron variant came out).
The q4/q4 forecast distribution for 2022 is skewed, with the 90th percentile at 5% growth, the 10th percentile at 2.5%, and median at 3.5%. I show the corresponding implied levels of GDP (once again assuming 2021Q4 growth equals the SPF ).
Figure 2: GDP (black), November Survey of Professional Forecasters (red), FT-IGM December survey (sky blue squares), 90th percentile and 10th percentile implied levels (light blue +), my median forecast (green triangle), all on log scale. FT-IGM GDP level assumes 2021Q4 growth rate equals SPF November forecast. NBER defined recession dates peak-to-trough shaded gray. Source: BEA 2021Q3 2nd release, Philadelphia Fed November SPF, FT-IGM December survey, and author’s calculations.
On unemployment, the median forecast is for a deceleration in recovery,
Figure 3: Unemployment rate (black), November Survey of Professional Forecasters (red), FT-IGM December survey (sky blue square), 90th percentile and 10th percentile implied levels (light blue +), my median forecast (green triangle). NBER defined recession dates peak-to-trough shaded gray. Source: BEA 2021Q3 2nd release, Philadelphia Fed November SPF, FT-IGM December survey, and author’s calculations.
The survey respondents also think that the participation rate will take a long time to return to pre-pandemic levels.
Source: FT-IGM, December 2021 survey.
On inflation, the median is higher than the November SPF mean estimate for 2022 of 2.3% (and Goldman Sachs’ current estimate).
Source: FT-IGM, December 2021 survey.
The entire survey results are here.
Question 13: How much are you willing to bet that your answers are right? How confident are you?
$0.25? $0.05? -$1.00?
rsm,
These are not Professor Chinn’s forecasts.
I find this post to be valuable as another useful input into my [alleged] thought processes.
Anyhow, where do you think the economy [DJIA/NAS, GDP, employment, labor participation, prices, rates, etc.] will be in 2022, 2023, . . . ?
FYI. My ‘crystal ball’ does not rule out economic collapse. Ergo, I’m overweighting Dewar’s Scotch Whisky and Spam.
rsm,
So, what is your bet? Want to tell us what the variance of the variance is for these estimates, as has been asked of you? Or are you just going to continue exhibiting to all that you have no idea what you are talking about and are just a sick troll?
What if your pay was docked by the same percentage your forecasts were wrong? How long would you last before owing money?
rsm Do you understand the correct interpretation of a 95% confidence interval?
I would venture to say he has zero clue. But then we should put a confidence interval around my point estimate.
And what if your pay was docked for every time you posted a pile of garbage and nonsense here as you keep repeatedly doing, troll rsm?
rsm is not getting a pay check. No firm is going to hire this worthless troll.
my guess is you and your brother were inaccurate quite a bit during your brief foray into financial investments. you seem to be frustrated that you are not smarter than the market.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline issue has heated up again. I thought I’d pass along this CRS Report:
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11138
I started searching for something on the potential transfer pricing issues when it hit me that Gazprom owns the two Nord Stream AG affiliates – both of which are Swiss entities.
Note the big concern of Ukraine was that Russia was trying to cut Ukraine’s pipeline owners out of transit fees. I guess under arm’s length pricing, the Swiss affiliates would be picking up intercompany transit fees. Now Russia’s tax rate is only 20% so my first query was whether the Nord Stream AG entities would be granted fees below market rates. But wait – Swiss tax rates are generally lower so maybe Gazprom might pay above market rates to these entities to evade taxes. Of course the Russian government might enforce its transfer pricing rules – except for the fact that Putin is a major shareholder in this shady multinational.
CRS did not go into this issue very much but they did note that increased gas flows through Nord Stream may not mean a huge increase in Russian gas exports to Europe as they have been reducing the gas exports via the Ukrainian pipelines.
CRS also notes that gas exporters – whether Russia, the US, or the other major players (Canada, Australia, Qatar, Algeria, Nigeria) can export their gas to a hungry Asian market.
