Official, chained, sticky price, 16% trimmed, and (for March) PCE deflator.
Figure 1: Month-on-month inflation of CPI (blue), chained CPI (brown), 16% trimmed CPI inflation (red), sticky price CPI inflation (green), personal consumption expenditure deflator inflation (black), all in decimal form (i.e., 0.05 means 5%). Chained CPI seasonally adjusted using geometric Census X12 (brown). NBER defined recession dates (peak-to-trough) shaded gray. Source: BLS, BEA, Atlanta Fed, NBER, and author’s calculations.
Note that over the past few months, trimmed and sticky price CPI inflation has been less that headline. Trimmed < headline suggests price increases are concentrated in certain categories. Stick < headline suggests flexible prices are doing the bulk of the price changes.
For core measures:
Figure 2: Month-on-month inflation of core CPI (blue), chained core CPI (brown), sticky price core CPI inflation (green), personal consumption expenditure core deflator inflation (black), all in decimal form (i.e., 0.05 means 5%). Chained CPI seasonally adjusted using geometric Census X12 (brown). NBER defined recession dates (peak-to-trough) shaded gray. Source: BLS, BEA, Atlanta Fed, NBER, and author’s calculations.
The fact that sticky price core inflation is roughly the same as core inflation suggests that energy and food are the components accounting for a lot of the general price level increases.
More at CEA. Calculated Risk discusses here and here. See also Jason Furman.
Bond markets slightly more jittery than usual. Never a good sign. Hoping to read the Matt Wirz article tomorrow as I don’t have WSJ internet access. If you’re in a higher tax bracket than me and can afford the internet subscription I recommend reading the Wirz article tonight. Just have a feeling it’s a good one.
You left out the MAGA measure which Bruce Hall has been using – the total increase in CPI over the past 15 months as if that were the right way to measure annualized inflation. Yea I get it – his lies are dumber than rocks.
Lucy,
While the “orthodox” way of measuring CPI change may be m/m (annualized) or y/y, what makes you believe that is what the average consumer is perceiving?
the total increase in CPI over the past 15 months as if that were the right way to measure annualized inflation
What if one wanted to measure how much inflation occurs over two years, three years, four years? You can look at cumulative or annual rates. When someone wants to compare inflation under Trump to inflation under Biden, you can pick your base. I see absolutely nothing wrong with picking 1/21 as a starting point for looking at how prices have changed under Biden and when his term is done we can compare his cumulative inflation performance to his predecessor. Convince me otherwise.
That’s not to say there are not other important numbers to look at. But for individuals who vote, income not keeping pace with prices has considerable importance.
https://tippinsights.com/inflation-is-the-decisive-issue-for-midterm-voters/
” I see absolutely nothing wrong with picking 1/21 as a starting point for looking at how prices have changed under Biden”
You see nothing wrong with blatant lying? OK!
Taking a longer period and doing an average annualized figure is fine. That is not what you did. Now if youj really believe what you do was honest – then I have to apologize to rocks because they are a lot smarter than you ever will be.
Look – this is an economist blog which should mean you should be permanently banned as you lower the discourse every time you write these pathetic little chirps of yours. But if Dr. Chiinn wants to keep you around in order to mock you – fine by me.
So, you believe annualized data is the only “true” measure of inflation. Tell that to someone who points out that cumulative inflation under Biden in 15 months was higher than Trump’s in four years. You may be a believer in your own myopic view of the world, but the people buying goods know what’s going on.
CPI Trump:
Jan 2017 = 243.618
Dec 2020 = 261.564
Change ~ 7.4%
CPI Biden:
Jan 2021 = 262.200
Apr 2022 = 288.663
Change = 10.1%
Let’s see what that change is when December, 2024 rolls around. Hint: it won’t be pretty.
Oh, wait, the Bureau of Labor Statistics are liars. There, now you don’t have to say it.
you believe annualized data is the only “true” measure of inflation.
Yes Bruce – most people believe in telling the truth. Now since you want to blatantly lie 24/7 get used to the rest of us mocking your pathetically stupid rants.
Trump was President for only 47 months? Oh wait – he acted like a real President for only 47 days.
Come Bruce – there are 48 months in a 4 year period. Seriously dude – pay attention to your preK teacher.
Hmm, 1/17-12/20 … okay, 47 months. I could have gone 2/17-1/21 and that would have been 48 months, right?
Yes Bruce – most people believe in telling the truth. Now since you want to blatantly lie 24/7 get used to the rest of us mocking your pathetically stupid rants.
So, looking at anything except annualized numbers is lying? My god, Lucy, you will say anything to argue… and exceedingly stupid.
Cumulative inflation represents the decline in purchasing power of fiat money over a longer period of time than annual inflation, such as an individual’s lifetime. In 2021 alone, inflation has risen to its highest levels since the 2008 financial crisis. Many economists claim that a moderate inflation rate each year is healthy for the economy; however, a review of cumulative inflation exposes that fiat currencies are a poor store of value over years or decades.
https://river.com/learn/terms/c/cumulative-inflation/
Annual inflation rates are good for assessing short term intensity and direction. Cumulative inflation rates are more direct for longer timelines’ assessment of the erosion of buying power.
Here’s another view of inflation:
https://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation/Total_inflation_by_decade.asp
Is it wrong because it is not annual rates of inflation?
Yeah, I just picked that at random, but I’m sure you could spend five seconds and find other sources. Don’t come back with your usual meaningless ad hominem about a source that doesn’t agree with you. Make your case.
Bruce Hall
May 13, 2022 at 11:25 am
Does this troll ever stop? Look – you misrepresent all the time. But maybe you are not lying. Maybe you are THIS stupid. I can it now. Bruce Hall in preK arithmetic.
Teacher: Bruce tell us what 2 plus 2 equals.
Bruce: 3.
Teacher: Try again.
Bruce: 5.
All the other kids: Now moron, the answer is 4.
Bruce: Now listen to all of you insisting on getting the answer correct. I’m taking my lunch money and going home. MOMMY why is everyone so mean to me? WHAAAAA!
Hey folks – did you know that under the leadership of St. Ronald Reagan we had a 39.2% inflation rate? Neither did I because it was never true. But by Bruce Hall’ new measure of inflation, that is exactly what this lying and stupid troll would tell us.
This is an economist blog which Bruce Hall routinely degrades with his partisan garbage. Now if there was an ounce of intelligence and a shred of integrity in any of his little chirpy comments, but that would be one thing.
But Bruce routinely lies. And his lies are so transparent and utterly stupid that I sort of expect even the MAGA hat types will grow tired of this worthless troll.
But yea – Brucie’s new math had Reagan leaving us with 39.2% inflation!!!!
Lucy, I agree with you. The CPI index increased over 39% during Reagan’s presidency. Of course, that was for eight years. So, if you want to prorate that to Biden’s 15 months, Biden is still ahead in inflationary growth 10.1% to Reagan’s 6.1%. Why do you have a problem with that? Point in time to point in time comparisons are perfectly valid. You just have to understand the context and compare equivalent time periods.
Think about it this way, if you can… during Reagan’s time as POTUS, cumulative inflation was just under 40%. Some could compare their income growth over that time and think “I’m ahead of the game” or “Damn Reagan just cost me a lot of money.”
I’ll be perfectly happy if Biden can get inflation over his four years to a cumulative 12% (3% annual inflation). But it won’t happen. Maybe he can match Reagans 5% average annual inflation rate, but he’s off to a pitiful start. But, then, Reagan was dealing with an OPEC triggered energy price inflation because the US was not self-sufficient in oil (much like Europe today). Biden, on the other hand, has helped produce energy price inflation through his anti-fossil fuel policies and rhetoric leading us in a direction away from energy self-sufficiency.
Biden = bad governance.
Bruce Hall: By April of 1982, the economy had experienced 8.9% inflation over the previous 13 months, compared to April of 2022 by which time 10.1% inflation had been experienced. On the other hand, unemployment over the 1981M01-1982M04 period was 7.95% vs 5.04% under Biden’s first 13 months.
Seriously, if you’re going to prorate things, think about context. Wow.
Menzie, I was going to say something about 1981 being the peak of the inflation at that time, but I thought I inferred that with my point about the OPEC triggered energy price inflation while energy prices under Biden were occurring well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I’ll be more careful to expound on the context I presume everyone understands.
The US has the potential to make up the Russian shortfall, but the Biden Administration has made abundantly and explicitly clear that increasing US oil production is the antithesis of their agenda. Whatever increase in production is occurring is despite the Biden Administration, not because of it. https://www.macrotrends.net/2562/us-crude-oil-production-historical-chart
So, without another alternative (no EVs are not a solution within this decade) we will just have to live with the effects of supply deficits. I suggest you read the latest NEPA revisions and anti-fossil fuel statements by Gina McCarthy. Biden and McCarthy are in the wrong place (Washington, DC) at the wrong time (now).
That’s my context. So, yes, wow.
If inflation is your only metric – you clearly do not get basic macroeconomics. Of course St. Reagan presided over the worst recession until the Bush43 2nd recession. But the rise in unemployment under your boy Trump trumped that. Yea any fool can have low inflation is they want unemployment to sky rocket.
Bruce Hall
May 12, 2022 at 7:16 pm
Menzie’s point was simple but of course our Village Idiot does not get it. Go figure!
If inflation is your only metric – you clearly do not get basic macroeconomics.
Oh, I thought we were discussing inflation. So, when that’s not working out for you, it’s time to change the parameters?
“Bruce Hall
May 13, 2022 at 11:29 am
If inflation is your only metric – you clearly do not get basic macroeconomics.
Oh, I thought we were discussing inflation. ”
This is why everyone knows Bruce Hall is the dumbest troll ever. Again – Menzie’s point was simple. And the Village Idiot Bruce Hall replies with this bad faith stupid comment?
BTW Bridget – Barkley has called you off for being a liar and a little infant over this abuse of ‘Lucy’, which you claimed he started even though he never did. Yea – you lie about EVERYTHING.
But I think his calling you Mary is a little short sighted. I hear the boys you want to date think Bridget is so much hotter than Mary. I would not want Barkley to stunt your very weird love life.
Aw Bierka, is your little ego bent?
Is Bierfka your new lover. Bruce has the hots for some guy name Lucy.
Mary,
Have you let your diapers completely fall off? Getting pretty stinky.
