Notes for my students:
Why I use logs and Why Jim Hamilton uses logs
Why we don’t divide chain-weighted quantities by chain-weighted quantities
Why we use confidence intervals (and other ways to indicate statistical significance)
Why I try to read in the topic area before commenting on the topic area
Why I try to understand my data before using it
Why I use the state level household survey data with caution
Why I seldom make definitive recession declarations in real time
Why I try to alert people to my use of unconventional definitions (in this case potential GDP)
Why I don’t reason by ethnicities
Hmmm. Looks like all, or just about all, of these involve something where Steven Kopits is posing something questionable, confusing, or just plain wrong.
However, what strikes me as the oddest out of all this is the one on Jim Hamilton’s piece on using natural logs in economics. There is Steven praising Jim for his indeed very informative and well put piece. But then we had Steven more recently complaining about Menzie using them in some figures. As I have noted it has seemed that Steven has nor understood what is what with logs. So, I am not sure if he did not understand what Jim wrote the first time around or has since forgotten.
Barkley Rosser: In a recent exchange, Steven Kopits indicated he did not know that the 2001 recession was not marked by 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, despite the fact he commented on exactly such a post a few years previously. Hence, I can only conclude that he does not recall what he has previously written or believed.
In that exchange, you wrote in the post:
“Indications are that a week from tomorrow, we will receive a very strong report on GDP growth (Jim will have his recession probabilities assessment soon after the release). (GS at 4.1%, MacroAdv at 5.0%, NY Fed at 2.8%, FRB Atlanta NowGDP at 4.5%.) At the same time, we are seeing a flattening of the yield curve.”
To which I replied: [For a recession], “you need initial unemployment claims to begin to rise. They are still falling. A recession usually follows a rise in claims by 8-18 months.”
I was expressing a view that I did not see a recession on the immediate horizon, and I was right. As I have already stated, we might see a ‘jobby recession’ this time around, but ordinarily, it would be pretty unusual for the NBER to call a recession without rising IUCs.
I recall calling the start of what would come to be called the Great Recession in real time in December 2007 when IUCs started to climb. That date would prove to be the official start of the recession by ex-post NBER dating, although I’ve also seen a Jan 2008 start date.
Indeed, IUCs rose in 1970, 1974, 1979, 1981, 1990, 2001, 2008 and 2020. So no exceptions to the rule over the last 50 years, per NBER dating. See the graph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ICSA
In the current case, IUCs started rising on March 19th.
You actually think initial unemployment claims is a better series than say the employment to population ratio? Seriously? I doubt anyone who even remotely understand labor economics or the vast information provided by the BLS would find such a bozo claim credible. Now if there is some published paper that says otherwise – please provide it.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO
Most labor economists I know would have us look at the employment to population ratio instead of something as bozo as the initial unemployment claims. The same labor economists would likely say an employment to population ratio = 60.1% is quite good. This is where this ratio has been since March 2022.
But what do people who have specialized in labor economics know? After all Princeton Steve is THE self styled expert at everything so we must pay attention to the latest bozo metric he has come up with!
IUCs are a weekly measure. But you could use other measures. Emp to pop is monthly in the first week of the following month. You could use the unemployment rate, other labor market measures. I like IUCs because it is a short turnaround statistic and quicker to show trend lines.
I did look at the employment to population ratio as well as the unemployment rate. Both indicate a strong economy. Now your little measure may be weekly but it exhibits a lot of noise and is not exactly what any one who gets labor economics would use in the way you have.
Now I asked you to provide some published paper or other credible analysis that supports your nonsense here. Since you did not provide a single paper, I presume you know of none. Typical BS on your part.
I did a little research to see what economists have been saying about Initial unemployment claims since Princeton Steve cannot be bothered and I find a June 28, 2022 Dallas FED discussion:
https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2022/0628
It is likely that the latest rise in initial claims reflects difficulty adjusting the data for seasonal patterns in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than a deterioration in underlying economic conditions. This reading of the data would also be consistent with data on job openings, quits and layoffs from other sources, which suggest a stable and tight labor market.
Read the entire discussion for yourself. I selected this key paragraph as it sort of undermines another patented piece of BS from Princeton Steve!
I love your comment in this exchange:
Your reliance on the term “suppression” is then merely a means of allowing yourself to define anything anything you want.
Of course Stevie provided a whole new set of bizarre definitions. Yep – he just makes up nonsense as he goes!