OK – now the lying troll JohnH has declared me stupid not to realize that the entire government is in bed with US oil and will block Nord Stream II. Now that may have been the case when Trump (JohnH’s boy) was in charge but could someone tell this idiot that the President is not Donald Trump and not Ted Cruz but Joe Biden while we ask this pathetic little liar to READ this:
‘Despite the Biden Administration’s stated opposition to Nord Stream 2, the Administration appears to have shifted its focus away from working to prevent the pipeline’s completion to mitigating the potential negative impacts of
an operational pipeline. Some critics of this approach, including some Members of Congress and the Ukrainian and Polish governments, sharply criticized a U.S.-German joint statement on energy security, issued on July 21, 2021, which they perceived as indirectly affirming the pipeline’s completion. Although the statement included a German pledge to increase energy investments in Ukraine and to counter future Russian attempts to “use energy as a weapon,” it made no mention of halting progress on Nord Stream 2.”
Bottom line – if Putin does not invade Ukraine, more Russian gas will be sent to the EU via not only Nord Stream II but also via the pipelines in Ukraine.
Of course I do not expect a lying troll like JohnH ever to recognize the real world. He has never done so in the past so why start now?
pgl still refuses to consider even the possibility that powerful interests and industries drive much of US foreign policy, particularly vis-a-vis energy powers that are sovereign states that pursue their own national interests, not Washington’s oil soaked dictates. (Poor Germans, whose government would prefer they freeze rather than stand up and defy US energy interests!)
There is little discussion of the industry influence in the media, and even on Google, and certainly not among economists, who shun any discussion of power dynamics and corporate influence in the global economy like the plague.
Fortunately, Lee Harris at American Prospect steps into the breach: “ Nord Stream Pipeline Snarled in the U.S.-Russia ‘Fossil Energy War;
Discarded sanctions over Nord Stream were attempted protectionism for U.S. gas producers.” Now that the sanctions threats are back, where are the free trade fundamentalists? MIA, talking about washing machine tariffs!!!
Harris notes, “[Cruz], the senator from the Permian Basin, who has emerged as the pipeline’s toughest critic, has another reason to oppose the infrastructure for Russian gas: preserving the European export market for U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG)….
Beyond Texas, senators from other oil-producing states such as North Dakota have slammed the pipeline, also citing national security…”Freedom gas,” as former Energy Secretary Rick Perry (and former Texas governor)dubbed the fuel, has been explicitly pitched to European producers in recent years as an alternative to Russian energy.”
In Europe, the debate over U.S. sanctions is viewed as a play not only for energy security but for lucrative energy markets—violating territorial sovereignty even as they claim to preserve it. “
https://prospect.org/environment/nord-stream-pipeline-snarled-in-us-russia-fossil-energy-war/
Only someone like pgl (ignoramus or total naif?) could deny that the US energy industry is a major driver of poor relations with Russia…because of underlying economic competition. In international economics, it pays to have the biggest global bully on your side to help you secure foreign markets and sweetheart deals.
Our host has called out this nonsense in a new post. Try reading before ranting sometime!
This matter is not as hard as your rants make it out to be. If Putin wants his gas to flow, he can avoid invading Ukraine. That way he has not only Nord Stream II but also Turk Stream. And he can neuter people like Cruz in the process. Oh wait – Cruz is your boy. Never mind. I guess who want Russia to occupy Ukraine!
“pgl still refuses to consider even the possibility that powerful interests and industries drive much of US foreign policy, particularly vis-a-vis energy powers”
This is nothing more than a LIE. Let’s go back to early 2001 when Bush43 told Dick Cheney to come up with his energy plan. Five deferment Dick came up with a glossy document in a hurry which was nothing more than the wish list from Big Oil. The blogosphere went after this fraud in a big way and it never went anywhere. Funny thing – JohnH was AWOL back then.
Or two years later when Bush43 and his VP evil twin decided to attack Iraq. A lot of us suggested this was another gift for Big Oil especially when Kudlow the Klown told us victory would mean 12 million barrels of oil from Iraq at prices at $12/barrel. Ok – Kudlow is a moron but where was JohnH back then? AWOL.
Of course this is 2021 and Nord Stream 2 which President Trump decided to block. Where was JohnH on this one? Cheering Trump on at every turn.
