The Price Level Shortfall

Had we run a 2% price level target since December 2007 (the beginning of the previous recession).

Figure 1: Personal consumption expenditure price level, chain-type (black), 2% target from 2007M12 (red), and CBO projection (teal). CBO monthly data interpolated from quarterly using quadratic match. 2% in log terms. Source: BEA via FRED, CBO (February 2021), and author’s calculations.

The shortfall is 6.9% as of January 2021 (% in log terms), and projected to widen to 7.7% as of December 2025. The February 2021 CBO projection omits the likely passage of the American Recovery Act, but does include the previous approximately $4 trillion in Covid-19 related expenditures.

 

113 thoughts on “The Price Level Shortfall”

  1. pgl

    “The shortfall is 6.9% as of January 2021 (% in log terms), and projected to widen to 7.7% as of December 2025.”

    You have properly labeled the graph a price level target. But why would one target the price level as opposed to the inflation rate? So we missed 2% for a few years. Does that mean we have to target 4% for the next several years?

    1. Menzie Chinn Post author

      pgl: That is essentially the Fed’s new monetary framework. I think it’s a way of anchoring expectations of inflation over longer spans at 2%.

      1. Macroduck

        Exactly so. Do we know that the FOMC started its clock in 2007? The size and duration of intended inflation overshoot depends on the period of undershoot the Fed aims to correct. That and the Fed assessment of inflation expectations, which is a big part of the logic behind the shift to price level targeting. The Fed is only ever on autopilot until it isn’t – so never really on autopilot.

    1. Macroduck

      The Fed doesn’t need to raise inflation. It does need to avoid messing up. Monetary policy is a less powerful factor than had long neen assumed, but still matters a lot. Inflation, meanwhile, may rise in response to a combination of factors, real and financial. Until it does, the current plan is to provide monetary expansion.

    1. pgl

      Remind me again – whose behavior does the ratio of GDP to M2 capture? Velocity is just an odd ratio and nothing more.

    2. macroduck

      M2 gained prominence as a monetary policy gauge when monetarism was in vogue. That time has passed. You may be right about inflation and M2, but that doesn’t have much to do with Fed decision making. M2 growth is a reflection of Fed policy, no longer a guide to policy.

  4. Moses Herzog

    Since the CBO and OMB work together on some things, and also do very similar work, I’m hoping this would be considered a “related” topic. I was extremely happy to learn Shalanda Young is going to be Biden’s head of OMB. Anyone who believes in non-political based appointments, and that jobs should never be awarded solely on the basis of social networking and DNC fundraising skills should be happy about this. The British have an old saying “horses for courses”. No one in their right mind actually thinks Neera Tanden was suitable to be head of OMB–because she wasn’t/isn’t suitable.

    As is shown in past numbers/”projections”—->> https://www.crfb.org/blogs/cbo-releases-its-own-estimate-presidents-fy-2021-budget one could argue OMB’s numbers are much more optimistic than CBOs numbers. How much more likely inaccurate, untethered from reality, and less convincing would OMB’s numbers be if a known Hillary crony is running the OMB??

    Or is it better to have someone who has actually “paid their dues” in the numbers crunching dept over numerous years, rather than, say punching people who ask “the wrong question” to a candidate for the Presidency of the United States??
    https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/02/shalanda-young-neera-tanden-omb-472753

      1. Barkley Rosser

        I agree that Young is a good appointment. However, it is pretty hilarious that on International Womens’ Day good old Moses Herzog cannot leave well enough alone by praising Young but has to throw in an inappropriate attack on Tanden, with an additional implicit attack on Hillary Clinton. I guess we should be grateful that he did not drag in any of his other fave female targets for abuse.

          1. Moses Herzog

            Calling out “Racism!!!!” at every drop of the hat, really doesn’t help Democrats arguments a lot. It turns it into a joke, and waters down the power of the term. As a former semi-truck driver (fill in your preferred stereotype here) and a man who has dropped a fair share of vulgarity in his life, I do not go around dropping the F-bomb very other sentence like we hear in Hollywood films that couldn’t be bothered with writing a solid screenplay. A person uses F-bombs etc, when they are beyond an average level of anger to bring home an underlying point emphatically. You can run around calling out racism if it makes you feel good inside, but all you do is hand out ammunition to those who say the word no longer carries much weight in the current environment.

      2. Moses Herzog

        @ Menzie
        Let’s for the moment, take the assumption that the Republican Senators’ objections to Tanden largely related to skin color/race (which frankly, I thought was a stretch from the beginning). I am willing to concede, straight out concede (not just for argument but as a strong personal opinion) some Senators were against Tanden for mostly skin color (Neely Kennedy for example, probably a few others). Then the obvious question becomes, “Why were some of those same Senators nearly cheerleading for Shalanda Young for that same job??” It doesn’t add up. And BTW I have heard some Democrats claim Tanden was a “sacrificial lamb” from the get go, in essence, seemingly “red meat” so that Young’s ride would be easier. I don’t know your opinion on that latter theory, but for the record, I don’t buy that one—too much embarrassment and too much splashback on a bad nomination, that even Biden’s somewhat clueless team had to know was coming.

        Another question: Why does the Chamber of Commerce (with a strongly anti- raising of the minimum wage agenda) endorse Neera Tanden?? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn’t like a raising of the minimum wage in ANY way, shape, or form. They don’t even like the $10 proposal. So I will give our PhD host one guess as to how that works out in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce calculus on an endorsement of a woman who NOW says she is “pro raising of the minimum wage”?? Choice A: Possibly because the Chamber are not village idiots who believe every word that comes out of Tanden’s mouth?? or Choice B The Chamber thinks Tanden is hiding a Macroeconomics secret to narrow the output gap she learned when a bright light from the sky shot her in the forehead, inducing an epileptic seizure that made her punch Faiz Shakir??? Don’t think too hard.

        1. Barkley Rosser

          You are seriously out of it here, Moses. Tanden not turned down at all for racial or ethnic reasons. GOP mad at her for her mean tweets, just like you, although Bernie was going to vote for her, if not with much enthusiasm. But the GOP would not tolerate it, even though they tolerated mean tweets from Trump, who in contrast to Tanden never apologized for any or deleted any. Hey, she said Cruz had a heat like vampire, but Trump said his wife was ugly and his dad helped plot to assassinate JFK.

          She was a sacrificial lamb because no prez since Reagan in 81 has gotten all their appointments approved. At least one has to go down, and Tanden has been the least popular, given all those snowflake GOP senators so hurt by her mean tweets. Manchin could show his independence and pile on for the kill even though I do not think she did any mean tweets against him.

          As for Chamber of Commerce, like the vast majority of observers, most certainly including both Menzie and me, they considered her to be highly competent, although you have rejected that idea without a shred of evidence and in the face of massive evidence supporting that she is very smart and very knowledgeable. And also, that position is usually somebody very close to prez and pretty political. The whines that OMB director should be “above politics” is yet more hypocritical bs.

          Sorry, Moses, you are just totally off on this. We know you have not forgiven her for being rough on Bernie and some of his bros. So, please do not lie to us about what is involved here. This is just you looking like a Trump-suipporting GOPper again, as you have on many occasions.

    2. Bruce Hall

      White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday acknowledged that Young is a favorite on Capitol Hill for the position, but said there are a “range of individuals in the country who are qualified for the job.”