I understand you can’t distinguish between a collapse in housing prices and a lockdown, but there is a difference.
What an insulting and stupid comment. I get the financial economics of housing valuations. You clearly do not. Now take your arrogant little know nothingness to some other blog as you have become a laughing stock here.
‘Steven Kopits
June 16, 2022 at 9:13 am
So analogies for downturns:
– Recession: Jimmy has the flu and is not coming out of his room
– Depression: Jimmy has cancer and is not coming out of his room.
– Suppression: Jimmy is grounded and is not coming out of his room
In each case, Jimmy is not coming out of his room, but the cause is different. If Jimmy is grounded, you probably don’t want to give him stimulants because he is going to pop back with a head of steam when Mom and Dad relent.’
My oh my – its the play school sand lot as opposed to actual economics!
And yet inflation is 9%. Yellen said she got something wrong. And the transitory crowd has thrown in the towel. But what analogy are they using? No one knows.
Back to insulting Janet Yellen! Listen troll – you do not have the right to shine her shoes.
Barkley challenged your claim she got anything wrong here. But of course you get EVERYTHING wrong.
Let’s let Yellen speak for herself:
From March 2021, ABC News
Stephanopoulos pressed Yellen about the inflation concerns, amidst recent federal spending.
“If we get back to full employment, could we see inflation surge? How big a problem is that?” he asked the treasury secretary.
“The most significant risk we face is a workforce that is scarred by a long period of unemployment. People being out of work, not able to find jobs can have a permanent effect on their well-being. I think that’s the most significant risk,” Yellen said. “Is there a risk of inflation? I think there’s a small risk. And I think it’s manageable.”
“I don’t think it’s a significant risk. And if it materializes, we will certainly monitor for it. But we have tools to address it,” she added.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bidens-covid-relief-package-size-treasury-secretary-janet/story?id=76439203
On June 1, this:
Both Yellen and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell repeated on several occasions last year that rising inflation was “transitory” in nature and that prices would return to normal as pandemic-related supply chain bottlenecks cleared — a prediction that has turned out to be woefully off the mark.
“I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take,” Yellen said during an appearance on CNN late Tuesday. “As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy that have boosted energy and food prices and supply bottlenecks that have affected our economy badly that I, at the time, didn’t fully understand, but we recognize that now.”
That would seem contradictory. If inflation was assumed to be due to bottlenecks, then indeed it should be transitory, and policy should focus on either waiting it out or perhaps even reducing interest rates to stimulate supply. If instead the Fed is raising interest rates into a supply shock, then the presumed target is to destroy demand rather than stimulate supply. That seems somewhat odd. So either Yellen does not know what she is doing, or she believes that the Fed and administration are instead facing a surplus of money in the system, ie, that 40% increase in M2.
Finally, with rate increases in the works, on June 19, Yellen said that. while inflation is “unacceptably high”, she expects the economy will slow in the near future, but doesn’t believe that a recession is “inevitable”.
Does she have it right this time around, finally?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/janet-yellen-says-inflation-unacceptably-high-expects-economy-to-slow/ar-AAYDtSx
Steven Kopits
June 28, 2022 at 12:27 pm
stevie pooh in his jest to argue Janet Yellen is an idiot (seriously dude) only proved the obvious – Yellen is honest. Something Stevie never is.
Steven Kopits Please note when Janet Yellen made that comment. It was in March 2021. Vaccines were just being rolled out on a large scale and the expectation was that most Americans were rational and would get the jab. Yellen is a smart lady so it’s understandable that she wasn’t able to accept the stupidity and gullibility of people when it comes to vaccines. It was also before the emergence of the delta variant. And don’t forget that Russia was still almost a year away from invading Ukraine. Yellen made the mistake of making an unconditional and endogenous forecast, which is always dangerous when talking to television viewers.
Well 2001 had 1% growth for the year. Not a true recession, but a slump in corporate profits created by Y2K capex. Credit markets barely sneezed and the bubble was blowing up sky high by late 2001.
I understand logs. Menzie’s graph simply made the wrong point. He was trying to show why linear approximations fail in exponential series. I get that, except he didn’t show the failure, because he used the wrong scale — a log scale — rather than a linear scale, which would have illustrated his point.
As for presentation, it comes down to whether you are producer-oriented or consumer-oriented.
Modern economics grew up in the socialist era, and therefore presentation remains producer-oriented. It is intended to demonstrate the prowess and intelligence of the producer by making things hard to understand with formatting that is somewhat obscure and graphs that are pretty ugly.