Sorry but I am not going to listen to lectures from such a two faced clown.
Shall I take out my thespian clothes from the attic, that haven’t even gotten dusty yet from the last time I used them and play the role of Captain Obvious?? The dark cloud hanging over all the FT-IGM forecasts is that we don’t know if a more severe version of Omicron variant happens before the end of 2023. Which by the way, would blow a hole through 95% confidence intervals, making forecasters feel worse than the camera on the tip of the tube during donald trump’s colonoscopy.
Getting the third digit to the right of the decimal correct in one’s forecast can be very satisfying (and exceedingly rare), but one has to ask how the forecast is to be used to know if any accuracy beyond a modest range is worthwhile.
If I am to sell consumers in China my latest widget, it is of little use to know that the economy grew 7%, or slightly faster than previously. What is useful is to know the market. How much money do households have in my target cities? Is the disposable share of their income rising faster than before? Where are the larger markets for my product, on the coast or further inland?
Broad GDP numbers are fine for economists, but not a lot of use in the rest of the world. As one of my friends is fond of saying, “GDP is like the gears of a car. Going forward, there’s slow, medium, and illegal; in reverse, we don’t bother measuring it.”
Kevin Drum notes a sad reality as noted by the Cook Report, which basically says the good guys end up losing:
https://jabberwocking.com/cook-report-says-democrats-have-slit-their-own-throats/
So the Blue States want to have fair elections and have avoided gerrymandering while the Red States could care less about voters, democracy, or even basic fairness and hence have resorted to extreme gerrymandering. And the latter will likely benefit in the 2022 elections.
Maybe Jefferson was right – we need to let the educated vote and keep those MAGA hat goofballs who are out to destroy democracy as far away from voting booths as possible.
pgl,
Oh, let us not exaggerate. Dems also do gerrymandering, with Maryland the most recent blatant example. GOP doing it is more noticeable because they control more state legislatures than do Dems. What is more partisan is all the other anti-democratic stuff GOPs are pulling in lots of states to suppress voting or turn non-partisan boards into ones their partisan legislatures can control and related moves. Dems are not doing any of that stuff.
Just highlighting what someone else wrote but yea – Democrats have been guilty in the past in terms of mild gerrymandering. But the Republican form may be a patent violation of that classic game Twister!
NY AG Letitia James will no longer pursue becoming our next governor. While some of us might see this as bad news – the good news is that she has decided to spend her entire focus on prosecuting Donald John Trump!
https://news.yahoo.com/york-attorney-general-letitia-james-181650521.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
Brent oil is now $74.70. Now my math isn’t always the greatest. I had a girlfriend who once told me I was near retarded because after many years away from college I had forgotten how to convert fractions and then multiply them. Special Ed or not, I have a price increase on Brent to $100 figured out to be a 33.87% increase. Now…… if such an increase strikes you as realistic in the next roughly 22 days, we’ll be able to congratulate “Princeton”Kopits on his mastery as an “oil consultant”. I’m happy to take the other side of that bet if anyone wants to send me 10–20 large boxes of hard liquor. Let me know.
I heard a jp Morgan analyst on Bloomberg argue last week that $100 oil was a distinct possibility in the next 6 months. fwiw.
I’d settle for a fraudster in the New Jersey area to admit he was wrong it would hit $100 before the end of 2021.
Moses,
Oh, I said I would not do this, but I shall point out some things, that while all extremely unlikely, are not impossible and could push crude indeed to either of those extremes I allowed as possible for by the end of the year, again only taking three days in a row either way of what happened two weeks ago in the crude markets to get to either point, and all of which would be very bad, but not impossible.
So, I note the last prominent WW II vet, Bob Dole, whom I once met, is lying in state in the Capitol. He died two days before the 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. So, how about an outbreak of war much worse than WW II? We have much more powerful weapons now. Or a terror attack of an order of magnitude worse than we have seen so far, one using those weapons many have feared could be used, especially if some of this was aimed at oil production facilities? Or a really major natural disaster? All of these could conceivably give us those three-in-a-row more $10 per day bumps that would put crude over $100.