      “We certainly know there’s lots of support on Capitol Hill, and again (Biden) thinks so highly of her, he nominated her to serve in a senior role,” Psaki said at a White House briefing.
      https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/capitol-hill-has-picked-shalanda-young-to-lead-omb-but-biden-hasnt-yet/ar-BB1eifhw

      Looks like an opportunity for “unity”.

      1. pgl

        Young is certainly a LOT more qualified than any of the clowns Trump put in that job. Well at least Trump did not make your OMB director. Whew!

  5. Moses Herzog

    It could be argued that the recent discussion on price levels is closely related to economic stimulus and therefore connected to government recovery packages. I was “late” or “asleep at the switch” when these two columns were written back in January.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/some-of-the-progressive-priorities-really-help-the-rich-more-than-the-poor/2020/12/31/f3e1a2ac-4b70-11eb-839a-cf4ba7b7c48c_story.html

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/debt-cancellation-and-salt-cap-repeal-would-benefit-higher-earners

    But I still believe it is pertinent to the discussion, and explains why we see some commenters like “JohnH” on this site, ardently saying the things that they say. As I have expressed to Menzie before, and like to think Menzie is “hearing me out” even if Menzie isn’t “buying into” all of it~~~there is a large thread of truth in what commenters like “JohnH” are expressing on this web site, and if Democrats ignore commenters like “JohnH” and wave them off with their hand—then Democrats are leaving the door wide open for another donald trump candidacy (whether it be trump himself, or ANOTHER sociopathic presidential candidate with similar psych profile flavorings)~~whatever that candidacy may entail for Democrat prez. candidates.

    1. macroduck

      The U.S. has been suspected of being a unit root kind of economy for some decades. Can’t find an active link, but Nelson and Plosser published evidence back in 1982 and subsequent work using newer data and various statistical techniques often confirm Nelson and Plosser. Hysteresis and all that.

    1. pgl

      “The dream of homeownership is out of reach for so many working people,” said Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). “Rising home prices and flat wages means that many families, especially families of color, may never be able to afford their first home.”

      Stevie pooh – you are even more dishonest then you are dumb. And you are dumber than rocks not to get that the fundamentals (low interest rates and high rental rates) are the reason housing prices are rising. The article is NOT about you pathetically dumb bubble thesis. Yea some politicians may be as dumb as you are but your bubble thesis is not what Senator Brown or the rest of this article. It is about the fairness issue. Now either you are too dumb to get even that or you are trying to deceive people here.

    2. pgl

      “Most industry analysts say the current boom is not a “bubble” akin to that frenzy of more than a decade ago, which led to the financial crisis.”

      This Politico story notes a lot of reasons why one would reject Stevie’s ill informed bubble theory is not it as the fundamentals as they list may be driving higher prices. Now this is Stevie’s link so one has to ask: (1) did he choose to omit these discussions because he is the lying scum that I accuse him of being; or (2) is he really too damn stupid to get what the discussion in his own link is all about?

      I know – I’m being harsh but damn it this is an economist blog. The standard for comments need to be a bit higher than the intellectual garbage we routinely get from Princeton Steve.

  8. pgl

    A Biden boom?

    https://www.voanews.com/economy-business/oecd-upgrades-world-economic-forecast

    The Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD) Tuesday cautiously upgraded its 2021 global economic forecast, citing vaccine rollouts and the U.S. stimulus package passed last week as positive signs. At a virtual news conference at the organization’s headquarters in Paris, OECD Chief Economist Laurence Boone told reporters it expects the world economy to rebound and grow by 5.6 percent in 2021 and by 4 percent in 2022. In December, the group predicted global growth of 4.2 this year and 3.7 next year.

  10. EConned

    I don’t understand “[h]ad we run a 2% price level target”… did I miss a change in the FOMC’s change? Or did you mean “had we hit a 2% price level target”? If the latter, how should monetary policy change to hit its target? If the former, where is the change in the committee’s target?

    1. Moses Herzog

      It’s a hypothetical, with the red line representing the hypothetical “ideal” goal, had it happened, vs the reality of what actually happened, represented by the dark black line. The line which looks either green or a turquoise to my challenged eyes is a CBO forecast of the future, which, I don’t know the technical terminology for this, (I have a feeling there must be a more succinct term) if you take the difference between the green and the red is a kind of “lost output” that you “can never get back”, or is certainly a major challenge to get back after it is lost.

      1. EConned

        I understand the graph completely – that isn’t my question. It’s that the author states “ Had we run a 2% price level target since December 2007”. The problem with such a statement is that the FOMC had an implicit (and later explicit) target of 2% during those years.

        Also, this is price level – not an output.

        1. Moses Herzog

          “Had we run”= hypothetical. Is English your 2nd language??

          Yes the number is more directly related to prices, but what do you think the point is in trying to get the steady 2% rate of inflation?? It is part of the end goal of maximizing output. No one is sitting around going “Oh damn!!! Prices are 7% lower than they would have been had the virus not struck us!!!”, It’s an indirect measure of economic activity.

          1. EConned

            First, there is zero need for attacks. I expect Menzie to appropriately address this comment (and your others not germane to o.p. within this post) as per his policies.

            Second, the comment was “Had we run a 2% price level target since December 2007” and, as I stated, we have had such target. As such, what you’re suggesting is a hypothetical is in fact reality. Maybe you’re confusing policy target (implicit or explicit) with the observed estimates of price level. I just want to know Menzie’s thoughts on what I asked about his post. I have zero interest in entertaining some Moses Herzog who hasn’t brought anything of value to this discussion and I won’t respond further.

          2. Menzie Chinn Post author

            EConned: Actually, we have not had a 2% price level target since 2007, as far as I understand the world. We had a (tacit) 2% inflation target which meant that undershooting 2% inflation did not imply overshooting 2%. So in this case, Moses Herzog is correct in characterizing the “had” term as a hypothetical (I think technically, it’s the subjunctive or something like that).

          3. EConned

            Menzie – mea culpa as I totally misread your o.p. and that’s completely on me. It has “level target” in multiple places. I’m embarrassed. The assumption is still that the committee would have hit said price level target. They had a 2% inflation target and I seem to recall that they repeatedly failed to maintain that target despite nearly every FOMC statement suggesting they would soon hit their target.

            Looking forward to you addressing Moses Herzog and making good on the blog’s much needed new policies. Cheers.

    1. Barkley Rosser

      Yes, a real loss. I met him in what was then Leningrad in 1984. It was just after Reagan had made an embarrassing remark about the Soviets, and I got it confirmed from him. He was indeed “old school” and had genuine gravitas.

      1. Barkley Rosser

        Guess I should tell this story about a now mostly forgotten snafu by Reagan. So in August 1984 just before one of his weekly radio addresses Reagan made a joke not supposed to be heard by anybody, but it got accidentally recorded and then leaked out several days later. He said, “I am outlawing Russia. We start bombing in five minutes.” This was a time when Chernenko was in power and less than a year earlier US and USSR had nearly come to nuclear war after Soviets shot down a civilian Korean airliner with lots of Americans on board. It was a seriously tense time, not the relaxation that came later after Gorbachev came to power.

        Anyway, when the Soviets heard about this they basically freaked out and went on a high war alert (this was not reported in US at the time) and for a couple of days blasted this top story all over their media, repeated over and over on TV as something dead serious. People in USSR were very seriously freaking out big time.