In a consumer-orientation, you’re trying to make things as easy as possible for the reader, to save them time and effort and to create a presentation that is both intuitively and aesthetically appealing. This is quite literally the transformation Hungary went through while I lived there. It is the sentiment captured in the descriptor “pre-war building”.
More than 90% of economics papers I read still suffer from a producer mentality. The point of being an economist — forgive me — is not to prove that you’re smart (at least not for me). It’s to influence policy, and that means presenting and packaging your work to fit the needs of your audience. The economics profession remains behind the curve in this as in so much else.
“I understand logs. Menzie’s graph simply made the wrong point. He was trying to show why linear approximations fail in exponential series. I get that, except he didn’t show the failure, because he used the wrong scale — a log scale — rather than a linear scale, which would have illustrated his point.”
Anyone who wrote the 2nd and 3rd sentence there cannot credibly write the 1st sentence. Look dude – you may think you are the smartest person in the room but you sure do write the dumbest things.
Steven,
Your claim about some big shift by economists from a production orientation to a demand orientation may hold for Hungary and other former actually having previously existed socialist nations that were dominated by central planning, such as Hungary you know so well. But there has been no such shift in the market capitalist high income nations such as the United States. As co-author of the leading comparative economics systems textbook in the world, I can tell you that you are simply dead wrong with this claim.
I always thought Paul Gregory’s book was underrated. Strangely I haven’t looked at yours yet.
“If you are telling me you’re smarter than BLS, go ahead.”
Steve wrote this? Of course he is smarter than the folks at BLS. BEA, and the Federal Reserve as well as Janet Yellin.
Menzie, you address this comment to your students. The issue named in the title to each link is worth students’ attention. However, drawing attention to Kopits is unlikely to be in anyone’s interest. Someday, yor students will be exposed to the swamp of sloppy thinking and the misuse of the tools of economics (finance, logic, rhetoric, grammar) that Kopits represents, but is now the right time? Is Kopits the right bad example?
That said, I approve of the warpath you are on. There must be a Grisham’s law for intellectual exchange. It is clearly at work in comments here. Just as an experiment, you could block your worst offenders and see if new, better commenters join in. Only for a little while, a couple of decades maybe.
“There must be a Grisham’s law for intellectual exchange. It is clearly at work in comments here.”
That is the most insightful comment I have read in a long time!
Pick a topic. Happy to defend my views.
That’s the problem. Instead of learning from your mistakes, you defend them. Your willingness to defend even your worst mistakes is how you became a cautionary figure for Menzie’s students.
I’m employing a definition of “mistake” broad enough to include “alternative facts” and intentional deception.
The clown is still pushing the Quantity Theory of Money as advanced macroeconomics! Of course he is so dumb that he thinks this simpleton notion incorporate the Friedman-Phelps work on Phillips Curves. Yes – he has NO CLUE. No clue at all.
BTW – Stevie is pushing initial unemployment claims as THE labor market indicator. Of course the real labor economists at the Dallas FED just published a very nice discussion on how Stevie’s prediction of a recession does not fit the evidence at all. But he will “defend his views” anyway as he will not read this discussion. Ignorance is bliss!
MD, this is the world in which you live: ” “alternative facts” and intentional deception.” Too much of your commentary fits this category, when it includes other than ideology.
THE EXPERT ON EVERTHING? No clown – you are not.
Oh, but macroduck, what would be the fun in that? 🙂
Gresham. And I don’t even read Grisham.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/your-money/inflation-consumer-behavior.html
June 28, 2022
Less Takeout, More Produce Swapping: How Inflation Is Altering People’s Behavior
From driving fewer miles to downgrading vacations, Americans are making meaningful changes to their spending. Here’s how five households are coping with the highest inflation in decades.
By Tara Siegel Bernard
Americans are suffering from sticker shock.
With inflation running at 8.6 percent, its fastest pace in 40 years, people are balking at the rising cost of everything from groceries to gas.
In May 2021, the average price of a dozen large eggs was $1.60. A year later, it was $2.80 — an increase of 75 percent. Ground beef is up 13 percent per pound. A gallon of whole milk costs one-fifth more. Overall, grocery prices were 12 percent higher last month than they were a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was the largest year-over-year increase since 1979.