On the downside? Oh, this one is more obvious, and probably more likely than those upside disasters. Tomorrow, variant zeta is reported somewhere, but instead of being probably wimpy as omicron appears it will be in terms of effect, it is not only three times more transmissable than omicron, but five times deadlier than delta, with neither vaccines nor masks halting it much. Oh, that could give us more than three days in a row of $10 declines in crude, putting us down where even Menzie was saying no go, below $40, while he was still allowing for the outer limit possibility of $100. Heck we were there at the low point in the first wave of the pandemic.
No, I am not predicting any of this and wish none of it, and I make no bets on any of this sort of thing, leaving that for stupid suckers like rsm. But none of this is impossible, Moses. So wait for Jan. 1 to do your full throated crowing on the actual end of year 2021 outcome for the crude oil market.
I would hope Putin is not stupid enough to invade Ukraine. Now the situation with China is very concerning but I seriously doubt they will pull the trigger in the next few weeks.
@ Professor Barkley
The crowing will not be rescheduled or set back, I have a full 3+ weeks of crowing to do. I may even add 7-8 loud caws. Quoth the Moses, many times again.
You can grab a Christmas toy on your way out from senior services center though. A lot of our elderly visitors like the Hot Wheels cars. Thanks for keeping your appointment on time.
we hit mid $85 ($84.88 but who is counting?) in November. I don’t recall your position, but would you have said we would not hit that value 6 months ago as well? or was that within your range of possible? and at what probability?
Moses,
Now now. It was much earlier in the year that Kopits (and I) said $100 per barrel was possible by the end of the year. Yeah, I think he was more strong on that it would happen than my vague forecast that allowed a wide band of possible outcomes, playing rsm in recognizing indeed the history of sudden unforecasted large price changes that have happened many times in the oil industry. But I think by now Steven is almost certainly not forecasting a move to $100. Are you going to bring this up on Dec. 30 and claim he is still making such a forecast?
Yes, those outer limits are now of vanishingly low probability. But before you get too harrumphy about how absurd anybody is or was who suggested it was within the not completely insane realm of possibility, let me note that two weeks ago we saw a move of the crude price by over $10 in one day. All it would take would be three such days in a row going upwards to beat $100. That is certainly unlikely, but black swans do happen, and even now one cannot rule out some extreme and dramatic exogenous shock that could do it, although I would prefer not to get into listing such possibilities as most of them would be very bad more broadly and I do not wish them to happen. We have seen more than once such percentage moves up and down within this short a time frame historically.
Really, Moses, I suggest you wait until Jan. 1 to engage in your full crowing on this. The probability is now extremely high that you will get to do so, but as of now, this is just wind. I think you underestimate just how weird the world we live in is.
Oh, when did we see moves of such magnitude in such short time periods in percentage terms? For upwards, try end of 1973 and a period in 1979 (during both of those times the full moves were several hundreds percents over a longer time than three weeks), and for downwards, try 1930 after the East Texas pool was found as the Great Depression was getting going and also for 2008 when the WTI price fell by over 80% in a five month period, with also certain stretches beating what you are looking at. So, unlikely, but not unheard of. Give that, these are not even black swans, just dark grey ones.
I dunno. Stevie makes a lot of bat$hit insane forecasts. Now has anyone bothered to track his forecast record? Professional forecasters to subjected to such scrutiny. Of course I would never accuse Princeton Steve of being a professional – even if some people might be foolish enough to pay him for his “consulting”.
pgl,
I do not remember how strong Steven’s forecast was of crude hitting $100, and I am not going to go dredging back to see. I shall leave that to others. I know he put a higher probability on it than I did, but I do not remember exactly what he said, and I know he modified it some more recently.
Funny thing is, even with crude prices rising, the probability of a really sharp drop before end of year looks more likely than a really sharp spike. The obvious mechanism would indeed be the appearance of a really nasty new Covid variant, which indeed could happen at any time.
Trump made Mark Meadows his chief of staff even though Meadows is dumber than a rock. Yea he is now fighting the 1/6 committee over testifying etc. but it seems the committee is quite happy with the materials this dunderhead has already turned over:
https://www.aol.com/facing-contempt-charges-meadows-sues-185032795.html
Household net worth up 17.7% y/y in Q3. Non-financial corporation net worth up 13%. It’s good to own residential real estate – for now.