Prof. Chinn:
Five months ago, in response to your post on November inflation, I wrote that if you “consider a historical regression between house prices and owners equivalent rent. I think you will find that the former leads the latter usually by about 1 year, intermediate via increases in rent of primary residence. Both forms of rent have been increasing since this [i.e., 2021] spring. If we project that trend forward one year, it very much looks like high headline inflation will persist and may well worsen.”
When I wrote that, owner’s equivalent rent, which together with rent of primary residence makes up 1/3rd of all consumer inflation, was up 3.5% YoY. Since then it has steadily increased to 4.8% YoY. This is the highest YoY rate of housing inflation in over 30 years. Headline inflation, which was up 6.8% YoY the, increased to 8.6% in March, before declining to 8.2% in April, courtesy mainly of a big decline in gas prices.
Above you reference Jason Forman’s post, which highlights the steady increase of core inflation vs. headline inflation in the past half year, which is what we would expect if owners equivalent rent moved to the fore in driving inflation.
There have been 3 major pulses of house price increases in the last 25 years: in 1997-98, 2004-06, and 2020-present. In each case, after roughly a 12-24 month lag, both CPI rent measures surged as well. That’s because big surges in house prices make renting more attractive (or necessary for those on more limited budgets); this drives more demand for apartments, which drives rent increases. Further, the current rise in house prices of nearly 20% YoY, is significantly worse than either of the previous two – and has been up almost 20% YoY for the last 8 months running. With CPI housing inflation already at a 20 year high, we can expect further record CPI housing increases as this year progresses.
In the prior two episodes, before owners equivalent rent was fully passed through into CPI, total inflation cooled because, faced with surging inflation, the Fed embarked on a series of rate hikes that culminated before owners equivalent rent peaked. The economy buckled, recessions started, and total inflation subsided as a result, before owners equivalent rent had fully peaked.
So far, the situation is unfolding exactly as I wrote back in December.
The bottom line is that, now that we have a *3rd* episode showing how house price increases feed through into overall inflation with a delay on the order of 12-18 months, the Fed needs to pay much more attention to those indexes and take action quicker in the future.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=mSzQ
January 30, 2018
Case-Shiller Composite 20-City Real Home Price Index, 2000-2022
(Indexed to 2000)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Pid4
January 15, 2018
Consumer Price Index for Rent and Owners’ Equivalent Rent, 2000-2022
(Percent change)
Ltr, this is what you want:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Pimp
The yoy% increase in the FHFA purchase only index, compared with the yoy% change in the two CPI housing measures (the Case Shiller index gives a similar result).
Thank you, both.
What you have both done is interesting and helpful.
Suppose I try this projection? Would this be helpful?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=PiTa
January 15, 2018
Consumer Price Index for Rent & Owners’ Equivalent Rent and Case-Shiller Composite 10-City Home Price Index, 2000-2022
(Percent change)
Yes, that works. And just to give you the complete picture, here’s one more link:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Pkqv
A little messy, so let me explain. I took your link, and deleted rent of primary residence, just to make it a little less complex. I added in headline CPI YoY (blue), and the Fed funds rate (black).
Headline CPI turns up before OER, and keeps rising as OER adds fuel to the fire. In response to the rising headline CPI, the Fed hits the brakes, causing an economic downturn even before OER peaks.
That is what I see happening right now. With OER adding fuel to an already very high headline inflation rate, the Fed is having to raise rates at a rapid clip. We know that will have to continue, because OER isn’t finished driving headline inflation. Thus there is a very high chance of a hard landing.
The moral of the story is that, even though house prices are not included in the CPI calculation, the Fed should react to big changes in house prices when they occur, because they are going to show up in OER and headline inflation in 12-18 months. If the Fed moved proactively, there would be a much better chance of a soft landing.
Hope that is helpful to you.
Ltr, you want the yoy% change in the house price indexes vs. the yoy% change in the two cpi shelter indexes, as below:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Pimp
“While the “orthodox” way of measuring CPI change may be m/m (annualized) or y/y, what makes you believe that is what the average consumer is perceiving?”
You are THAT stupid! I’m going to have to find my Angrybear post taking down the dumbest rant EVER at the National Review which was penned by Kudlow and called The Deficit Dance. The trick was to take six observations of the annualized GDP gap and SUM them even though even 3 year olds would know you average them. Your trick here is just as dishonest and just as dumb.
Look Trump hired Kudlow because he lied for the rightwing but Kudlow’s lies were so incredibly stupid, even conservative economists mocked this Village Idiot. But I do declare you are even more dishonest and dumb than Kudlow.
Now Brucie – go back to the sandbox and play with the other kiddies – even though they will be laughing at your stupidity for the rest of the day.
I’m not sure whether I buy your real estate story, but if it were true (and maybe even if it isn’t), stringent restrictions on housing development would be a major cause of our current inflation. All those millennials now buying their first homes have to live somewhere, but people who think housing is a right also think we should build less of it (and suburban racists agree).
You’ve identified one of the central issues in the housing market and a central issue for the Fed. Low borrowing rates increases demand for housing, and (almost) only through increased demand does Fed policy induce increased supply. So if there are capacity limits to housing construction ( and Oh, Boy! Are there!) the Fed has a problem in balancing the housing sector, and a worse problem balancing housing against other sectors. That’s because housing is a large part of household budgets, a substantial part of household wealth, a substantial part of the economy and a highly responsive to interest rates. So the Fed, in choosing to prevent overheating in housing, can cause sectors which are not overheated, so suffer. It can exacerbate a housing shortage over the long run inan effort to address high housing prices now.
It’s a tough nut.
Exactly. We Monkeys in clothes have these financial priorities, in order:
1. food,
2. clothes,
3. shelter,
4. stuff.
Whenever any of the earlier items go up in price the later items suffer. We will expect a useful cooling in the “stuff buying” part of the economy to follow the current increase in housing costs. This will help solve the supply chain driven inflation, currently suffered.
However let’s not forget that the economically relevant housing parameter is not purchase cost but monthly payments. With more aggressive Fed rate increases, the actual price of houses could start falling even as housing cost keep rising. As I remember the last housing crisis; prices and rates were both going in the same direction. This time may indeed be different – you know “it’s never the saime but it tends to raime”.
It sucks. What’s worse, there’s evidence that increased housing intensity induce higher land use regulations (it’s in the weeds but I think that’s the most interesting takeaway from this article):
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20120017
There’s also a migration article by Derenoncourt (can’t find it right now) that seems to suggest this too, but in the context of the Great Migration. So new land use regulations show up exactly where they do the most damage (in some short-term sense).
Rumors are swirling that Xi may step down. If that’s true, it’s huge.
Xi’s policy has been one of increasing authoritarianism at home and antagonism towards, indeed the prospects of war, with the advanced countries. As I have written many, many times, this is the dead wrong direction for China.
So imagine my surprise when a story popped up that Li Keqiang was taking over the running of the economy. Li is, as I understand it, Xi’s primary rival, and Li had been largely sidelined during the last few years of the Xi regime. His re-emergence was one of those eyebrow-raising things.
Among all of covid lockdowns, domestic repression and the real estate crisis, China has been struggling of late. The unwinding of the US stimulus program and rising interest rates will just pile on, resulting in an improving US trade deficit and flagging Chinese exports to the US. Notwithstanding, the Ukraine war may have brought the matter to a head. The mock invasion of Taiwan underscores the risks China is taking. Does Beijing really want to get into a nuclear pissing match with the US? Is a world war for the domination of half the globe in China’s interests? Or does it risk setting China back two generations, just as Putin has done to Russia?
It would seem that the Politburo is coming to the view that, win or lose, a war of choice with the US over a non-essential island is going to be a disaster for China. Xi simply represents too much risk, and I think that is the correct interpretation. If you think the war in Ukraine is bad, one with China would comfortably be an order of magnitude worse, and maybe much worse than that. And for what? So that China (more precisely, Xi) can flex its chest that it now owns a small island which, in terms of China overall, is a rounding error?
Thus, sidelining Xi and elevating Li is absolutely the right thing for China, and indeed, for the Communist Party. There is speculation that Li would, in steps, turn China into a democracy, along the lines of, say, the political development of Taiwan or Korea. Count on it. A key issue exercising the minds of the Politburo will be the prevention of the re-emergence of dictatorship while retaining the ability to govern. This is, of course, exactly the same issue confronting the Founding Fathers, notably Hamilton and Madison, in the Federalist Papers. Make no mistake, this is going to be the hot reading in China if Li ascends to power.
At the same time, I don’t think China is going to shrink back into its box. Rather, I expect a more measured approach to power competition with the US. Li knows what Xi does not: China need not beat the US with guns, ships and missiles. It can beat the US the American way, with hard work, education, innovation, investment and money. And if China becomes a democracy, it will win that contest.
Right now, the Xi news is all rumors which could easily, or perhaps even probably, prove wrong. But if it’s true, we are on to the next phase of China’s development.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/may/11/xi-jinping-step-down-rumors-suggest-amid-harsh-chi/
“They were traced in part to a Chinese-language YouTube video May 4 by Canadian-based blogger appearing under the persona “Lao Deng.”
In an article in the Washington Times. I would give this less credence than some of your incredible absurd statements.
Wait a second. You seem to be critical of how China has handled COVID-19 but you think Li Keqiang would be a better leader than Xi. Even though Li Keqiang was in charge of addressing COVID-19? Yes Princeton Steve once again bloviates over topics he does not even remotely understand.
“There is speculation that Li would, in steps, turn China into a democracy, along the lines of, say, the political development of Taiwan or Korea. Count on it.”
StinkyJerseySteve…….. the laugh riot never ends. Wait for Barkley Junior to chime in. Barkley Rosser told us there would be no war in Ukraine. These two just can’t help themselves. You get the idea that if these two had lived in an earlier era, they would have been the two guys working at the carnival, agitating customers with insults about their mother so they would purchase chances to take them down in the dunk tank.
Li may be an economist but there is NOTHING in his record that suggests he would be more democratic than Xi. Of course the facts never got in the way of a Princeton Steve opinion piece, which is why his grandest achievement in life has been to appear on Fox and Friends promoting the Stephen Miller racist immigration agenda.
Yeah, that’s the weakest part of Stevie’s stuff. Projecting a U.S. model on China, at the choice of a lifetime member of China’s power structure, is way too much “Iraqis will greet us with flowers” and “The End of History”. It’s silly.