        So it happened at the peak of this my fiancee (now wfe, Marina) and I arrived in Leningrad from Moscow and were in the lobby of the downtown Hotel Astoria, where a TV was blaring about this and lots of people were upset, including my fiancee. Roger Mudd and a cameraman walked in to check into the hotel, there to cover some conference or other. I recognized him and went over to ask about this. He replied “There he goes again,” then explaining it was just a joke not supposed to be publicized and would blow over, which it did. In any case, his calm gravitas was very soothing in that disturbing moment.

  15. Moses Herzog

    Thought this was interesting:
    https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-politics-georgia-coronavirus-pandemic-10ec43cc878a3024a3c6a7a833ff016a

    When I read stuff like this, where Blacks are told they can’t vote by Georgia’s Republican state legislators, I wonder to myself in this thing I call my mind, “What Black person in America, or any person bothered by a racist litmus test for voting, would ever purchase ANY products that are manufactured in the state of Georgia???” This is why people who use the term “racist” in flippant ways bother the heck out of me. Because when there are much more severe examples of racism, then the term just numbs people’s ears. They no longer want or can stand to listen to REAL examples of racism, because they’ve been bludgeoned with a plethora of false claims. When someone is NOT qualified for a job at OMB, I am sorry, they are just NOT qualified. And if they had the same past as the former candidate for OMB had had, and they looked like Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper, or Brad Pitt, guess what?? They would have gotten it just as bad or WORSE than Tanden got it. You can’t fist punch or violently shove people in your own political party, and then walk off like nothing happened. It doesn’t work. Name me a white dude, who said the things Tanden said who tweeted like she tweeted who worked as head of an important agency with either Obama or Biden AFTER saying such things?? Or even “W” Bush?? Name me ONE and I’ll shut-up.

    1. Barkley Rosser

      Oh my, really losing it over this off-topic, aren’t you, Moses. Well, nobody was tweeting back in the W era. I note you avoid Trump, whose tweets were far worse than anything Tanden ever did, although he was not appointed head of an agency by Obama or Biden, much less W. As for your claim that Tanden is not qualified, that is simply utter bilge. She may have been naughty with her meanie twits, and shoving somebody once, but nobody serious has questioned her knowledge or brains.

      As it is, I cannot think of any mean tweeters appointed an agency head during O or B admins, but I can think of a Special Assistant to a cabinet official who was, the cabinet official being HHS Sec. Sebelius under Obama, with this person the main one who drafted the Obama healthcare plan, a pretty formidable and ultimately successful undertaking. That official? Oh, one Neera Tanden.

      1. pgl

        My I call a time out between the two of you to note how utterly racist Trump is:

        https://www.wsj.com/articles/recording-of-trump-phone-call-to-georgia-lead-investigator-reveals-new-details-11615411561

        We know Trump was mad that he had lost in Georgia and that he tried to twist those who were honestly counting the votes. It turns out he was demanding the votes of Fulton County (Atlanta – my birth town) should be voted as bad things happened to Atlanta. What bad things? Oh yea a lot of black citizens were allowed to vote.

        1. Moses Herzog

          pgl
          What I persist in saying is, guys like donald trump are always with us. In fact, overly focusing on donald trump [to use a metaphor Professor Hamilton might appreciate] is like playing a game of basketball and covering the guy on the perimeter who can’t shoot threes and ignoring the man with the ball. David Duke and others have always and WILL always be there. What makes them dangerous?? When a significant portion of the general population starts to follow them and “buy into” the message.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VealJ-KWlt8

          https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html

          https://www.wsj.com/articles/recording-of-trump-phone-call-to-georgia-lead-investigator-reveals-new-details-11615411561

          Do you know there is even an extensive portion of the Hispanic population in Texas and Florida who loves this “man” who refers to themselves as “rapists and murderers”. Think about that for a few moments. Loving a man who refers to your own ethnicity as “rapists and murderers”. When these things are happening in the open for all to see, and there is not mass anger~~~this is where the danger lies. Not in a below average intelligence fraudster hiding out from the hammer of justice in Florida. And this is why Republican officials in multiple states are killing off minorities’ and low-income people’s right to vote while clueless “Democrat” morons ramble on for 3 and 1/2 months about a Hillary crony who pimped for “CAP” not getting a job she wasn’t going to do anything constructive for but flap her lips at Senate hearings.

          1. Barkley Rosser

            There is a definite mystery as to what is going on in south Texas with the long-entrenched Chicano population there, who indeed were called those bas names by Trump. Them going so much for him is a big deal, but I have not seen a single clear explanation for this, mostly several theories.

            However, in Florida Mexican-Americans are a small minority of the Hispanic population. There the Cubans are by far the largest group, and there are now also large numbers of recently arrived Venezuelans as well as a non-trivial number of Nicaraguans. All of these reportedly respoinded to ads on Hispanic media charging Biden with being a “socialist,” probably the only groups in the entire country that were impressed with this push. But in Florida those groups took this seriously, and their votes for Trump sealed the deal for him there. But he never called any of those three groups “rapists and murderers,” and while maybe the Nicaraguans might not have such a view, both the Cubans and Venezuelans tend to look down on Mexicans.

  16. Moses Herzog

    If people want to “make their line in the sand” or a production out of head of OMB, while snoring over stuff like Judge Ellen Hobbs Lyle, and other judges like her now risking their jobs and life’s work to protect Blacks and other disadvantaged groups right to vote, they can have at it. Personally, I don’t think it’s an intelligent approach to the topic of racism:
    https://apnews.com/article/push-to-oust-tennessee-judge-over-absentee-vote-44062e88bc5bfc9dc957ba70f164e365

  17. Moses Herzog

    It’s happening ALL over this nation. You want to tell people you were snoozing over Blacks and other minorities losing their right to vote because you were upset 1 person out of 20+ qualified to be head of OMB couldn’t run around on Twitter insulting members of her own party??
    https://apnews.com/article/legislature-voting-iowa-elections-campaigns-881cb8de23a9d9fd886c738a21aafa83

    This is an intentional effort by “ALEC” and Republicans across this nation to literally “steal the vote” from Blacks, minorities, and other disadvantaged groups. I suggest you pick your battles better if true racism bothers you.

    1. pgl

      It is good you support voting rights but come on. A little racism is OK if you stand up for the 15th Amendment? BTW – HR4 is a must so screw this stupid Senate filibuster.

      1. Moses Herzog

        @ pgl
        Gee, I wonder why Shalanda Young isn’t a lawyer/ DNC fund raiser / Hillary crony?? I guess when the people making the choice on Head of OMB don’t have you on speed dial, they’ll know where their mistake was NEXT time posting the work experience prerequisites . 14 years crunching numbers for Appropriations and memorizing federal budget numbers obviously proves Young’s secret connections to Stormfront. I saw it on the QAnon. Apocalypse starts at Young’s nomination hearing, we’re “rounding the corner”.

        1. Menzie Chinn Post author

          Moses Herzog: As I mentioned in an earlier exchange, being a lawyer can be quite useful in one’s role as OMB Director, given the regulatory portfolio of the agency. Cap Weinberger was a lawyer; if you don’t find that example supportive of my assertion, then think Leon Panetta (as well as Jack Lew).

          1. Moses Herzog

            @ Menzie
            I always kind of hate myself a little for adding these things, as I fear it might not be clarification I’m trying to get, but the “last word” in some kind of ego thing, and honestly I’d kind of hate myself if I found that to be true.