Long-term GDP growth.
According to E. Wesley F. Peterson, the US may find it difficult to achieve GDP growth much greater than the interaction of productivity and population growth (in the long-run). If I read his paper correctly, it looks like 2% to 3% GDP will be tough to exceed, without major stimulus. Look forward to comments by our expert readers.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244017736094
AS,
This is trivially correct essentially by being an accounting identity. For this paper to be worth anything it should add something more, such as what might be driving those elements.
Barkeley,
OK, Thanks
AS,
You are welcome.
It adds a lot more. Give it a read.
pgl.
I took a look, and the extra seems to be about the relation between population growth and per capital income growth, which is an entirely different matter than the relation between overall GDP growth, growth of population and labor productivity growth, the latter being essentially an accounting identity aside from issues of labor force participation.
The paper looks to be largely correct, although not all that original, in arguing that per capita income growth can be damaged by either too high or too low population growth.
“the US may find it difficult to achieve GDP growth much greater than the interaction of productivity and population growth (in the long-run).”
If productivity is defined as GDP/population, then isn’t this a truism? Of course I get his point is the same as the standard Solow model. But Solow would tell us decent policies can possibly achieve a somewhat higher growth rate of productivity.
This is an interesting paper in terms of what population growth rates mean for low income nations v. high income nations with a heavy focus on the implications for income inequality. I really like this portion of his concluding remarks:
“Increased migration from low- to high-income countries could offset these low and negative natural population growth rates while alleviating some of the pressures of high population growth in low-income countries. Although
not directly affected by migration, an additional advantage of higher population growth in high-income countries is that it reduces the effects of inherited wealth on economic inequality (Piketty, 2014, p. 83). Higher population growth
is generally associated with larger families and large families will have to divide inheritances among more children. Inherited wealth is an important part of the concentration of capital which, Piketty (2014) shows, contributes to greater economic inequality.”
Then again I have always been for fewer restrictions on immigration for a host of reasons. Thanks for bringing this paper to our attention!
pgl,
I appreciate the knowledge of the more economically educated among us.
Thanks for sharing knowledge and you are welcome regarding the article.
Thought Menzie and his readers might take an interest in this.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/09/guard-leaders-push-back-army-january-6-report-523995
Not exactly “comforting”. The U.S. military leadership’s favorite board game, called “Pass the Buck”.
Lifted verbatim from the Betsy Woodruff Swan authored story:
“Guardsmen who were already on duty, were trained in civil disturbance response, already had area familiarization with Washington, DC, were properly kitted and were delayed only because of inaction and inertia at the Pentagon,” he wrote in his memo.
It goes on farther down:
The Army report also describes multiple exchanges between top Pentagon officials and Walker about the Guard’s response to the riot.
For example, the report says that at 2:25 p.m., McCarthy asked Walker how quickly the Guard’s Quick Response Force could respond. Walker said it would be ready to go in 20 minutes, the report continues.
Walker told POLITICO that conversation never happened. He also said two other Jan. 6 exchanges the Army report cites between him and McCarthy — at 3 p.m. and 4:35 p.m. — never occurred.
“That call didn’t happen,” he said of the 3 p.m. call alleged in the report. “I would never have to prepare [Guardsmen] to move. I would just order them to move. And they already had the equipment.”
And farther down in the story:
“The leaders of the D.C. Guard already knew the lead law enforcement officer to report to, Walker countered. He and Sund know each other personally, and Walker said THE TWO MEN HAD BEEN DISCUSSING THE POSSIBILITY THAT THE GUARD WOULD DEPLY ON Jan. 6 IN THE WEEK BEFORE THE ATTACK.”
My apologies, in the last sentence of my 2:17pm comment, I misspelled deploy. That was obviously my error and not the authors’.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/
Abiy Ahmed Ali, the prime minister of Ethiopia, won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. Ethiopia, a poor country, has become a fast-growing country in recent years with seemingly endless promise in spite of a current insurgency. President Biden and Secretary Blinken however have decided that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been too little observant of human rights and will end Ethiopian participation in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA * ) this coming January.