More likely, a return to as gradual liberalization as envisioned by Deng Xiaoping (http://en.people.cn/dengxp/vol2/text/b1460.html) and carried out from the 1980s till Xi came to power.
China has suffered massively in periods of radical change, under Communist rule and before. The idea that a Chinese leader would think adopting democracy would solve China’s problems, or that he would survive the attempt, is disconnected from reality.
“The idea that a Chinese leader would think adopting democracy would solve China’s problems, or that he would survive the attempt, is disconnected from reality.”
When the Soviet regime ended a lot of people thought Yeltsin would lead Russia to some great democracy and free market economy. Well the economy collapsed into a crony capitalist disaster and Yeltsin was replaced with Putin. So Princeton Steve’s cozy little view of these things is without any real historical foundation. But reality has never slowed down his pompous blovating.
China is not Russia. I had my doubts about Russian democracy, being as I lived in Hungary at the time. With the war, we can see Russian culture on full display. Getting ahead is about lying, stealing, corruption, bluffing and blustering and intimidation. Unfortunately, that’s a deep, persistent theme in Russian culture. It’s about what you take, not what you earn. Moreover, Russia in significant part counts as an oil autocracy along the lines of Arab OPEC members.
China is a whole different game. Incredible work ethic, commitment to education, a civilized people, very commercial orientation, very entrepreneurial. China’s weakness, and it shares this with, say, Korea, is that it is not a liberal culture. Individual rights do not have the priority that they do in the US. (This has good and bad aspects.) And to date that makes China more prone to dictatorship than it might be otherwise.
Notwithstanding, there are literally no advanced economies other than oil autocracies which are not democracies above China’s level of per cap GDP. Democracy is a functional requirement of an advanced economy (with Singapore the usual exception, and Hong Kong prior to the crackdown). China cannot continue to advance beyond a certain level without express property rights independent of the whims of the ruler or ruling clique. As such, those rights must be vested in the people, not in a small number of unelected leaders.
Let me again reiterate that China and the Chinese are not inherently inferior to any other culture or people in East Asia (far from it), and all of these have become democracies by the time their per capita income hit a certain level, a level which China will achieve around 2026.
I stand by my forecast. If Li is elevated to President, China will begin a process of conversion to democracy in short order, with the primary goal of preventing a recurrence of dictatorship a la Xi. If Xi remains, there will be a likely catastrophic war with the US, followed by a conversion to democracy, a la Argentina after the Falklands. For the Communist Party, the safer course is the gradual conversion to democracy within the framework of the Party (ie, Party members can stand against each other in open, public elections). The candidates will organically form into parties along the lines of the three ideology model. Thus, all parties will trace their provenance to the Communist Party and thereby represent evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, social changes. At least that’s the way I would probably handle the transition.
Steven Kopits
May 13, 2022 at 8:05 am
What a worthless rant. Of course the Chinese citizens are hard working noble people. But the topic was the political leadership. Russia has never had a functioning democracy and neither has China.
Princeton Steve is so in love with his own worthless babble me thinks he has no clue what the damn topic even was.
I am personally a huge fan of Li. Are you kidding, a guy with an index named after him? That’s my kind of leader! Li is a smart, well-educated, sophisticated guy, historically thought of as a technocrat. China under Li would do fine, and there would be no war. It’s not that there would be no issues with China. Indeed, a democratic China would be a formidable competitor, very possibly a superior power to the US. But we have to come to live with that, and if the competition is commercial, that’s not the end of the world. Indeed, China will make tremendous contributions to civilization and global well-being, as it already has in many cases.
On the other hand, under Xi, I think we can reasonably expect the worst.
I hear Hitler was smart too. Your kind of guy!
What we know is that Li has said things about the economy which, in the absence of any other information, suggest criticism of Xi’s Covid policies:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-10/mixed-messages-from-top-china-leaders-feed-speculation-of-split
Attributing that to a split over Taiwan and the U.S. is a stretch. Suggesting it means Xi will step down is wishful thinking. Xi has made himself leader-for-life. It took his entire career do so.
On the other hand, there are reports of having serious medical problems:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.timesofindia.com/world/china/xi-jinping-reportedly-suffering-from-cerebral-aneurysm/amp_articleshow/91474967.cms
That would be a more reasonable cause for Xi to lose power.
https://www.aans.org/Patients/Neurosurgical-Conditions-and-Treatments/Cerebral-Aneurysm
I’m not a doctor but Cerebral Aneurysm sound serious.
When I was a teenager I had a miniature pinscher I had purchased with my own money (AKC pedigree and all) who supposedly died from that. Woke up one morning to reach down into the cage to feel the body had gone ice cold and stiff. Luckily I had owned it less than 2 months and was only half emotionally attached to the dog. I suspect it was because my Mom overfed it parasite medicine I had warned her endlessly to stop feeding it like it was candy. Vet let her off the hook though and told us it was a brain aneurysm. But the brain aneurysms tend to be amazingly random, other than long-term diet choices (for humans I mean).
Can’t find a sharper breed of dog than min pins. Had him half-trained on different tricks very shortly. And they don’t shed. Moral to the story~~don’t trust narcissist relatives to medicate your dog. Even when you are young enough to think your immediate family members wouldn’t do that.
If there is a power struggle underway, this may help explain it and lay out one factional split:
“President Xi belongs to the ‘elitist coalition’, and Premier Li Keqiang represents the ‘populist coalition’.”
https://theprint.in/opinion/eye-on-china/communist-youth-league-thats-where-xi-sees-a-political-challenge-coming-from-hes-taming-it/951987/
I don’t know about China’s elite/populist divide, but in countries with which I am familiar, “elite” often means a focus on longer-term outcomes, foreign policy and, of course, he status of the elites, while populists focus on the here-and-now, employment and the status of traditional groups in society. Locking millions of people in their homes, instilling fear of a “knock a the door” because of a positive diagnosis two floors down, those don’t wash with populists.
Micheal Pettis recently tweeted about growing tension between Beijing an the countryside, which also reads like elite/populist tension.
Such tensions flourish in times of upheaval, everybody grabbing what they can because suddenly, things are up for grabs. Within the Chinese Communist Party, recriminations may be running high. A one-party system which relies on acceptance of beneficent paternalism starts looking fragile when leaders can’t keep things running.
The split is not over Taiwan. It is over the prospects for war, which are now very, very real. If you think a war over Taiwan will be limited to Taiwan, well, I don’t think so.
The Germans thought Putin was all talk. The Finns and Swedes thought neutrality was a viable strategy. And then Putin invaded Ukraine and all that wishful thinking went away very fast.
I think it is clear that Xi intends to invade Taiwan. We are past the posturing part of the exercise. So if Xi is to remain President, a war with the US looks inevitable. If you are in the Politburo, and that does not scare you, you are not paying attention. I think a good number of the senior Communist leaders are now coming to grips with what a war might entail. A war is neither in China’s nor the US’s interest. It will not make either country better, and it may seriously destabilize the Chinese government and usher the Communist Party out of power (which may be the least of China’s concerns if the missiles start to fly). The only possible winner is Xi. Everyone else on all sides loses. Not a compelling pitch for either China or its broader leadership.
Ukraine and Taiwan. These are not national projects. They are the personal ego trips of the individual leaders, and they are not initiated to serve the public interest, but rather as vanity projects for the respective dictators.
So, we’ll see. I have said that pro forma I expect China to be a democracy by 2026, and I have not changed my view, plus or minus a war in between.
Here you are, pretending to know stuff again. You don’t have an inside track on China’s politics, but you do have a tendency to pose as an expert in all kinds of things.
It’s a common fault among consultants (like you) who want to impress clients and toot their own marketing horn. It’s a common fault among right-wing bloviators (like you), in part as a way of getting around a lack of factual basis for their (your) views and by now as just a cultural norm – right-wing folk just loooove to pose as having special knowledge.
Your regular self-reference – “I have said…”, “…well, I don’t think so.” – is just self-stroking egotism. The fact that you believe something is irrelevant. You’re nobody.
Stevie thinks because the Chinese people value education and have strong work ethics, they must have a democratic government. Now we all know Russia is not China but most Russians I know are smart (much smarter than Princeton Steve) and are hard working. So by Stevie’s new thesis – Russia has to be a democracy.
Yea he bloviates utter nonsense all day long on all topics – none of which he remotely understands.
“The Germans thought Putin was all talk. The Finns and Swedes thought neutrality was a viable strategy.”
And then there was this pompous bloviating blow hard who was stupid enough to think there was some magical economic deal. That arrogant moron is called Princeton Steve.
“So, we’ll see. I have said that pro forma I expect China to be a democracy by 2026, and I have not changed my view, plus or minus a war in between.”
Oh wow, StinkyJerseySteve finally found the gonads to put a time frame on this brainless prediction. Before Kopits was saying China would turn democratic anytime between now and the year 3100 AD. I’m trying to decide if this is even dumber than Barkley Rosser saying Russia would not invade Ukraine. (???)
Informal blog survey: Is this Kopits prediction more dumb or less dumb than when Barkley Rosser said Russia would not invade Ukraine?? Results will be tabulated at the end of this thread on Monday morning.
Moses,
Since you insist on bringing up this point about my statement on there not going to be an invasion of Ukraine yet again, let me remind you and everybody else of three things:
1) I only once made such a definite statement. Otherwise I always noted a serious chance that Putin might invade Ukraine.
2) When I made rhe statement it was put forward as an accurate report on a statement that Putin was making on Russian media that the troops in Belarus for an exercise would be brought back to Russia when the exercise was finished, a statement apparently believed by those troops themselves as well as members of their families..
3) Most important it was not just me who took this seriously, but so did Ukraine President Zelenskyy, someone you claim to admire. Is he “dumb”? If so, how dumb is he? Or is it only me who is “dumb” while he is brilliant? I note that on several occasions I made it clear that I was doubting Putin would invade because the Ukrainian leadership doubted he would do so, and I trusted people on the ground more than our intel people, who have had a track record about being wrong in the past on such things. As it was, both Zelenskyy and I were wrong in this case. But do you want to take a poll of people here about whether Zelenskyy is dumber than Kopits, since you are posing the mistake I made along with Zelenskyy as this statement supposedly maybe dumber than Steven’s comment? Go ahead, Moses, explain to us just how dumb President Zelenskyy is.