            But….. I think a very strong case can be made lawyers (similar to PhDs, not that I’d know on a personal level) tend to be very capable people, and with a toolkit that can make them “jack of all trades” and legitimate “jack of all trades”. And I will admit a certain something on subjective grounds which makes me dislike Tanden. I’m conceding my subjective views of her may color my view to a degree. But there are others I might strongly dislike who I wouldn’t argue with getting a job (let me think abit….. ) at the moment I can think of only one good example, OK, yes “white male” but I hate Steve Mnuchin as a person, but cannot argue with is “toolkit” as a Treasury Secretary excluding morality from the equation. I pretty much hate Pete Buttigieg as a person and would rather have seen Rahm Emmanuel get that job, but I can’t really argue, as much as I hate Buttigieg as a human being, that he doesn’t have the “toolkit” for Transportation Secretary. Maybe a couple “off the wall” examples, Jeane Kirkpatrick I couldn’t stand because she was a Reaganite, but I think she was capable in the jobs she held, Mickey Edwards, I think was pretty immoral (post office bank scandal) but very capable in most of his jobs. James Baker is another Reaganite I detest and think he was capable in most of his duties. Bill Richardson has the morals of a Kardashian sister, but if I needed someone to negotiate something for me, I might phone up Bill Richardson.

            But there is a kind of distasteful connection between the party fundraising, and yes the Hillary connection, but worse yet, the changing of her stances “on the turn of a dime” (which spells insincerity to me and person who has ZERO principles). And I think she just lies because she’s not for a real change on the minimum wage. Tanden looks like she’s about to crack a grin every time she says she supports a higher minimum wage because she can’t even sell the lie to herself. But the “overhanging feeling” that the reason she got the OMB job, is as a “thank you” for raising funds and being a Hillary crony, instead of “Who is the person best capable to run OMB??”. The question ended up being “What is a job, often held aloft by the longterm staff (of that particular agency, “agency XYZ”), that we can hand out to “our friends” in the DNC apparatus, and we played “mix and match” with “Our DNC friends” on the left hand side of the sheet, and “figure head agency titles/feather in their cap” jobs on the right hand of the sheet, and then played connect the dots. That part of it sticks in my craw to no end.

            I have a “sense” for these things. I’m very perceptive on some of these things. Now, I haven’t tooted my horn too much on this, but who was discussing Andrew Cuomo in a negative light on this blog before all the women popped up out of the woodworks?? believe it or not~~I’m kinda guessing you won’t believe it— I wasn’t doing that just to get under pgl’s skin. Tanden has something there that isn’t good, more than “a shove” there somewhere. I can smell it man. I can smell these types from 500 miles away man.

          2. pgl

            Are you sure Panetta is a lawyer? He seems to be too level headed to be a member of that profession.

          1. Moses Herzog

            Racism has nothing to do with Tanden, and it’s laughable, you think Alabama’s Shelby, would prefer a Black woman over Tanden, for reasons of racism. That’s a new one, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to “duke out” your “logic” there, that a Senator from Alabama wants a Black woman to head OMB for “reasons of racism”. I’ve seen you make very extreme stretches on claims of “misogyny” and “racism” before, but how you claim that a black woman getting a technocrat job “is racism” is a new form of mental gymnastics quite rare to my observation.

          2. pgl

            “Moses Herzog
            March 11, 2021 at 11:06 am
            Racism has nothing to do with Tanden, and it’s laughable, you think Alabama’s Shelby, would prefer a Black woman over Tanden, for reasons of racism.”

            Dude – I never made anything remotely close to that argument. Lay off the wine as you have me confused with someone else.

          3. Barkley Rosser

            pgl,

            Actually, OMB Director is a very powerful position, at least potentially, although that depends on how knowledgeable the person in it is. Those who really know budget details can bring all kinds of leverage to bear on those in Congress and elsewhere. But it is also one of those positions most people pay little attention to, if they even know it exists, with its power usually exercised behind the scenes when it is exercised. As it is, I think both Tanden and Young are pretty knowledgeable in that area. However, I agree that blocking the numerous clearly racist bills to block voting across the country, not just in GA, is more important than Tanden vs Young or even vs Sperling.

            Our Moses has been seriously incoherent on this wildly off topic topic. He appeared to claim that Tanden is incompetent, but that is clearly not the case, and not a single person opposing her made that argument, not one. Moses stands all by himself on that nonsense. No, what has him bugged, are her meanie tweets. The GOPpoers are total hypocrites on this, but that is what they went after on her, and that is what crucial Manchin also cited. Mean tweets. it looks like Moses is still angry about mean tweets regarding Bernie and his bros, which Bernie at least seems to have been willing to forgive, if begrudgingly (by all accounts he is still ticked off at her). But Moses seems to have added more, notably his anti-Hillary obsession and Tanden’s old links to Hillary, which seem to have added on here, and finally with him basically admitting a totally irrational and baseless element, his gut dislike of her, which he justifies by saying that he should be recognized as having some super accurate gut instinct. I am sorry, but I am not going along with that one.

            Regarding this mean tweets issue, their ability to block Tanden with it has apparently inspired the GOP in Senate to go to that one to create problems for other candidates, although none of them have been as naughty as meanie Neera. So, fellow female South Asian Gupta is now being ragged for mean tweets who is up for a lower level job at DOJ and somebody named Kahl, I think a white male although maybe Jewish, also now getting hit with this, him up for a lower level (but still high) job at DOD. Probably these latter two will get through as their tweets do not seem to come anywhere to the level of meanness as those of Tanden. But the hypocrites in the GOP who never saw a Trump tweet they did not like are now really falling all over themselves now that they have found this new weapon to go after Biden nominees.

          4. Moses Herzog

            @ pgl
            Just like you “never defended Cuomo”?? It appears even if I was drinking wine my memory is much better than yours because SEVERAL times you came to Cuomo’s defense and said criticizing Cuomo was “helping and supporting donald trump”. Would you like me to give you the same treatment I used to give your co-blogger and pull up your prior comments of love for Cuomo when I came after him on the Covid-19 death count?? Because I am very happy to make you look like a jackA__ if you like that.

  18. Moses Herzog

    Some of the greatest people you will ever meet in your life, as far as their humanity, generosity, and kindness are concerned, are truckdrivers. However, they are not exactly well=known for their intelligence. When I drove semi, I kept it under my hat that I had attained my 4-year university degree because I found it did not garner much favor with my colleagues. In many ways semi truckdrivers “get a bad rap” because the vast majority of them are great people. But…… certain behavior patterns seem to hold strong in the profession……..
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/idaho-man-thought-virus-disappear-111811095.html

    1. Barkley Rosser

      I have only known a few truck drivers, but as someone who has done a lot of long distance driving I have always respected the capability of the vast majority of them on the road, especially given how challenging it is. Something that has bothered me very recently is that it seems that this has changed, and i have seen in the last year or two a lot of really very bad driving by truckers, seriously dangerous. I do not know what is behind that, although perhaps I have just seen a small sample bias and there has been no general change in this.

  19. AS

    Today’s February 2021 CPI index report (FRED series, CPIAUCSL) shows a value of 263.161 or a 1.7% change Y/Y. The March 2020 index was 257.989, so unless the March 2021 CPI index falls, we will see a Y/Y March 2021 index change of at least 2.0%. Due to several months of decline in early 2020, the CPI may well show 2.0% or more gains Y/Y for several months.

    I realize that the preferred metric is the personal consumption expenditure index as Professor Chinn mentions, but just looking at what the press will start reporting about consumer prices.