* https://agoa.info/about-agoa.html
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=GheL
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia, 1982-2020
(Percent change)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=GheV
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia, 1982-2020
(Indexed to 1982)
Here’s another interesting claim from one of our fake news Republicans:
https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/local-regional/2021-12-08/lankford-claims-us-is-at-a-very-high-rate-of-immunity-ahead-of-senate-vote-to-repeal-bidens-covid-vaccine-mandate-for-private-companies
Republican James Lankford says: “There are millions of other people across the country that have determined they don’t want to take the vaccine. And in the United States where right now, 92% of the adult population — 92% — either has natural immunity based on having COVID and recovered or has the vaccine, we’re at a very high rate of immunity,”
Maybe like one of our regular commenters here Lankford got his booster “back in April”??
Is this the Aaron Rodgers version of being immunized. Does this fool not get having an early bout of Covid back in 2020 doe not mean the Delta variation can’t kill you?
I thought it was a pretty outrageous statement, but not totally unexpected coming from Lankford. He is one of these “Jesus freaks” (who by my own subjective judgements I do not consider true Christians). The real danger here is, there are many Oklahomans who will take his words to heart, and stop further investigation into scientists, medical professional, public health experts thoughts, when they hear a man they view as “moral, ethical, and principled” tell them that “the coast is clear now”.
Lankford is one of those Republicans, you may recall, who sh*t his pants immediately after the 1/6 insurrection and then backtracked about 5 minutes later when he figured out he was losing the rural toothless crowd’s vote.
PGL, always confused, says: “Does this fool not get having an early bout of Covid back in 2020 doe not mean the Delta variation can’t kill you?” If being immunized, naturally or via a vaccine, doesn’t protect us from DEATH (capitalized to get his feeble attention), then why all the emphasis on getting vaccinated?
It appears that irrational fear from being totally confused over the actual impacts is driving too many to ignorance.
Do the vaccines work? How well? How long? Against what? For who? I have personally answered these questions for myself, but apparently many still have not done so.
EVERY scientist knows that the protection from being previously ill with COVID-19 is not nearly the same as being fully vaccinated. But of course little CoRev has to pop up chirping just to remind us that he may be the dumbest twit on the planet. Hey CoRev – did you get vaccinated? If not – that is OK by me because none of us here would miss your chirping in the least. But do stay away from others with your ignorance if you have an ounce of humanity.
Oh wait – I just made a dumb suggestion. We all know CoRev is even more self centered than his hero – Donald JohnH Trump. Never mind!
DAMN it – I just read your insanity a second time which is akin to watching Tucker Carlson re-runs. You really are one dumb dude.
https://jabberwocking.com/not-very-many-people-die-of-covid-19-these-days/
Kevin Drum is the antithesis of CoRev as Kevin presents FACTS as opposed to CoRev’s disinformation:
The total US death rate from COVID-19 is a little over 0.2%. But that’s cumulative. During the first year of the pandemic, the annualized death rate was about 0.15%. Over the next nine months, with vaccines available, the death rate declined to 0.1%. If you’re under 65 it goes down further to 0.035%. That’s about one in 3,000. And if you’re vaccinated it goes down to nearly zero. Here’s my point: I suspect that part of the public anxiety over COVID is due to the gigantic mismatch between rhetoric and reality.
A mismatch that CoRev is dedicated to make even larger!
PGL, falling back to personal attack is an indicator that you can not answer the actual question posed.
CoRev I have personally answered these questions for myself
You are not qualified to “personally” answer those questions. You are not a virologist. You are not an epidemiologist. You have neither the academic credentials nor the research skills needed to make informed answers to those questions. But as it happens, those answers are readily available. The benefits of the vaccines far, far, far outweigh the vanishingly small risks. Science can also estimate the efficacy rate as well as laboratory neutralization assay experiments (https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/95156?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2021-10-21&eun=g1700464d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Headlines%20Top%20Cat%20HeC%20%202021-10-21&utm_term=NL_Daily_DHE_dual-gmail-definition). And we also know that mRNA vaccines start to lose their efficacy after six months. As to whom, the answer is everybody.