As for this whole sub-thread, while you seem to think I have something to say about it, I do not. I have no inside information on this possible power struggle in China, although it is not surprising that such reports are coming out, given that the moment of Xi being confirmed as getting a new term is coming up this fall, and indeed both the economy and the Covid situation seem to have worsened substantially in China.
Oh, I shall agree with others that if somehow in fact Li comes to power, I do not expect him to introduce democracy.
Moses,
BTW, the really dumb person in the matter I reported here when I inaccurately forecasted, along with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, that Putin would not invade Ukraine was Putin himself. That he had his own troops in Belarus convinced that they were going home aftee their exercises, which he did, was a sign of how poorly prepared his invasion was: too few of his people knew it was happening, and those troops did no even know where they were going initially. That was all part of how badly botched the invasion was. There were good reasons for Ze;lenskyy and the Ukrainian leadership to doubt US intel: it was clearly a dumb move by Putin, especially after he made such loud noises to the contrary on Russian media.
Barkley Rosser said: “Do keep in mind I am the one here with access to Russian media. That has now been blaring for several days that the troops will go home after the exercises are done, and exercises are exactly what they are doing now. This has more recently been reinforced by statements from Putin in press conferences, such as the one just held after the visit of German Chancellor Scholze.
There is not going to be an invasion, even if some of the details of what Zelensky and Ukraine may agree to are not fully settled, and Victoria Nuland has been shooting her mouth off too much, somebody I wish was not part of this administration.”
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2022/02/risk-and-uncertainty-before-the-open#comment-268219
Here’s a link to Barkley Junior’s post on NakedCapitalism. See if you can pick up Barkley’s strong sense of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Certainly Yves Smith felt enraptured by Barkley’s romantic talk about Putin:
“I think a more optimistic answer is more likely, although certainly not certain. This one says that Putin will gradually pull troops back after some sort of sufficiently face-saving deal is cut.”
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/01/dare-i-disagree-with-david-ignatius.html
Wow, I guess Barkley’s man-crush ran deep. Though to be fair, Barkley let roughly 6 more weeks pass by before he made it a slam dunk that there would be no Russian invasion of Ukraine, so at least Barkley took 6 more weeks to be more emphatic on his thoughts of Russian troops just playing Milton Bradley’s Twister on Belarus’ southern border.
https://images.app.goo.gl/3V8HhzKYyrcJby1PA
Moses,
You really are desperate so prove something here. My view on the situation changed over time as new information came in. I was aware in the summer of 2021 that Putin was shooting off his mouth about Ukraine having no legitimate existence. But then he and some of his aides had been shooting their mouths off about having a nuclear war since 2014, so it was clear one should not just take everything he said at face value.
That said, he was building up that force for a long time, and it certainly looked like he planned to do something. So I did a lot of speculating about that, and at various points thought that maybe what he would do would be to expand the territotial control of the puppet republics, with a lot of discussion about the Minsk Accords periodically popping up. I made a major post at New Year’s where I noted I was disagteeing with David Ignatius, who was forecasting a full invasion along with US intel, noting he might be right, but also noting that the Ukrianians did not thinks so. Also, it was pretty clear such an invasion would be a disaster, while he could probably get away with some incursion to expand the territorial control of the DNR and LNR, with me even mentioning on more than one occasion him wanting to take Mariuopol, which they briefely held in 2014, so as to get that land bridge to Crimea.
So, after it turns out that his full scale invasion idea was really stupid, as I and the Ukrainians believed, he has pulled back to doing what I frequently forecast he was likely to do.
There was indeed that one time shortly before the invasion, when he got on Russian media and misinformed not only the Russian public, but most of his military, that he was definitely going to pull the troops back from Belarus. I reported that here, and you cannot get over it, even though you were wrong about the need for the US embassy to be moved toute de suite out of Kyiv.
“On the other hand, there are reports of having serious medical problems:”
that could give better explanation to his no covid policies. covid may very well be very dangerous for him, personally. the Chinese response to covid has not really been logical, in my opinion, over the past year.
Xi is a well-know germaphobe and his current Covid policies are founded in fear, not science or knowledge.
All rational zero-Covid policy countries changed their approach as soon as Omicron came out and showed its nasty characteristics. This is a new variant that will not yield to the countermeasures that were effective earlier . At the same time we have a lot more treatment and prevention options, besides shut- or lock-downs, than we used to have.
Xi could cause a lot of economic damages to his country both short- and long-term if he doesn’t reverse soon.
China was allowed to become the worlds supplier of things because it was cheep and reliable. There are many cheep alternatives for other countries that can take over, if the reliability of Chinas industrial deliveries becomes an issue. Any damage to reputation on reliability takes decades to repair.
That is the kind “permanent damage to China” problem that could get the politburo to act. Xi has gained his power by stacking the politburo with his friends, not by dissolving it. It’s likely that he will yield, rather than face the alternative.
The politburo is serious if it allows such health rumors. That is an undeniable message to Xi that he must either do X (whatever that is) or else he could “be stepped down” for health reasons.
“China need not beat the US with guns, ships and missiles. It can beat the US the American way, with hard work, education, innovation, investment and money. And if China becomes a democracy, it will win that contest.”
And if America fails to remain a democracy, China could also win the contest without ever reforming. In the past year, Republicans in battleground states have replaced election officials who refused to bend to MAGA pressure in the wake of the 2020 election, and members of Congress – not just Greene but Lee, the supposed intellectual leader of Congressional Republicans – repeat the idiotic but no less ominous claim that America is not a democracy (they say instead it’s a republic, as if those two things were mutually exclusive).
In any case, rumors from the Washington Times are not a great place to learn about Chinese politics.
“Right now, the Xi news is all rumors which could easily, or perhaps even probably, prove wrong. But if it’s true, we are on to the next phase of China’s development.”
if it is most likely wrong, then what purpose does it serve to repeat it on the internet, steven? if the most likely outcome is that Xi remains in power, why would you mention a less likely outcome? Steven you are simply gullible to somebody else’s propaganda.
You mean the propaganda from the WSJ and Bloomberg?
It’s a story, but I was personally surprised that Li suddenly popped up in the headlines. Xi has gone out of his way to sideline Li. So how had Li surfaced? Has Xi told him to go and lead? Doesn’t sound like it. Or perhaps Li took it upon himself to ad lib. Maybe, but not really typical in recent times. Or maybe Politburo leadership got together and told Xi that he needed some help, and they’ve decide to let Li take a more visible role. The third option seems more likely to me.
If that’s the case, then Xi’s hold on the Politburo is not absolute. And if it’s not absolute, then he would appear vulnerable. And if I were a Politburo member, I would be thinking about what a war with the US is going to look like and whether I want to give Xi a free hand to start the fireworks.
“You mean the propaganda from the WSJ and Bloomberg?”
This from someone who proudly appears on Fox and Friends? Lord – you are a pompous little moron.
“You mean the propaganda from the WSJ and Bloomberg?”
steven, you led with the notion Xi will step down. have those outlets been reporting that story? that is different from Li taking on a more active role.
it is fine to report the Li is taking on a bigger role. that is actually happening. to report that Xi will step down has little if any evidence. that type of reporting pushes a narrative without evidence, and can strongly change the narrative. incorrectly.
We’ll see, Baffs. It’s a big deal, either way.
Whether Xi stays or goes is a pivotal event for China, the US and the world in general. Indeed, it would be the biggest of big deals if speculation proves true. It is therefore an important story, even if the probabilities would seem to favor Xi for now.
Moreover, it is widely covered in the press:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-05-13/xi-jinping-covid-china-president-challenges-party-congress
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/05/12/pressure-mounts-on-chinas-pres-xi-to-step-down-amid-strict-lockdowns.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-premier-li-keqiang-xi-jinping-11652277107
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/13/china-zero-covid-xi-policy-resentment/
Covered in the press which you suggested was spreading propaganda. Can you make up your damn mind before another one of your long winded worthless rants? DAMN!
Bierka, press coverage worked for Russia, Russia, Russia, and you still believe this propaganda. So, “c\Can you make up your damn mind before another one of your…” angry rants. ” DAMN!”
CoRev
May 13, 2022 at 10:38 am
Bierka, press coverage worked for Russia, Russia, Russia, and you still believe this propaganda.
Folks – CoRev has lost his marbles. I never accept the lies of Putin. CoRev needs professional help.
Steven,
I am not communicating with my contacts in PRC so have no inside info on this stuff. I note the WSJ story says Li is not trying to replace Xi but trying to influence who his successor will be, a much smaller matter. It does seem that one group Li is appealing to are the high tech firms Xi has been dumping on lately.
At the risk of getting Moses all off his rocker some more, I shall note that indeed in the Russian language media there is discussion of this matter. One item I have not seen in any of the English language sources is that apparently the critics of Xi are going after Marx, claiming that he was not “really an economist” because his PhD was in jurisprudence. I think this is a reaction to the renewed emphasis on Marxism-Leninism by the Xi faction in the CCP.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-05-11/The-Fed-waves-its-wand-19WFwCwf3b2/index.html
May 11, 2022
The Fed waves its wand
By James K. Galbraith
According to economist Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, “a growing crescendo of commentary places the blame for the current surge in U.S. inflation squarely on the Federal Reserve.” His reference is to a leader in The Economist, which blames America’s central bank not for the inflation itself, but for failing to raise interest rates sooner and more harshly than it finally did, on May 4.
Rogoff disagrees with this judgment, and I sympathize with his argument, up to a point. There is a distinction between price increases driven by supply disruptions, oil shocks, and war, on the one hand, and the additional heavy costs that often follow from sustained campaigns of high interest rates: bankruptcies, unemployment and financial chaos. Being reluctant to inflict the second set of costs on top of the first set is the mark of a reasonable, non-sadistic public servant. The Economist disapproves, but Rogoff and I do not.
Beyond that, however, Rogoff’s logic is hard to follow. He seems to suggest that the Fed was intimidated by America’s oh-so-powerful progressive movement, which was in thrall to a Stony Brook University professor (and lifelong academic) named Stephanie Kelton.