  21. Moses Herzog

    Little did Dr. Wu know, just after his contributions to the world on fighting pandemics, that roughly 110 years later, American know-nothings would intentionally promulgate the false rumor that a Chinese lab with professional scientists had started Covid-19.
    https://www.google.com/doodles/dr-wu-lien-tehs-142nd-birthday <<—-Mainland Chinese can't see Google's celebration/tribute to Dr. Wu because Google search isn't allowed in China. Beijing prefers the common man think all Americans hate them, it's useful for easy manipulation of the citizenry.

    Oh well, ignorance rules supreme.

    In other news and off topic to the post, I thought this human interest type article was interesting and fun reading:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/technology/monopoly-antitrust-lina-khan-amazon.html?auth=login-email&login=email <<—You'll find a link to Khan's Yale paper in the article, no paywall for her paper.

    1. Barkley Rosser

      Moses,

      Sorry, but it was people in China of Chinese ethnic origin who first claimed that the Covid-19 virus came out of a lab in Wuhan, not anybody in the US. Those people were forced to retract their claims by higher authorities.

      As it is, you are plain wrong that it is determined for sure that this is a “false rumor.” As has been noted here numerous times, unfortunately the data that might help determine the origin of the virus was destroyed way back last January, both the data in the suspect lab and also at the wet market that you are convinced was the origin (although it might have gotten to the market from the lab). So, as I have noted numerous times here and repeat again, what is certain is that it is now nearly impossible that we shall ever in fact determine with any degree of certainty what the origin was and how it got out into the public.

      Oh, Wu does deserve recognition and praise, and it is the origin in East Asia so long ago of mask wearing to prevent spread of diseases that has made it so much more common for people there to respond responsibly to this pandemic by indeed wearing masks in a responsible way, in contrast to many in the US.

    2. Moses Herzog

      Apologies for the double post, I got an 52X (??) error from the server and assumed it hadn’t gone through, then attempted to replicate my original thoughts, which I am generally not good at once I lose the thought.

  22. ltr

    Having learned about a cluster of pneumonia cases with unusual symptoms in Wuhan on December 30-31, 2019.  I followed and collected multi-language records of unfolding events in China, each day from then to now.  Chinese health authorities were informed and immediately began to take action, which included immediately and directly informing the CDC and the WHO.  A possible origin of the cluster was closed and completely disinfected in a day.

    By January 7, viral samples had been genetically decoded.  The virus was determined to be “novel,” and the genetic codes of the samples was sent to the WHO.  Testing primers were developed just after the decoding.  Geneticists in China and the United States considered the virus naturally occurring from the decoding on.

    I know of no mainland Chinese scientist who suggested a laboratory origin by construction or accidental release.  WHO scientists have supported the in-nature origin of the virus.

    1. ltr

      Forgive me for my comment, which was not related to the topic chosen, but a passage that in effect defames Chinese scientists has to be responded to. The passage is mistaken and unfortunate, and unanswered would defame Chinese scientists.

      I only wish to be helpful.

    2. Barkley Rosser

      ltr,

      Oh please. The first physician to report on Dec. 30, 2019 that the cases were probably a SARS virus (those being 7 cases of people who probably got it from the Wuhan seafood market, closed and cleaned out two days later) was the late Dr. Li Wenliang. We have been through this before. He was called in to the local Wuhan police station on Jan.3 and warned not to “spread rumors.” He would die of Covid-9 on Feb. 6. After that the national government changed the official view to praise Dr. Li as a heroic figure, thus putting the blame for suppressing him on local Wuhan officials, although some reports say they acted with approval from higher up officials.

      On the day Dr. Li died, Feb. 6 2020, Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao of South China University of Technology posted a report on a site arguing that the origin of the coronavirus was probably a lab in Wuhan. They were later forced to take this report down and it was prevented from being published or further disseminated by higher authorities.

      So, sorry, ltr, as I accurately said, the first people to claim that Covid-9 came out of a Wuhan lab were two Chinese academics in the PRC, not non-Chinese people outside of China. This does not mean that their report was ultimately correct, and it seems to have had some problems. But the alternative claims being made that it definitely came from the wet market in Wuhan have not been verified, and those making the claims that it could not have come from a Wuhan lab all have links that provide doubt on their statements.

      Again, the bottom line is that we do not know the origin, and statements by the Chinese government seriously lack credibility after their numerous actions to either suppress or outright destroy evidence and data related to this. Actions by the PRC government are the reason why we shall never be able to definitely determine where it came from.

      That said, once the PRC government began seriously moving against the virus after the Lunar New Year 2020, the effort was highly effective, as you have repeatedly reported here, lrr, even as you have never acknowledged that the performance of Taiwan on this has been superior by an order of magnitude.

      Of course this is all off-topic, but unsurprisingly it has been Moses Herzog who has violated the stated norms here to bring this troublesome topic up for discussion again by making inaccurate claims, although you happen to agree with some of those inaccurate claims, namely that it has definitely been shown that the virus could not have come from a lab in Wuhan. There are scientists who make that claim, but there are others who disagree with that claim, and the evidence to determine which group of scientists is right no longer exists, having been destroyed on orders of the PRC government, and that is a very hard and frankly disturbing fact.

      1. Barkley Rosser

        There is an irony here, arguably a sad irony if in fact the real origin was purely zoonotic via some animal brought from the wild to the wet market in Wuhan, with the leading candidate for that based on what we know about genetic sequencing being a pangolin. It is that the way for the Chinese to show that this was the likely source rather than a lab would have been for more of what had been at that market to be preserved than apparently has been. But it was reportedly completely cleared out with everything gone on Jan.1, 2020, only two days after Dr. Li first reported it looked like it was probably a SARS virus, and two days before he was hauled into a Wuhan police station and told to be quiet.

        While the unpleasant perception is that the clearing out of everything there was part of a coverup, in fact it may have been simply a matter of local officials wanting safety from it spreading further out of there, where indeed we know quite a few people got the virus there. This arguably justifiable decision probably by strictly local officials happened at a time when nobody had any idea how bad it would get and how big of a deal it would become to determine exactly the origin and earliest history of the virus so that completely clearing everything out of the market would become such a big deal. But whatever the motive, simply trying to prevent further spread of the disease or some sort of coverup effort or some of both, there is no undoing it. What is gone is gone and cannot be put back there or recovered somehow to make a determination of how exactly the virus got to be at that market.

  23. ltr

    ——- prefers the common man think all Americans hate them, it’s useful for easy manipulation of the citizenry.

    Oh well, ignorance rules supreme.

    [ Mistaken, and unfortunately fiercely offensive. There is no reason to be offensive.

    There is no reason to express disdain for a people. ]

  24. ltr

    As for data, the data were and are carefully recorded, patient on patient from the earliest patients, location on location, and the data with the genetic codings were already being analyzed and published internationally in January 2020:

    https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316?query=featured_coronavirus

    January 29, 2020

    Early Transmission Dynamics in Wuhan, China, of Novel Coronavirus–Infected Pneumonia
    By Qun Li, Xuhua Guan, Peng Wu, Xiaoye Wang, Lei Zhou, Yeqing Tong, Ruiqi Ren, Kathy S.M. Leung, Eric H.Y. Lau, Jessica Y. Wong, Xuesen Xing, Nijuan Xiang, et al.