2slugs inexorably and in error claims: “You are not qualified to “personally” answer those questions.” Ergo the only solution is vaccine mandates, since only a few with specialty training and expertise van make that decision. That level of narcissism, showing your psychotic arrogance, is why the courts have consistently ruled against vaccine mandates.
We conservatives have for decades heard how your policies were superior. You have now implemented those unicorn fart policies, and the general populace, voting public, can get a clear sensing of their/your policy results. Results from back-to-back administrations with opposing economic policies is clear.
Elections in 2022 will be the arbiter.
CoRev since only a few with specialty training and expertise van make that decision.
You should only be listening to those with a high degree of expertise in a very technical area. I certainly don’t have the virological or epidemiological expertise to make an informed decision on my own, so I rely upon a consensus view among people who have spent entire careers studying those fields. And you should do the same. I’m pretty sure that when you had your bypass surgery you didn’t just take medical advice from your barber. You looked to experts. People should adopt that same attitude with respect to getting a vaccine.
Results from back-to-back administrations with opposing economic policies is clear.
Indeed. Real GDP over the sixteen Trump quarters averaged 1.75 percent. The three quarters over Biden’s watch averaged 5.03 percent. What you conservatives rely upon is a voting public that’s intellectually lazy, half asleep and easily manipulated by Fox Noise and talk radio.
CoRev isn’t a virologist, an epidemiologist, an economist, an agronomist, a climatologist, an engineer, a physicist, a chemist, a soybeanologist, his own cardiologist? Who knew?
Surely, he’s not simply a recurring blip on this blog.
2slugs & nonecon, “You are not qualified to “personally” answer those questions. You are not a virologist. You are not an epidemiologist. You have neither the academic credentials nor the research skills needed to make informed answers to those questions” How can anyone be so arrogant and simultaneously wrong? Both seem to think that the individual has no right and ability to make a decision over a medical condition and treatment. For some reason they think that preventative/prophylactive vaccines are the solution to treatment after having the condition, heart disease or even Covid. Individuals are incapable of making personal decisions regarding these treatments?
Vaccines are not the only preventative/prophylactive treatment. Depending on the metric it may not even be the best for individuals and regions. Still the progressive/liberal mind pre-selects vaccines as the best one and only solution preventative/prophylactive treatment. Worse, they completely ignore the need for post-infection treatments.
For some reason they consider their far removed, unfamiliar, unrelated, and uninformed commentary superior the the staff, individual and immediate family in making informed decisions.
Nope! The liberal progressive vaccination “one best solution” must take precedence over those options available to those actually with or possibly getting the condition. That mindset is an amazement.
“Individuals are incapable of making personal decisions regarding these treatments?”
corev, you are perfectly able to make personal decisions on those treatments. it is simply doubtful that you could make a good quality decision. a case in point, corev underwent a quad bypass surgery because of his decades of personal decisions. he made them, each and every one. still ended up on the surgery table, costing medicare hundreds of thousands of dollars. you can make the decisions, corev. they are simply very poor decisions.
CoRev,
Only a small amount of googling will get you to the answer, with CDC one source, but not the only one on this. It is absolutely clear: immunity from vaccination is much stronger than from natural due to having had Covid. Although I gather you are still one of those who somehow doubts that vaccines work. This is really delusionial, although I am not going to wish on you what pgl did.
On Daily Kos there is an unpleasant series focusing each day on someone who was a big anti-vaxxer on social media, showing their ridiculous posts going on and on about all kinds of just rank nonsense. Then they get it and then they die. of course, when they go to the hospital their families are hassling the hospital staffs about giving them ivermectin and all sorts of other nonsense, as well as trying to raise money for them and praying. Bah. It is really all somewhere between sad and nauseating.
Best not to confuse CoRev, AKA Captain Blip. He now knows all about vaccinations, having rejected the advice of numerous experts in the field and is instead on board with Drs. Hannity, Carlson, and Ingraham. And having schooled himself reading the latest research available in Popular Mechanics, Golf Digest, Family Handyman., and the ever reliable Soybean Monthly.