That idea is not totally implausible. With a sharp pen and a quick wit, Kelton is a skilled debater and policy polemicist. Her ideas, advanced under the rubric of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), are drawn partly from such titans as John Maynard Keynes, Abba Lerner, and Hyman Minsky. But, more than that, they stem from close and accurate observations of actual central bank practice. They are partly prescriptive, to be sure; but their prescriptive force is rooted in a realism that makes MMT accessible to policymakers and thus truly dangerous to the monetary mystics of Harvard, Chicago, Princeton, and MIT.
Still, there is scant evidence for Rogoff’s claim that MMT “had many influential adherents in politics and the media.” None is cited. While a New York Times profile of Kelton this February was indeed a breakthrough (causing conniptions in Cambridge), it hardly establishes that MMT held sway at the Fed back in early 2021.
Moreover, Rogoff acknowledges – correctly – that “respected centrists” like Olivier Blanchard of the Peterson Institute for International Economics had also argued against premature credit tightening.
He also makes a passive-voice reference to “helicopter money,” giving the impression that this idea is uniquely affiliated with MMT. Yet those of us with long memories would sooner associate the concept with Milton Friedman and Ben Bernanke, a moderate Republican who was appointed to chair the Fed by President George W. Bush, and who deployed helicopter money à outrance * in response to the 2008 financial crisis….
* To the end or utmost
James K. Galbraith is the Chair in Government/Business Relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/business/economy/modern-monetary-theory-stephanie-kelton.html
February 6, 2022
Is This What Winning Looks Like?
Modern Monetary Theory, the buzziest economic idea in decades, got a pandemic tryout of sorts. Now inflation is testing its limits.
By Jeanna Smialek
The sun was sinking low over Long Island Sound as Stephanie Kelton, wearing the bright red suit jacket she had donned to give a virtual guest lecture to university students in London that morning, perched before a pillow fort she had constructed atop the heavy wooden desk in her home office.
The setup was meant to keep out noise as she recorded the podcast she co-hosts, a MarketWatch production called the “Best New Ideas in Money.” The room was hushed except for Ms. Kelton, who bantered energetically with the producers she was hearing through noise-blocking headphones, sang a Terri Gibbs song and made occasional edits to the script. At one point, she muttered, “That sounds like Stephanie.”
What Stephanie Kelton sounds like, circa early 2022, is the star architect of a movement that is on something of a victory lap. A victory lap with an asterisk….
No one at the Fed and no one in Congress subscribes to Modern Monetary Theory.
Great that you’re taking a break from government press releases though.
There is still plenty of reason to believe most of this inflation has zero connection to MMT type policies. BTW, Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have both shown some support of MMT policy. Now you can belittle and disparage these two members of Congress all you like, and that’s your right. They nonetheless have verbalized some support of MMT and are members of Congress.
This is true, I said too much. But MMT amounts to nothing. Sanders and AOC would be saying what they’re saying without MMT.
And in any case, what macroduck says about MMT. It’s the crypto of the left. BS all the way down.
Well, to the extent that MMT is a repackaging of conventional economic ideas along with a marketing program which insists that nobody understands MMT unless they realize it is “New, New, New”, lots of power folk are halfway to subscribing to MMT
Point taken. But Sanders is just doing what socialists (“socialists”) do: asserting that constraints on government budgets are conspiracies of moneyed interests and corporation-y ideology. At the end of the day, it has nothing to do with MMT. MMT has nothing to do with MMT for Christ’s sake!
Stephanie Kelton does advice Senator Bernie Sanders. But the original Sanders proposals got derailed by some DINO from West Virginia.
The current policy change was if anything driven by political pressure from the right wing. As always they have been screaming and calling out 10 of the past decades 0 hyperinflation events. When we got a short-term supply chain disruption driving inflation into the upper single digits, their screetching got to a crescendo that couldn’t be ignored any longer. Furthermore, the Fed had to get off the zero boundary and unload some of their huge balance sheet.
I may be giving the Fed to much credit, but I presume they understand that current inflation is driven by temporary factors such as: kinks in the supply chain (allowing sellers to jack up prices), temporary bargaining power for the lower paid consumer class workers, temporary housing & stock wealth, and a premature “pandemic is over” celebratory spending spree (and left over stimulus money). None of those will push us into a sustainable wage/price spiral. But if these factors reverse too fast or simultaneous, they could create dangerous deflation. My optimistic hope is that the Fed understand this and simply are using the opportunity to get rates and balance sheet back towards normal. They better get ready to slowly ease off the brake when inflation gets down to 4-5%. If they wait for 2% they will end up in the ditch. Unfortunately, they always seem to be a little late in the turns, they should have started unloading their balance sheet 12 month ago to increase bond rates and cool the housing markets.
The Los Angeles Times has a story on how Finland has applied for membership in NATO, which of course ticks Putin off. Kevin Drum explains the importance of this ina post called The End of Finlandization:
https://jabberwocking.com/the-end-of-finlandization/
Michael McFaul was right. Putin is no strategic genius, never was, never will be. This is a complete loss. And no, the West is never invading Russia proper. That was horseshit from the beginning.
Total, complete loss. Amazing how the course of history surprises you (or me, anyway).
The last fool who invaded Russia was Hitler. In the long-run that did not work out that well for his forces. Russia is good at defense but they suck at invading other nations.
What are you talking about? Hitler was a stable genius.
The asymmetry of the end-game for Russia and Ukraine – Russia can (theoretically) occupy Ukraine, but Ukraine cannot occupy Russia – is a big problem for peace negotiations. The mid-point between Russia taking part of Ukraine and taking none of Ukraine is taking part of Ukraine. Ukraine can’t stand for that, so there is little prospect for peace, based solely on territory. If loss of Russian territory were a reasonable possibility, he mid-point could be no territorial loss for either.
The logic of the negotiation then becomes trading Ukrainian land for Russiwn power and prosperity. Which means leaving sanctions in place until Russia earns its way back into the ranks of civilized nations. The credibility of the democratic alliance depends on maintaining sanctions for a long period after the war, for a considerable period after Russia demonstrates a non-aggressive policy toward its neighbors.
The long-term degradation of Russia is already build into the future. Russia has an economy the size of Spains, and half of it is hydrocarbons. McCain was right about “gas station with nukes”.
Europe is pushed to transition much faster to alternative energy for security reasons, and the rest of the world is going in the same direction based on cost. In the next decades hydrocarbons will be less used and forced to sell at much lower prices (profits).
Russia has no other alternatives for building its economy. The lawless brutality of its kleptocracy is destroying all other drivers of economic growth – so after resource extraction becomes minimally profitable Russia will be like any other third world country (except for the nukes).
The sad and pathetic thing about Putins war is that he justified it by fear that NATO would try to take over Russia. NATO would be insane to even take it if it had been offered to them without a fight. There is nothing there of sufficient value to justify even the cost of just keeping it running.
I honestly don’t think Russia could ever occupy Ukraine. Co-opt its political system, sure. But occupy a more-or-less advanced country with 40 million people that’s almost as big as Germany and Poland combined?
Could the Russians occupy just the eastern portions of Ukraine indefinitely? I doubt that too the way things are going. Maybe they could have before the West’s intervention (that’s kind of the way things looked before February), but now I’m betting on Russia holding onto less than they had to begin the year with. The Russian military machine is degrading really fast.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-05-12/China-s-share-of-global-economy-rises-to-over-18-official-19YjAuT9jMI/index.html
May 12, 2022
China’s share of global economy rises to over 18%: official
China accounted for over 18 percent of the global economy in 2021, rising from 11.4 percent in 2012, an official said Thursday.
China has both cemented and improved its status as the world’s second-largest economy over the past decade, said Han Wenxiu, a senior official with the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs.
The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) topped 114 trillion yuan (about $16.94 trillion) in 2021, and per capita GDP reached $12,500, close to the threshold for high-income economies, Han said.
The contribution of China’s economic growth to the world economy has stood at around 30 percent in recent years, making it the largest growth engine for the global economy, Han added.
Over the past decade, the share of the country’s goods exports in the international market has risen from 11 percent to 15 percent, and the number of free trade agreements signed has increased from 10 to 19.
The country has also constructed 21 pilot free trade zones and the Hainan Free Trade Port to achieve comprehensive and high-level opening up.
http://www.bradford-delong.com/2016/04/must-read-i-do-not-understand-china-but-it-now-looks-more-likely-than-not-to-me-that-xi-jinpings-rule-will-lose-china.html
April 5, 2016
I do not understand China. But it now looks more likely than not to me that Xi Jinping’s rule will lose China a decade, if not half a century… *
* http://www.economist.com/news/china/21695923-his-exercise-power-home-xi-jinping-often-ruthless-there-are-limits-his
— Brad DeLong
Of course, recent efforts to estimate how much China inflates its GDP data suggest we need to correct official estimates by subtracting a BIG chunk.
China’s share of global economy rises to over 18%: official
And its population is 35% of the world population. Try doing this in per capita terms. Geesh!
Key word here is “official.” Isn’t that your favorite, ltr?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=F7Xa
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, United States, India, Japan and Germany, 1977-2020
(Percent change)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=F7Xg
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, United States, India, Japan and Germany, 1977-2020
(Indexed to 1977)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=O0F2
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, Indonesia, Brazil, France and United Kingdom, 1977-2020
(Percent change)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=O0F9
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, Indonesia, Brazil, France and United Kingdom, 1977-2020
(Indexed to 1977)
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, United States, India, Japan and Germany, 1977-2020
(Percent change)
Come on – we all know better. Compare their real per capita income in absolute terms if you want to have a meaningful graph. And wait – your job is always to spread PRC propaganda. Never mind.
Oh Gee – a nation that starts with low income per capita relative to the developed world enjoys faster growth over time. Robert Solow and his students of long-term economic growth would call this the Convergence Theorem. I have reminded spin master ltr of this many times but I guess she refuses to pay attention.
pgl,
The more relevant person here is not Solow, but Alexander Gerschenkron and his theory of relative backwardness, with nations growing more rapidly when they are more “relatively backward.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/psaki-threats-to-family-were-e2-80-98most-personally-difficult-e2-80-99-part-of-press-secretary-job/ar-AAXcgk3?ocid=uxbndlbing
Psaki said the safety of her two children, who are four and six years old, remains “a real concern,” as some of the messages she received were from “people threatening to come to my house.” “There have been cases where I’ve had to share information with [the Secret Service], and I certainly have shared information with them,” Psaki said, adding that no one threatening has appeared outside her personal residence. “Not yet,” Psaki said, although “there is a circulation of my address among the Arlington Republican Party right now. So there you go.” The Arlington County Republican Committee in Virginia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Psaki’s claim.