    Abstract

    BACKGROUND

    The initial cases of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)–infected pneumonia (NCIP) occurred in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, in December 2019 and January 2020. We analyzed data on the first 425 confirmed cases in Wuhan to determine the epidemiologic characteristics of NCIP.

  25. ltr

    ——- prefers the common man think all Americans hate them, it’s useful for easy manipulation of the citizenry.

    Oh well, ignorance rules supreme.

    [ Please, a people ought not to be defamed. ]

  26. ltr

    ——- prefers the common man think all Americans hate them, it’s useful for easy manipulation of the citizenry.

    Oh well, ignorance rules supreme.

    [ This assertion is of course untrue, but what is so frightening and saddening is the disdain for an entire people that the comments reflects. Expressing such evident antipathy for a people is evidently beyond my understanding. Possibly counseling would be helpful.

    Possibly the writer will come to understand the harm caused by repeated expressions of prejudice. ]

    1. Barkley Rosser

      ltr,

      I think it probably is a waste of time and certainly totally off topic to relitigate all this here. But last year you agreed that Dr. Li Wenliiang was unfortunately initially suppressed. Beyond that, your statement that my statement “is mistaken and misleading all though” utterly lacks crediblity. All of what I wrote is correct and you will be unable to disprove it. Do you deny that Bo and Lei posted a paper on Feb. 6 last year arguing the source was a lab in Wuhan, with that paper ordered to be taken down? Do you deny that the wet market was completely cleared out on Jan. 1, 2020 in Wuhan? Do you deny that outsiders were long kept from visiting the lab in Wuhan and that by the time WHO people were allowed to visit recently the original data on the key research there had been removed and was and remains unavailable due to orders from the government? Do you deny any of this? It is not misleading, ltr. It is true, and it is certainly not racist to note that ethnic Han Chinese academics living in the PRC were the first people to argue that the virus came out of a Wuhan lab.

      Again, ltr, my bottom line is that we shall not be able to determine the ultimate origin due to the unfortunate disappearance of the crucial original data. Claims by the PRC government that the source has been determined are simply false and those pushing these claims should understand that they undermine their own credibility by repeating these falsehoods. That does not just apply to you, ltr, but also to Herzog, who was the person who inappropriately introduced this whole sub-thread here and did so by himself repeating these not credible claims coming out of the PRC government, although he has his own weird motives, as he gets weird obsessions he must go on and on about, as he has done above with his irrational hatred of Neena Tanden, a woman of color, speaking of racism.

  28. ltr

    https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2021/03/on-hans-in-luck-effects.html

    March 10, 2021

    But the totality of remarks and marginal decisions and mild stereotyping adds up to something wholly different – systematic racism which is experienced as stressful and exhausting….

    — Chris Dillow

    [ Yes, I so understand. For all the condescension, for all the cruel ridiculing laughter, I so understand.

    Chris Dillow happened to write brilliantly on the matter of prejudice yesterday. Also, the implications of prejudice are overwhelmingly economic or meant to be economic. ]

    1. Menzie Chinn Post author

      ltr: I think I can be partially absolved from being racist in my remarks when I say that many of your comments have been remarkably one-sided in their boosterism for PRC policies. We can applaud the PRC government for the effectiveness (eventually) of their Covid-19 response, and for the government’s ability to lift hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty, without neglecting the incredibly poor record on human rights, both with respect to the Han Chinese, as well as the Uighur minority and native population of Tibet. In other words, not all of the criticisms directed at your comments are racially motivated.

  29. baffling

    i have challenged ltr a couple of times to comment on flashpoint items related to china:

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/09/asia/china-uyghurs-xinjiang-genocide-report-intl-hnk/index.html
    ltr, what are your thoughts on the genocide occurring in china? or is that topic outside the bounds of your inquisitive mind? perhaps this should also be discussed by the general assembly? would you agree?

    https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/02/asia/china-wuhan-covid-truthtellers-intl-hnk-dst/
    or what about the detention of folks providing early warning of the extend of the coronavirus outbreak in wuhan and china? any comments on how these folks have been treated ltr?

    so far, there have been no responses from ltr on these topics.

  30. ltr

    Some say that a cat can look at a king (queen), but I always knew that the cat should not.  Even the Duchess of Sussex found that looking at royalty was fearfully sad, and I am no Duchess.  Nonetheless, though I am only a lowly cat of little learning and slow thinking, I have come to know cat-stuff and to set down what I know.  Obviously, the cat-stuff I know can be troubling but I am always polite in setting down what I know and likely will continue for all the proper fear I have for royalty.

    Please do not fret, for I do know that cats can always be dismissed with prejudice.

  31. ltr

    What is real to me has been made unreal these past years, with an entire administration bent on defaming a people. A Secretary of State has travelled the world continually vilifying China and of course the entire State Department had to support the vilifying. For me, the reality of China is entirely different than for the administration of Donald Trump. The China I know was and is different, and I have these years and before sought awfully hard to know about China.

    Of course, I understand just how dangerous it is to disagree with the with the views of China fostered through the Trump years but I have tried in a limited way here. I have been respectful and polite and set down a little of what I know. However, even referring to a source in China, in the beginning, was followed with immediate derision and mean accusations and worse imagery. I tried, however, and have been respectful and polite always.

    The problem of looking at China with fairness in this country has extended from the nineteenth century, at times easier, now savagely harder. I am proud of myself for trying to fairly depict China here and intend to continue. After all, I know the moral character of a people who would shelter European Jews during the terrible 1930s and 1940s and have preserved the sheltering homes and just built a museum honoring those Jews. I know the character of a people who always remember to memorialize the Jewish experience even as they memorialize Nanjing.

    1. baffling

      “I am proud of myself for trying to fairly depict China here and intend to continue.”
      and yet you refuse to comment on the two items i linked to. obviously they are uncomfortable topics. but if you want to “fairly” depict china, they cannot be ignored. and i am not lost in the irony of you noting the chinese efforts towards the jewish experience nearly a century ago while ignoring the uighur situation today. if you want the respect of “fairness”, you have to look at both the good and the bad. and learn from both.

    2. Moses Herzog

      @ ltr
      I don’t even like Mike Pompeo. The man’s face and voice literally give me a semi-strong feeling of nausea. That being said, I’d be hard-pressed to think of anything Pompeo said related to China (with maybe the exception of trade??? I don’t remember Pompeo discussing trade much (???)) What the real issue I would take with Pompeo and a substantive point I believe Professor Chinn has (very rightfully) brought up many times here, is the extremely asymmetric/pampered treatment the government of Russia has received from the trump administration compared to China, for behaviors that often nearly mirror one another.

      And if you wanted to make a sympathetic argument, instead of the Tom Smothers style argument “Mom always liked you best” style whining, you might try something along the lines of asking why the trump administration treated the two countries differently.

      I don’t even know why I am making this comment, because I know my entreaty to “ltr” to make an actual solid argument instead of crying like 4 year old isn’t going to change “ltr’s” comment method.

      1. Moses Herzog

        I failed to finish my sentence above—The sentence should have read or ended “That being said, I’d be hard-pressed to think of anything Pompeo said related to China that I disagreed with (with maybe the exception of trade???”

  32. ltr

    A people who saved and remembered and who still memorialize the Shoah, are a people needing no moral defense for what they are incapable of. *

    * A Jewish doctor who after being released from Dachau escaped from Europe and made his way to Shanghai, would create a medical school for the People’s Liberation Army. Dr. Jakob Rosenfeld is remembered and memorialized each year in China. There is the statue. There is the hospital with his name.