After all, it’s not about public health. It”s about freedom!
Aye, Aye Captain Blip. We read you loud and clear.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=JH7l
January 30, 2018
Life Expectancy at Birth for China, India, Brazil, Ethiopia and South Africa, 1977-2020
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=JH8A
January 30, 2018
Infant Mortality Rate for China, India, Brazil, Ethiopia and South Africa, 1977-2019
December 9, 2021
COVID in RI and our Obligation to Love Our Neighbors as Ourselves
Temple Emanu-El
Dear Friends,
The numbers in Rhode Island aren’t great:
Over 200 patients in Rhode Island hospitals, nearly exceeding current capacity
Over 5% of Covid tests returning positive, a doubling from a month ago
Over 500 cases per 100,000 RI residents, twice as many cases as a month ago
As we discussed in last month’s Covid Briefing with Dr. Fine, the good news is that fully vaccinated individuals are less likely to be hospitalized or die. The bad news is that fully vaccinated individuals are still spreading the virus, symptomatically and asymptomatically, among friends, families, and the greater community. Additionally, people over 65 and particularly those over 80, and people with significant chronic disease, continue to be at risk for hospitalization and death even when vaccinated.
At this moment, what is our halakhic and moral responsibility?
2,000 years ago, when asked to summarize the entire Torah on one foot, Hillel the Elder responded, “Love your neighbor as yourself…the rest is commentary.”
In an effort to take care of each other and reduce communal spread of the virus, at this time we encourage you to:
Wear a mask while indoors in public spaces
After consulting your medical provider, get vaccinated and/or boosted
Get tested every week
Consider your personal risk factors (especially if you are over 65 and/or have significant chronic disease) and the event’s safety policies when deciding whether to attend.
Wearing a mask and getting tested are simple, inexpensive, and proven techniques that protect the wearer and those around them.
In response to current Covid trends, at Temple Emanu-El, in the coming weeks, in lieu of a full kiddush lunch, we will return to offering an oneg (dessert and hot drink bar) following services. Additionally, everyone must be masked indoors (service leaders who are on the bimah may take off their masks while leading)….
December 9, 2021
Coronavirus
Rhode Island
Cases ( 200,197)
Deaths ( 2,951)
Deaths per million ( 2,786)
@ Menzie
Menzie, if you know anything about me you should know by now I enjoy attempting to read people’s minds who are way smarter than me. Would I be right to guess you are in the H2 2022 camp on unemployment getting back to the pre-pandemic level??
Menzie
We are just now coming to understand how deeply the incompetence and corruption of the Trump admin (and continued GOP policies) have set back the U.s. For example this article on U.S. demographic trends from Calculated Risk/Lawler – Lawler: Updates on Key Drivers of US Population Growth
Lowest Growth in over a Century from 7/1/2020 to 7/1/2021 – https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/p/lawler-updates-on-key-drivers-of
“Deaths in all of 2020 totaled about 3.388 million, up a whopping 18.6% from 2019.” and “given the available data on births and deaths, the US resident population from July 1,2020 to July 1,2021 would have grown by just 486,290 (or 0.15%), the lowest annual increase in over a century (the population actually declined slightly in 1918).”
IMO We are going to need till 2024 or later to get back to trend line growth. Each time – the U.S. has a Republican admin we are set back economically.
Thanks
@ James
What if you were just looking at the rate of births alone ??? My thought is, this is a misleading data point if we are cross-referencing people who were going to die soon anyway with a relative still constant birth rate. i.e~~~a lot of the deaths were people out of the workforce anyway, or 5 years away from retirement. It sounds very callous to say, but I just don’t know how the death of 65+ deeply effects a country’s productivity rate if the birth rate hasn’t been effected much. I don’t know because I haven’t looked at or heard anything about birth rate numbers post pandemic.
Moses,
Birth rates have apparently been declining during the pandemic in the US.
Dear Folks,
The peculiar thing about the forecast is in the 1st graph. It appears the forecasters see the GDP path only approaching the status quo ex ante, so that adjustment to the COVID-19 virus really isn’t changing anything as far as potential GDP, just the adjustment to it. It is possible that this is in error.
J.