You know Republicans got hot and bothered that pro-choice supporters might have peacefully protested against the Alito draft opinion but the same Republicans was letting the MAGA crazed domestic terrorists know where the Psakis and their children lived. Thank God for the Secret Service but a big eff you to these MAGA Republicans.
LOL!
No one gives a rat’s ass about Psaki. But SCOTUS justices? Oh, that’s just attempted intimidation. Camping out in front of the Justices’ home? No big deal, it’s all about Psaki.
Careful Brucie boy – the Secret Service knows where you live. And your skinny little body would get a lot of rough treatment from the other inmates in prison especially since your new name is Bridgette.
They’re threatening her family. Why are you laughing?
Because Bruce Hall is your standard MAGA domestic terrorist. Except he is too afraid to leave his mommy’s basement.
Where do you put SCOTUS members’ chances of survival right now Bruce (rapists included)??
https://images.app.goo.gl/ypHr8SruJZpoSTt89
OK Clarence Thomas does disgustingly hit upon hot black women lawyers. But have you seen that ugly fat wife of his?
Kavanaugh gets drunk and tries to rape ladies. But have you seen his ugly wife?
Not saying being married to ugly witches is any excuse for abhorrent sexual abuse but DAMN!
My understanding was a lot of the sexual assaults were pre-marriage. I think the most bothersome facet of this (from my own view obviously) is none of these women were sending any signals of wanting to engage in anything. Often times men are not good at reading signals, or women send signals without the underlying intention. In these Kavanaugh recounts and the Hill recount it is so abundantly clear that they abhor their aggressor. But it doesn’t phase them. This speaks of a certain type of sociopathic behavior. Not a clumsy groping type incident.
May I also add, I actually feel some kind of pity for Kavanaugh’s wife. The fact she feels that she has to put up with this and go on like nothing happened, even though at this point she has to know her husband is a repulsive pig. The amount of denial required on her part is enormous. I guess if you are a Catholic wife this comes with the territory.
Ashley Kavanaugh has what thoughts inside her head??: “I can’t ask for a divorce, so the sexual predator I call Brett/”honey” will roam around and I will go to my next church ladies luncheon grinning. Gee, I wonder what my sons and daughters will learn from this if they remain Catholic and get married?? Hmmmmm….. well, they won’t learn that “good Catholic wives” quietly endure and sanction adultery. Naaaaaaaahhh!!!!!”
Brucey? Brucey, do you listen to yourself?
“Nobody cares about (name of human being).”
“(Exercise of free speech) is just attempted intimidation.”
These are not the values we were taught in school Brucey. Very unAmerican.
people have a more legitimate right to camp outside of the justices homes than psaki’s home. same applies to elected officials in congress. but in no case should anybody be permitted to threaten any of those individuals.
The Biden government is providing protection for the Supreme Court. Now had we had a liberal court with Trump as President – there would be zero protections against members of Bruce’s MAGA crowd for the liberal justices. And Bruce would be fanning the flames to attach Kagan, Sotomeyer, and Breyer. After all – he wanted people to attack the Democratic governor of his own state.
Long overdue:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republican-house-leader-kevin-mccarthy-other-lawmakers-allied-with-trump-subpoenaed-in-capitol-riot-probe/ar-AAXcySM?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=2d0eae61dd6e42f59150cf17e252d90d
The select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot subpoenaed House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and four other lawmakers allied with former President Donald Trump. The other House Republicans to be issued subpoenas are Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama and Pennsylvania’s Scott Perry.
If you think people are upset about fuel prices now, wait until Biden’s term is over. And the steep inflation in food prices is coming soon.
Biden Administration Cancels Alaska Oil and Gas Lease Sale
By Sara Cook, Weijia Jiang, and Mattew Mosk, CBS News
May 11, 2022 / Updated at 11:14 PM
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alaska-oil-and-gas-lease-sale-canceled-biden-administration/
The Biden administration has canceled one of the most high-profile oil and gas lease opportunities pending before the Interior Department. The decision, which halts the potential to drill for oil in over 1 million acres in the Cook Inlet in Alaska, comes at a challenging political moment, when gas prices are hitting painful new highs.
In a statement shared first with CBS News, the Department of the Interior cited a “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area” for the decision to “not move forward” with the Cook Inlet lease sale. The department also halted two leases under consideration for the Gulf of Mexico region because of “conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales.”
Federal law requires the Department of the Interior to stick to a five-year leasing plan for auctioning offshore leases. The administration had until the end of the current five-year plan — set to expire at the end of next month — to complete these lease sales.
Until now, the White House had remained silent about the massive Alaska lease. However, canceling the sale would be in keeping with political promises President Joe Biden made in the name of halting global warming. But those promises have become a political challenge in the face of prices at the pump.
“They don’t want to get hit by the Republicans in light of the high gas prices,” one environmental advocate told CBS News, speaking on the condition he not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic. “They’re getting killed on attacks based on inflation. The most visible sign of inflation is high gas prices.”
The delicate political situation was evident after a top environmental official showed her hand in an email that copied a CBS News reporter. Gina McCarthy, the White House National Climate Advisor, wrote that “the Cook inlet sale was canceled. It is not proceeding.”
Almost immediately, another White House official jumped in to declare that McCarthy got ahead of herself. Interior Department officials said a final decision had not been made. On Wednesday, though, with time running out, the department made its announcement.
Frank Macchairola, a top official with the American Petroleum Institute, the country’s largest oil and gas trade association, called the cancellation of the Cook Inlet lease “another example of the administration’s lack of commitment to oil and gas development in the US.”
“The President has spoken about the need for additional supplies in the market, but his administration has failed to take action to match that rhetoric,” Macchairola said, adding that politically it would play “not well.”
“In the kind of price environment that we’re seeing, there are negative consequences to shutting off oil and gas development, both politically and practically,” he said.
On Wednesday, the national average price of regular gas hit an all-time high of $4.40, according to AAA.
For environmental groups, the decision was welcome news. The Alaska offshore lease arrangement would have opened drilling opportunities over a span of more than 1 million acres for 40 or more years of production. The new activity would have led to new underwater pipelines and platforms in the environmentally-sensitive area.
Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans for the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, said more than a decade would pass before those leases could have had an impact on gas prices.
“It’s good for the climate, which can’t handle new oil and gas development,” Caputo said. “It’s good for Cook Inlet because offshore drilling is dangerous and disruptive. And it’s good for the people of Cook Inlet, including native people, who cherish the inlet in its natural state. So it’s a really good thing.”
Still, any decision that worked against the interests of oil and gas involves political trade-offs. According to a recent CBS News poll, Mr. Biden’s approval rating is lowest when it comes to the economy and inflation, with 69% of those surveyed disapproving of his handling of inflation. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they believed the president “could do more” to lower gas prices.
American Petroleum Institute senior vice president Frank Macchiarola said in a statement, “Unfortunately, this is becoming a pattern – the administration talks about the need for more supply and acts to restrict it. As geopolitical volatility and global energy prices continue to rise, we again urge the administration to end the uncertainty and immediately act on a new five-year program for federal offshore leasing.”
But environmentalists argue the climate issue is too important to get caught up in political battles.
“The scientists are telling us the time to shift from fossil fuel energy is not years from now,” Caputo said. “It’s today. We need to end offshore oil leasing.”
—–
Yup, failed policies supported by apocalyptic idiots.
In a statement shared first with CBS News, the Department of the Interior cited a “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area”
Wait – Big Oil does not think this area would be profitable but you would go ahead and drill baby drill anyway. I guess you also want to build that Bridge to Nowhere. You worked for the US auto industry back in the day – right? Now wonder they went bankrupt!
“It’s good for Cook Inlet because offshore drilling is dangerous and disruptive.”
Of course oil spills are a real concern but Bruce Hall has a “solution”. Get a bunch of paper towels and just wipe us the mess. He is THAT STUPID!
“Yup, failed policies supported by apocalyptic idiots.”
Where were you when Trump stopped talking about Covid, which was killing nearly 4,000 people a day, and turned his attention to overthrowing the election using apocalyptic language? Are you in any way aware of your own self?
Remember Bruce Hall never wanted mask mandates or other forms of social distancing. But he did peddle miracle cures like ingesting bleach.
I cannot tell whether Bruce Hall in his usual dishonesty forgot to tell us that this is called Lease Sales 258 or he is just THAT incompetent at research but the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management did its required due diligence on this idea back when Trump was still officially President and doing all he could to overturn thtio Nov. 2020 elections. The Bureau invited input from interest parties and here is one such discussion:
https://inletkeeper.org/leasesale258/
This lease would produce more emissions at a time when it is critical for Alaska to transition to energies that won’t create more greenhouse gases. Over the last few years, there has been serious damage to Alaska’s fisheries: pacific cod, snow crab, salmon in the Yukon, and others – with strong correlations to rising temperatures and loss of sea ice. The lease sale would occur in critical habitat for the endangered Cook Inlet belugas which are struggling to survive. A spill would very likely end up on the west coast at the beaches of Katmai and Lake Clark where our thriving bear tourism economy is located and down to the waters around Kodiak.
Of course Bruce Hall could care less about this damage as long as he can get his gasoline by a penny less. What a guy!
“failed policies supported by apocalyptic idiots”
would be a good description of any drill baby drill policy that completely ignored the obvious negative externalities and climate change issues raised by a subsidized oil sector that did not have to pay for these negative externalities. Of course our Village Idiot Bruce Hall is a climate change denier who has no idea what the term externality even is. And so he continues to pollute this economist blog with his incredibly transparently stupid lying. There is a failure here – his school teachers utterly failed this moron in so many ways.
Brucey, did the Koch Foundation cut you a big check? You are kinda going hog-wild on the partisan slop in this string of comments. I mean, you never really stop with the slime, but your effort here is special. What’s got you so much more unbalanced than usual?
I would hope Charles Koch could buy better trolls than our Village Idiot Bruce Hall.
Drilling for oil at Cook Inlet in Alaska is not economically viable, and the US has a legal system where an administration has to obey the orders of a court.
OOOHHHH the HUMANITY.