    1. Moses Herzog

      Beijing is packed with real “humanitarians”
      https://xjdp.aspi.org.au/map/?

      It is called the “Xinjiang Data Project”: Mapping Xinjiang’s detention system with 380 sites of suspected re-education camps, detention centers and prisons that have been built/expanded since 2017.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/world/asia/china-muslims-xinjiang-detention.html?action=click&auth=login-email&login=email&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

      I hope you and Huang Kunming enjoy it “ltr”. When you’re not busy eating exotic meat at wet markets you can take a holiday trip over to Xinjiang and let us know about the local tourist attractions.

  35. ltr

    How I know the moral character of the Chinese people is sound:

    The problem of looking at China with fairness in this country has extended from the nineteenth century, at times easier, now savagely harder. I am proud of myself for trying to fairly depict China here and intend to continue. After all, I know the moral character of a people who would shelter European Jews during the terrible 1930s and 1940s and have preserved the sheltering homes and just built a museum honoring those Jews. I know the character of a people who always remember to memorialize the Jewish experience even as they memorialize Nanjing.

    A people who saved and remembered and who still memorialize the Shoah, are a people needing no moral defense for what they are incapable of. *

    * A Jewish doctor who after being released from Dachau escaped from Europe and made his way to Shanghai, would create a medical school for the People’s Liberation Army. Dr. Jakob Rosenfeld is remembered and memorialized each year in China. There is the statue. There is the hospital with his name.

  36. ltr

    I know my entreaty to —– to make an actual solid argument instead of crying like 4 year old…

    [ The continual insulting and demeaning is continuing. The evident intent is always intimidation, else there is no need for the insulting and demeaning. ]

  37. ltr

    What is real to me has been made unreal these past years, with an entire administration bent on defaming a people. A Secretary of State has travelled the world continually vilifying China and of course the entire State Department had to support the vilifying. I wonder and doubt that America has ever before had such an openly prejudiced Secretary of State, since diplomacy is at once defeated by open prejudice. Of course, the vilifying represented falseness and desperation for much of the world but the prime audience was likely expected to be in America.

    A Secretary of State teaching Americans prejudice, but then the President sought to teach people of other countries the same in an address to the United Nations in 2019:

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-75th-session-united-nations-general-assembly/

    1. Baffling

      I notice you have still not responded to my two topics above. Interesting choice. Instead you once again try to deter the topic with claims of bullying and prejudice. Why wont you comment in those two topics ltr?

  38. ltr

    When you’re not busy eating exotic meat at wet markets…

    [ Such is racism, such is definitive racism.

    The lesson is frightening and saddening, but timelessly important. This is the racism described in the history of Europe, against a people who came to be especially endangered during times of illness.

    I am also reminded of important work by Lion Feuchtwanger. ]

  39. ltr

    A people who saved and remembered and who still memorialize the Shoah, are a people needing no moral defense for what they are incapable of. Simply by knowing the respect the Chinese have for Jewish history, the way in which the Chinese sheltered Jews when necessary and the respect given in turn, I know what is necessary about the Chinese moral character.

    That 64 countries collectively just spoke in support of China at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, comforts me further:

    https://newsus.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-13/64-countries-call-for-stopping-politicization-of-human-rights–YAnYBd1wo8/index.html

  40. Barkley Rosser

    ltr,

    This is really going on and on without any resolution in sight, but just two points on more recent posts by you.

    The Chinese government that treated refugee Jews well during the Shoah was not led by the CCP but by the Nationalist Guomintang party, which would survive in Taiwan, where there is now a two party democratic system that has produced far superior economic and social outcomes than we have seen produced on the mainland by the CCP, although indeed as both Menzie and I agree, the current government has succeeded in tremendously improving economic conditions across the country, even if not as much so as we have seen in Taiwan, and also has gotten the coronavirus under much better control than most nations in the world, although again, not as much so as in Taiwan, whose performance on this as on pretty much everything else has been superior to the mainland regime (and also is not currently violating human rights of minority groups as is happening in Xinjiang, although under Chiang Kai-Shek its regime did violate human rights badly, but he is gone and things have improved greatly on such fronts there).

    The other point involves your focus on Pompeo, whose speeches I have not paid attention to. They may have been bad, but the worst speeches about China came from his superior, former President Trump, who yet again on March 10 was using this unfortunate formulation regarding the virus that both you and Menzie argue is racis,t and I agree with both of you on that. It is kind of funny that when above you tried to show how racist and bad Pompeo was you linked to Trump’s speech to the UN General Assembly, which link did not work for me. But I agree that speech was very reprehensible, but it was Trump’s speech, not Pompeo’s. The problem came from the top.

  41. ltr

    There are now new links for statements of the former President:

    What is real to me has been made unreal these past years, with an entire administration bent on defaming a people. A Secretary of State has travelled the world continually vilifying China and of course the entire State Department had to support the vilifying. I wonder and doubt that America has ever before had such an openly prejudiced Secretary of State, since diplomacy is at once defeated by open prejudice. Of course, the vilifying represented falseness and desperation for much of the world but the prime audience was likely expected to be in America.

    A Secretary of State teaching Americans prejudice, but then the President sought to teach people of other countries the same in an address to the United Nations in 2019:

    https://mr.usembassy.gov/remarks-by-president-trump-to-the-75th-session-of-the-united-nations-general-assembly/

  42. ltr

    Importantly, the former Secretary of State made a point of travelling about abroad and in this country making profoundly prejudiced and antagonistic statements about China. I would guess that America has never had a more openly prejudiced and antagonistic and for this country ultimately self-defeating a Secretary of State. The legacy of open prejudice against the people of China left by the Secretary, however, will be difficult to get beyond. Of course, prejudice against China was policy for a number of administration officials and for the President, but applications in foreign policy strike me as especially troubling:

    https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1286873851566194691

    The Wall Street Journal @WSJ

    Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stopped shy of explicitly calling for regime change, urging allied countries and the people of China to work with the U.S. to change the Communist Party’s behavior

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/secretary-of-state-pompeo-to-urge-chinese-people-to-change-the-communist-party-11595517729

    Secretary of State Pompeo to Urge Chinese People to Change the Communist Party
    Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on the Chinese people to alter the ruling Communist Party’s direction in a speech explaining the Trump administration’s full-throttle response to an assertive China.

    12:00 AM · Jul 25, 2020

    1. Baffling

      Ltr, any comment on the chinese conduct against the uighurs? Or the silence of the covid reporters? Eventually we can discuss the killings at tiananman as well. Are we still looking to have a fair discussion about china? Or are these topics off limits?

  43. ltr

    As for the Chinese respect for Jewish history, the protection of Jews and the memorializing of the protection and continual remembrance of Jewish memorials, I know that is a reflection of Chinese morality.

    The Chinese have of course just completed a profound human rights program in which severe poverty has been ended for hundreds of millions of people, and from here the Chinese will be providing for persistence in well-being and continued gains in welfare.  Such a Chinese moral accomplishment may not just yet be properly appreciated in a country where prejudice has been evoked and fostered in recent years, but the appreciation will come.

    I am completely reassured as to Chinese morality.