What exactly are you expecting the Biden administration to do about that. A 40 year oil project today is what a 20 year coal project was a decade ago. By the time you really get it producing the needs for the product will be slowly evaporating. So a 40 year project in an extremely expensive and challenging environment is not going to happen today and would have taken at least 5-10 years to produce anything. If you want reduced oil/gasoline prices in the next year, your ONLY tool is to “reduce the use” of dirty fossil fuels.
How stupid is Senator Ron Jon anyway?
https://lacrossetribune.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/ron-johnson-says-overturning-roe-v-wade-might-be-messy-but-wont-be-that-big/article_4f508716-ac20-540d-89d3-e770ba6afbfd.html
He actually said the overturn of Roe would not change things that much even if things might get a little messy. I guess this sexist moron either does not know or does not care that the operative law for his own state was written in 1894 when women could not vote and were basically mere property. Messy indeed!
On November 22, 2002 Lawrence Kudlow wrote a very dishonest and incredibly STUPID rant called the Deficit Dance, which I noted and criticized here:
n
https://econospeak.blogspot.com/2015/02/kudlows-deficit-dance.html
Now Kudlow was trying to convince us that the Bush deficits were not so bad by pretending the GDP gap was a staggering $2 trillion. Of course this moron decided to take 6 observations of the annnualized GAP and SUM rather than averaging them. Dishonest and dumb beyond the pale.
Why do I raise this? Bruce Hall’s new measure of inflation is just as dishonest and just as dumb as the Deficit Dance. But then you all knew that Bruce was a really dumb liar so what is new?
Prediction: Food prices will rise significantly by the end of the year and the Biden Administration will blame it on “greedy food corporations”.
Given your track record of bad predictions, I look forward to buying eggs for $2 a dozen this fall. Of course an incompetent moron like you probably has never checked the 10-K filing for ADM or 20_F for Bunge even if http://www.sec.gov provides it for free.
Bruce,
No, it is very clear that rising food prices are being seriously driven by your pal V.V. Putin and his blockade of exports from major food exporter, Ukraine.
If my calculations are correct, the main three categories of headline monthly CPI % changes for April 2022 are shown below,
Food___________________0.838% FRED series: CPIFABSL
Energy__________________-2.700% FRED series: CPIENGSL
Excluding food and energy__0.569% FRED series: CPILFESL
Weight used for category:
Food:_________ 13.361%____Weight times above = 0.112
Energy:_________8.295%____Weight times above = -0.224
Ex food &energy: 78.344%____Weight times above = 0.446
Total______________________________________= 0.334
Gasoline as part of the energy index declined during April, but will most likely show an increase for May. My humble efforts indicate the amounts below for May 2022.
Food________________0.70
Energy_______________1.80
Ex food & energy_______0.57
Using estimated weights above we may see a headline CPI of about 0.70% for the month of May 2022.
The two main categories of CPI excluding food and energy are:
Services excluding energy, FRED series CUSR0000SASLE and commodities excluding energy, FRED series CUSR0000SACL1E.
My calculations show services increasing by about 0.71% for May and commodities increasing about 0.6%. The weighted average is estimated at 0.57 as shown above for CPI Ex food & energy.
The woman’s lacrosse team from Delaware St. were on a bus traveling back from a match in Florida when a couple of Georgia crackers who for some dumb reason were allowed to be police decided to take a minor traffic violation on the part of their driver into an unwarranted search of their luggage:
https://news.yahoo.com/hbcu-president-says-drug-search-195913220.html
The crackers claimed they were looking for drugs but they had no reason to believe any of these athletes had illegal drugs. Oh but they were black women so this kind of police harassment is supposed to be OK?
Yea I get MAGA hat wearers will see no problem here but this racism pure and simple.
Connect the dots…. Enviro-facists are in charge of the asylum. They have some illusions about utopia and are creating a dystopia.
Biden Administration Cancels Alaska Oil and Gas Lease Sale
By Sara Cook, Weijia Jiang, and Mattew Mosk, CBS News
May 11, 2022 / Updated at 11:14 PM
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alaska-oil-and-gas-lease-sale-canceled-biden-administration/
The Biden administration has canceled one of the most high-profile oil and gas lease opportunities pending before the Interior Department. The decision, which halts the potential to drill for oil in over 1 million acres in the Cook Inlet in Alaska, comes at a challenging political moment, when gas prices are hitting painful new highs.
In a statement shared first with CBS News, the Department of the Interior cited a “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area” for the decision to “not move forward” with the Cook Inlet lease sale. The department also halted two leases under consideration for the Gulf of Mexico region because of “conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales.”
Federal law requires the Department of the Interior to stick to a five-year leasing plan for auctioning offshore leases. The administration had until the end of the current five-year plan — set to expire at the end of next month — to complete these lease sales.
Until now, the White House had remained silent about the massive Alaska lease. However, canceling the sale would be in keeping with political promises President Joe Biden made in the name of halting global warming. But those promises have become a political challenge in the face of prices at the pump.
“They don’t want to get hit by the Republicans in light of the high gas prices,” one environmental advocate told CBS News, speaking on the condition he not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic. “They’re getting killed on attacks based on inflation. The most visible sign of inflation is high gas prices.”
The delicate political situation was evident after a top environmental official showed her hand in an email that copied a CBS News reporter. Gina McCarthy, the White House National Climate Advisor, wrote that “the Cook inlet sale was canceled. It is not proceeding.”
Almost immediately, another White House official jumped in to declare that McCarthy got ahead of herself. Interior Department officials said a final decision had not been made. On Wednesday, though, with time running out, the department made its announcement.
Frank Macchairola, a top official with the American Petroleum Institute, the country’s largest oil and gas trade association, called the cancellation of the Cook Inlet lease “another example of the administration’s lack of commitment to oil and gas development in the US.”
“The President has spoken about the need for additional supplies in the market, but his administration has failed to take action to match that rhetoric,” Macchairola said, adding that politically it would play “not well.”
“In the kind of price environment that we’re seeing, there are negative consequences to shutting off oil and gas development, both politically and practically,” he said.
On Wednesday, the national average price of regular gas hit an all-time high of $4.40, according to AAA.
For environmental groups, the decision was welcome news. The Alaska offshore lease arrangement would have opened drilling opportunities over a span of more than 1 million acres for 40 or more years of production. The new activity would have led to new underwater pipelines and platforms in the environmentally-sensitive area.
Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans for the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, said more than a decade would pass before those leases could have had an impact on gas prices.
“It’s good for the climate, which can’t handle new oil and gas development,” Caputo said. “It’s good for Cook Inlet because offshore drilling is dangerous and disruptive. And it’s good for the people of Cook Inlet, including native people, who cherish the inlet in its natural state. So it’s a really good thing.”
Still, any decision that worked against the interests of oil and gas involves political trade-offs. According to a recent CBS News poll, Mr. Biden’s approval rating is lowest when it comes to the economy and inflation, with 69% of those surveyed disapproving of his handling of inflation. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they believed the president “could do more” to lower gas prices.
American Petroleum Institute senior vice president Frank Macchiarola said in a statement, “Unfortunately, this is becoming a pattern – the administration talks about the need for more supply and acts to restrict it. As geopolitical volatility and global energy prices continue to rise, we again urge the administration to end the uncertainty and immediately act on a new five-year program for federal offshore leasing.”
But environmentalists argue the climate issue is too important to get caught up in political battles.
“The scientists are telling us the time to shift from fossil fuel energy is not years from now,” Caputo said. “It’s today. We need to end offshore oil leasing.”
—–
Robin Morris Collin, who was appointed by EPA Administrator Michael Regan to be his senior adviser to “advance environmental justice and civil rights in communities,” once claimed in a coauthored a paper with her husband that “private ownership of land” is an “illusion.”
In 2005 Morris Collin and her husband, Robert Collin, who’s known as a prolific writer, co-authored a paper that called “private ownership of land” an “illusion.” The article noted that “the illusion of private ownership of land allowed the privileged to feel unconnected to the consequences of their conduct towards the living systems of which those lands are a part.”
“Privileged societies and persons who are disenfranchised, especially societies based upon natural resource consumption, will view any attempt at regulation as an intrusion on their property and freedom,” their paper added. “But, land as private property, like other natural resources, may have to be subordinated to the common good.”
—–
Robin Morris Collin, appointed by Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Michael Regan to be his senior adviser, says that environmental reparations would help heal “our relationships to each other and to nature.”
In 2020, during a virtual lecture on “climate justice” with the Oregon Humanities Center, she explained that “environmental reparations” should be given to “communities injured by governmental and industrial policies and practices” to “change the ecology of injustice into an ecology of repair.”
During her lecture, Morris Collin said that environmental reparations are needed to “provide justice to present and future generations” since “neither disaster relief nor social welfare goals alone will provide the intergenerational restoration of nature that is required now.”
Wow – this is the same story that you were hammered over in the previous comments. I look forward to round 2 of pounding on the Klass Klown. Pass the popcorn!
Enviro-facists? That sounds like a Rush Kimbaugh classic. Of course the only fascists were Trump and his treasonous fans like Bruce Hall. BYW Bruce – learn to spell fascism lest your preK teacher takes away your cupcakes.
I guess Big Oil paying the true social marginal cost of their production in Bruce Hall’s little world is fascism. Most of us call this good economics but our Village Idiot never learned even Econ 101.
Oh, No, no, NOOO, Bierka can not be talking about actual energy costs including made-up/guesstimates: ” true social marginal cost of their production in Bruce Hall’s little world is fascism. Most of us call this good economics but our Village Idiot never learned even Econ 101.” When he also said things like this: “Why do you insist on capitalizing INTERMITTENT? Is it to hide from the fact that what you write is nonstop intellectual garbage?” In a thread discussing actual costs for renewable electricity costs.
The renewables advocates best argument has been gas, the primary source in Texas, is INTERMITTENT too. The cognitive dissonance of the renewables advocates and Bierka’s Pavlovian responses are hilarious.
Bierka? Come on – is that your new Polish boyfriend or what? Now as far as your badly mangled word salad there – let me try to find one coherent phrase:
made-up/guesstimates: ” true social marginal cost
Ah yes CoRev has declared there is zero negative externalities from using oil or coal. Now that is a truly made up guessestimate which is clearly very wrong.
Hey CoRev – try writing coherently someday. DAMN!
Bierka, why must you lie? “Ah yes CoRev has declared there is zero negative externalities from using oil or coal. Now that is a truly made up guessestimate which is clearly very wrong. ”
I just quoted you, so quote where I said what you claimed.
After 2 days, Bierka has still to provide his quote: “I just quoted you, so quote where I said what you claimed.
Sometimes lying is just too difficult.
pgl,
Now now. He was spelling it correctly. He is a wise and well-informed commentator who knows that those concerned about global warming are not fascists. But he does think that they are worried about saving their faces in arguments. So, that makes them his “enviro-facists.” He knows exactly what he is talking about!!!!
So the best Bruce can do, is attack a President, because that President is in essence politically damaging himself in order to protect the nature of Alaska??
And then people wonder how we get shallow politicians like Manchin uglying up the public square scenery. Because American illiterates get what they ask for, and what they deserve. I say we go to wherever Bruce Hall and his pals go hunting in Michigan, preferably the best hunting spot in all of Michigan, and spew oil from a pipeline out all over his Michigan pals’ favorite hunting grounds, and she how Bruce Hall likes the mess in his backyard, since Bruce celebrates the ruination of Native American lands and public owned wildlife.
Bruce is on record that if there was an oil spill, the company can quickly and easily clean up the mess – likely using those paper towels Trump tossed out in Puerto Rico after Maria. Yes – Bruce Hall is indeed THAT STUPID.
https://darrp.noaa.gov/oil-spills/exxon-valdez
Something tells me that Bruce Hall believes that the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill did very little damage. And it seems CoRev (his new lover it seems) agrees with him.
Placing the responsibility to lower retail gasoline prices on shale oil producers [Elizabeth Warren] is thus unlikely to work, and additional regulation of oil producers [Biden/NEPA] is unlikely to lower pump prices.
LIARS! Okay, got that out of the way for pgl.
Well, sure this was from Breitbart, right? Or was it the GOP National Committee? I know someone was trying to indict the Administration for it’s governance. Trump? No. Hmmm. Oh, yeah…
https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2022/0510
Okay, I guess that means nothing can be done, so keep doing what Biden is doing.
And I accused CoRev of writing gibberish. Do you have a clue how incoherent you have become?
The Dallas FED discussion was very good but clearly you did not understand a word of it. This was put in BIG letters just for you:
Higher U.S. Oil Production Might Not Lower Retail Gasoline Prices
So all your support for Big Oil has been exposed as having absolutely nothing to do with the $4.22 per gallon price of gasoline. If you were not so busy writing your usual stupid garbage, you might have noticed that Barkley and I covered the same http://www.eia.doe.gov data. But since you are the slowest dumba$$ ever, let me summarize what the data shows.
The downstream margin (sum of refinery margin and retail distribution margin) is now $1.50 a gallon. It normally is $0.60 a gallon. So addressing this would lower gasoline prices now by almost a $1 a gallon.
You drill, baby, drill agenda would not affect oil supplies for perhaps over a decade and its effect on world oil prices would be trivial even then.
Bruce – you need to stop trying so hard. Everyone here figured out that you are the dumbest person ever years ago. So relax.
Oh my – Brucie did not read the last section:
Higher U.S. Oil Production Might Not Lower Retail Gasoline Prices
Apart from the difficulties of expanding domestic oil production, what are the odds of higher U.S. oil production growth materially lowering the prices of crude oil and gasoline? Even under the most optimistic view, U.S. production increases would likely add only a few hundred thousand barrels per day above current for mounts to a proverbial drop in the bucket in the 100-million-barrel-per-day global oil market, especially relative to a looming reduction in Russian oil exports due to war-related sanctions that could easily reach 3 million barrels per day. Placing the responsibility to lower retail gasoline prices on shale oil producers is thus unlikely to work, and additional regulation of oil producers is unlikely to lower pump prices.
They are correct and they just undermined your hundreds of stupid pieces of chirping. Brucie – we have been over this before. You might want to READ those links before you post something that proves once again you are the dumbest troll ever.
Oooo, we can’t have oil and natural gas wells in Michigan, can we?
https://www.michigan.gov/egle/about/organization/Oil-Gas-and-Minerals/Oil-and-Gas
A little old, but useful for you..
https://www.enverus.com/blog/michigan-basin-geology-oil-and-gas/
Come on, Moses! I really expected better from you.
Those aren’t pipelines, are they Bruce?? Are you ready for a pipeline from Canada to go through your neighborhood??
BTW, Bruce, do you know which Michigan commenter on here told us that President Biden wouldn’t stop purchasing oil from Russia??
https://thehill.com/news/administration/3262935-biden-signs-bill-limiting-trade-with-russia/
Since donald trump to this very day thinks Putin is his friend, I wonder if donald trump would have signed that same bill??
BTW Bruce, the bill that Biden signed into law, banning Russian oil imports into America (the ban you said Biden wouldn’t make into law), there were only 3 members of Congress who voted against the ban on Russian oil imports into America~~YOUR MAGA heroes Bruce~~~ Three Republicans — Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Thomas Massie (Ky.) — voted against the measure.
And Rand Paul voted for it, after wasting weeks of President Biden’s time, on crap tangential to the ban on Russian oil. These are YOUR MAGA heroes Bruce that voted against the ban on Russian oil, not ours.
It seems Massie is working on a coalition of MAGA hat wearing Congressman that may exceed 50. Of course with all Democrats and most Republicans supporting Biden’s bipartisan efforts, these clowns in the House are irrelevant. Now Rand Paul is just a pathetic POS with too much power.
Isn’t McConnell the senior Senator from Kentucky? He needs to reign in Paul and Massie.
As far as little chirpy Bruce Hall – have you noticed his brilliant little replies have absolutely nothing to do with the original discussion? No – he has never had a good faith reasonable discussion on anything as that would be something he is incapable of doing.
@ pgl
Being the “negative” “worst case scenario” guy that I am, I like to think Bruce Hall is not a horrible person. Just a midwestern guy, raised/career in Michigan, and all that resonates therein~~hunting/automobiles/guns/RepublicanDogma, with heavy biases affecting his outlook.
@ Bruce Hall
I did a minimal amount of web searching related to pipelines and Michigan.
https://www.oilandwaterdontmix.org/problem
https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/cheat-sheet-enbridge-line-5-controversy
I hope it never effects innocent parties in Michigan who never signed on for an oil pipeline. Because if it breaks it’s apt to cause MAJOR problems, sometimes it takes days before the underwater leaks are even noticed. You better pray it never does, or you’re going to find out how these things effect peoples lives and their economy in ways I am guessing you have your head in the clouds about.
All good points but ask Brucie Boy to READ his Dallas FED link. It completely undermines Bruce’s drill baby drill nonsense but this stupid troll thinks it supports his garbage. Yes – he is THAT STUPID.
An anchor strike from a ship in peril in 2018 gashed and dented both underwater pipelines
Enbridge contractors severely damaged pipeline supports in 2019, but all Enbridge safety measures missed the damage, which wasn’t even discovered until June 2020 – at which point the pipeline was temporarily shut down to inspect the damage (subsequently reopened)
The tarnished safety record of Enbridge, Inc., the Canadian company that operates the pipeline including the largest inland oil spill when its Line 6B spilled 1.1 million gallons of tar sands bitumen into the Kalamazoo River in 2010
Bruce Hall has the perfect solution. He went to CostCo and stocked up on paper towels thinking that will clean up the mess!
Lucy, you’re the type of thinker that says, “If our actions don’t reverse a bad situation, we shouldn’t do anything except let it get worse.” That’s not the conclusion of the Dallas Fed post. It concluded that efforts could marginally improve oil production output, but would not be sufficient to make up the world’s shortfall. You think that if we can’t solve the world’s problem, we should just let things go to hell here.
Let’s go Brandon and Lucy.
Gee Moses, I presume you only ride a bicycle and never use a bus, train, or airplane for longer distance travel. Do some research. Pipelines are the safest and most efficient mode of transporting oil and natural gas. But your “thinking” would fill highways with oil tanker trucks and rail lines with tanker trains. Great alternatives.
You get hung up on worst-case scenarios like all aircraft should be grounded because a fully-loaded 747 might crash. Get a life.
I can use the same type of “thinking”: Biden should step down as POTUS, because his age makes him very much more susceptible to heart attacks, strokes, and death from COVID.
Seems as if the peril was the ship and its anchor which should be an immediate safety regulation. No anchoring within 50 miles of a pipeline. There, fixed it.
But you would have ships carrying the oil inland, right? Never had an issue with an oil tanker, right?
Bruce Hall
May 14, 2022 at 5:40 am
Lucy, you’re the type of thinker that says, “If our actions don’t reverse a bad situation, we shouldn’t do anything except let it get worse.” That’s not the conclusion of the Dallas Fed post.
No one ever made that pathetically stupid made up quote of yours. As far as what the Dallas FED concluded – it said clearly that more oil leases now would have no immediate impact on gasoline prices and very little effect in the long-run. Now did you READ your own link? If so and if you do not know that then your IQ is in the single digits/
‘Let’s go Brandon and Lucy.’
Oh Brucie is now hoping for a 3-some now. Some guy named Brandon and his boyfriend Lucy. Gee Bruce – what do you tell your wife when she finds out. Especially since Brandon has AIDS.
Uh oh. Mary Mary quite contrary is now getting it on with a NASCAR driver who has been losing a lot of money on his own little cryptocurrency. Hopefully Mary has not been so stupid as to also buy into that scam as well as letting her diapers down for this nonsense.
@ Bruce Hall
Bruce, I sincerely/genuinely hope you are right that there is no pipeline leak in Michigan. It would make for a much happier/better world.
I have been told by many people in my life I am overly cynical and defeatist. So you may be onto something. Be that as it may….. I discussed on this blog, MONTHS (years???) in advance the dangers of Germany getting most of its natural gas from Russia (the danger of which, seemingly you currently agree with me about). I can hunt down my own comment in an exercise of navel gazing and post it in this thread if you doubt that. I remember the comment standing in isolation with no one, Menzie included, offering a reply on the blog.
What does it mean?? You please tell me, what it means about my negativism~~if/when Pipeline 5 in Michigan ever breaks.
“Enviro-facists”? “creating a dystopia”?
But it’s other people that are apocalyptic?
Do you have even the slightest bit of self-awareness?