    1. Barkley Rosser

      That Han Chinese can manage a society that shows a high level of morality is best seen by considering Taiwan. Not only does one find a high level of real per capita income, although not as high as in Singapore and Hong Kong, but one finds more equal distribution of income than in either of them and over the past several decades better treatment of minorities and the poor, a better treatment of women, and especially sharp in contrast since the time of Chiang Ching-Kuo, son of Chiang Kai-Shek, actually functioning democracy with full civil liberties and freedom of the press and speech and religion and other things matching levels of these things found in almost any nation in the world. In all of these categories we also see more morality and superior performance on all categories than in the largest nation in the world ruled by Han Chinese.

  44. ltr

    http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-01/23/c_139691881.htm

    January 23, 2021

    China poverty reduction miracle in “wrinkles of Earth”

    — More than half a million people living on the southwestern Chinese border have thrown off the shackles of poverty.
    — The canyon area of the Nujiang River originating from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is one of China’s poorest regions.
    — The area has been transformed thanks to a nationwide poverty-relief campaign.

    By Wu Xiaoyang, Zhao Jiasong and Zhao Peiran

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-02-28/China-changes-the-conversation-on-poverty-alleviation–YdPBiodBbG/index.html

    February 28, 2021

    China changes the conversation on poverty alleviation
    By Stephen Ndegwa

  46. ltr

    I have only respect and admiration for China. This is a country that sheltered Jews during the 1930s and 1940s and remembers by museum those sheltered to this day. China is a country that always remembers, always memorializes the Shoah.

    I know the moral character and worth of China.

  47. ltr

    http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-01/25/c_139696392.htm

    January 25, 2021

    #ProsperityOnthePlateau: What Tibetans buy reveals better lives

    LHASA — Right after obtaining his driving license, Dainzin went to Lhasa, the regional capital city, to buy a car.

    “Now that I have more spare money, I’m going to own a car and enjoy my life,” said the farmer from the Township of Zhaxoi, Tibet Autonomous Region, southwest China.

    After Dainzin’s children graduated from college and began to work, the annual per capita income of this family has exceeded 20,000 yuan (3,094 U.S. dollars).

    Dainzin’s family is one among 3.44 million people in Tibet who have seen their incomes increase and lives improve. Last year, the region’s GDP surpassed 190 billion yuan (around 29.2 billion U.S. dollars); the per capita disposable income for rural residents grew 12.7 percent to 14,598 yuan, while that for urban residents rose 10 percent to 41,156 yuan.

    Increasing incomes have transformed consumption habits on the plateau. According to data released by the regional government, per capita consumption of grains decreased 126 kilograms from five years ago, while vegetables increased 23 kilograms; the spending on transportation and communication nearly doubled; spending on health grew 160.9 percent, and cultural and entertainment service saw a 165.6 percent increase in spending….

  48. Baffling

    So ltr, you choose to ignore rather than address uncomfortable topics. I was not demeaning or prejudice when asking those questions. Ignoring me is rude and demeaning. But i will go on asking you those questions until you provide a fair response.

  49. ltr

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-10/Why-China-s-economic-miracle-should-still-be-a-model-for-Ethiopia–YvCGZI5ipO/index.html

    March 10, 2021

    Why China’s economic miracle should still be a model for Ethiopia?
    By Yared Nigussie

    China’s economic growth should be a model for developing nations, especially to Ethiopia. Though various nations have registered an impressive economic growth in the past few decades, China’s version is a unique one for its massive poverty reduction. China, in the past 40 years has made historical achievements by lifting more than 700 million people out of poverty.

    Between 2013 and 2018, the nation lifted 82.39 million rural residents out of poverty, with an annual average of 13.73 million people casting off poverty, more than the entire population of Greece, according to Xinhuanet. No single country has witnessed such a remarkable success so far.

    Even China officially declared the end in fighting poverty as the last 52 impoverished counties successfully removed from the poverty list in 2020. China is now embarking on a new journey toward a moderately prosperous society in all aspects (Xiaokang).

    China’s economic miracle should be a great lesson for all developing nations since there is no country that lifts such millions of people from poverty, representing over 70 percent of global poverty reduction….

    1. Baffling

      Ltr, exactly how has the genocide of the uighers been a modern economic miracle in china? How has the detention of those reporting on the early wuhan outbreak been an honorable action. Care to explain the deaths in tianaman square three decades ago? Why are you so silent on these topics? Interesting how your behavior has changed. Are you still the innocent little light trying to shine on the truth?

  50. ltr

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-16/The-real-secret-of-Shenzhen-s-40-year-economic-miracle-UCUhXDlMiY/index.html

    October 16, 2020

    The real secret of Shenzhen’s 40-year economic miracle
    By Andy Mok

    “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper names.” This is one of the most widely known and quoted lines from the Analects, a collection of sayings by Confucius. The 40th anniversary of the establishment of Shenzhen has both political and symbolic significance. But to approach this topic with even a modicum of wisdom requires us to know what to call it.

    Formally, Shenzhen is known as a special economic zone (SEZ). But it would be more enlightening to describe it as a city-level policy experimentation zone. While it is indeed a policy experimentation zone, it is also, by far, the most successful one of its kind. Looking at Shenzhen’s GDP growth powerfully demonstrates this: According to Xinhua, Shenzhen has seen its GDP grow 20.7 percent on average annually over the past 40 years with its GDP per capita starting at less than 1,000 U.S. dollars and reaching 30,000 dollars today.

    Many poor and struggling countries have attempted similar experiments for many decades but only China has succeeded. What is the magic fairy dust that the Communist Party of China sprinkled on an impoverished fishing village 40 years ago that allowed it to blossom so abundantly?

    According to Nobel Prize laureate, Paul Romer, the secret is not technology but the ability to formulate and implement effective governance rules. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the celebrated Qing Dynasty enlightenment scholar, Yan Fu, argued this well in his explanation of why the West gains such an advantage. Today, as examples such as Shenzhen and Shanghai Pudong show so clearly, China has become the world’s gold standard for effective rule creation and implementation at the city level.

    Today, China has entered a new era of unprecedented peril as well as promise. Domestically, it must address both inequality and challenges remaining from a still unfolding process of reform. Meanwhile, the external environment has become much more difficult with both geopolitical and economic threats that must be confronted with courage and wisdom.
    In response, the country is continuing to apply its rule making abilities at the municipal level while also doing so at the national and supra-national levels.

    President Xi Jinping’s vision for the future of Shenzhen illustrates how this now gleaming and teeming metropolis of more than 11 million will advance….

  51. ltr

    I have only respect and admiration for China. This is a country that sheltered Jews during the 1930s and 1940s and remembers by museum those sheltered to this day. China is a country that always remembers, always memorializes the Shoah.

    China is a country that has pledged “never again” a Nanjing.

    Never again.

    I know the moral character and worth of China.

    1. Baffling

      Then explain the uighers and tianenman, rather than remain silent and deflect. The question does not challenge the moral character of the chinese people. It questions the moral character of the communist leadership in china.

  52. ltr

    I know and admire the character of China, the character of a people who could work for years and years against poverty and are working still. The character of a people who could work to turn deserts green, the character of a people who could renew waters, so that entire rivers, major rivers, could be closed and guarded for years as the rivers came to be clean and full of life.

    I know and admire the character of China.

  53. ltr

    I have only respect and admiration for China. This is a country that sheltered Jews during the 1930s and 1940s and remembers by museum those sheltered to this day. China is a country that always remembers, always memorializes the Shoah.

    China is a country that has pledged “never again” a Nanjing. Never again.

    I have learned well, and I know the moral character and worth of China.

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