At the same time, the average driver was paying nearly $275 a month at the pump, up from $167 in June 2021, when a gallon of gas was $3.07, according to Kelley Blue Book’s calculations. Rents, too, are escalating. The median monthly rent was nearly $1,850 in May, according to Realtor.com, up 26 percent from 2019, before the pandemic.
The Federal Reserve is trying to combat runaway price increases by raising interest rates. But that is stoking new fears: If the Fed overdoes it, high rates could cool demand so much that the economy tips into a recession. Many consumers are bracing for the worst.
To cope, people around the country are changing their consumption habits. Some are starting budgets and shopping at discount stores. Others are skipping red meat and fish, walking dogs for extra cash, canceling subscription meal kits or, like Harold Topper of Stamford, Conn., resorting to psychological tricks to blunt the pain.
These days, Mr. Topper fills up his gas tank when it dips by a quarter, because it costs just $25 to refill. In his mind, the price is more palatable than at the half-tank mark or worse.
“After all, isn’t perception reality?” Mr. Topper, 66, said….
“These days, Mr. Topper fills up his gas tank when it dips by a quarter, because it costs just $25 to refill. In his mind, the price is more palatable than at the half-tank mark or worse.”
If gasoline prices kept rapidly increasing then filling the tank earlier might save him some money. But of course gasoline prices seem to be falling of late.
Well, I see that crude prices are rising again, with problems in Libya aggravating things. But near where I am, Sheetz is charging $3.99 per gallon for now.
If you don’t reason by ethnicities, I guarantee you’ll show up too early for a party in Latin America, you’ll call too late in Norway, and you won’t be sufficiently annoyed by the French.
Endorsing the racism abroad does not make your racism any more platable.
You’re not annoyed by the French?
Lots of things annoy me. Besides Trump and Putin, you are the MOST annoying person I know. I presume you are French!
You are well aware I am of Hungarian descent and Argentine birth. I wrote it yesterday.
Steven Kopits
June 28, 2022 at 12:30 pm
You are well aware I am of Hungarian descent and Argentine birth.
Well yes we are aware that you support dictators in your former homelands. You know talking to a rapid barking dog is more useful than exchanging barbs with an Arrogant Nutcase (that would be you).
Oh wow! We have even another name for Barking Bierka – the NYC Jerk and now we can add – Arrogant Nutcase. Now the issue is how to prioritize them in the list of names. I could use some help here.
Barkley, do you have a suggestion? 😉
CoRev,
My suggestion is that rather than digging yourself even deeper into a hole as an infantile name caller, you tell us exactly which award you got for your participation in the Apollo program that you supposedly hung on your wall for your children to see most impressed them.’
If you invite me to make up names, it will be one for you LIAR LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE.
Got it, boy?
Barkley, I’ve already told you what I received during the Apollo program. It’s a medallion struck from parts of the lunar lander. Why are you moving those ole goal posts again?
CoRev: If you are willing to take a photo of the medallion and send to me, I will post.
CoRev: What ridicule? Is anything I’ve written about your misadventures with economic data incorrect? I don’t think so.
The Kaufmann data you mention is response to something 2slugbaits wrote, I think. My post had nothing to do with temperature data. You make sufficient grotesque errors with economic data I need not go there.
I await with bated breath the photo.
Menzie, why do you want evidence? I’ll review it to see if it is anonymous enough to show. Frankly, with your current history of ridiculing individuals, you’ve lost credibility.
Why have you and the others not answered my query re: the Kaufmann findings?
CoRev Why have you and the others not answered my query re: the Kaufmann findings?
Sorry, what is your query? I thought the point of the Kaufmann stuff was pretty clear. You claimed that climate scientists were not concerned with finding out if a time series trend was deterministic or stochastic. You seemed to be arguing that climate scientists only used some approach you referred to as an “anomaly process.” I then provided you with several examples in which time series econometricians co-authored climate change papers with climate scientists. My only point was to demonstrate that the stationarity of a time series is something that any self-respecting and knowledgeable analyst would want to know regardless of the discipline. One paper argued for a deterministic trend; another paper argued for a univariate stochastic trend; and in a third paper those same authors went beyond just a univariate stochastic trend and found three variables, each with stochastic trends and a stationary cointegrating relationship. Not that you would have a clue what any of that meant.
2slugs shows his inability to read and understand: “..climate scientists were not concerned with finding out if a time series trend was deterministic or stochastic. You seemed to be arguing that climate scientists only used some approach you referred to as an “anomaly process.” Show us those comments.
Menzie says: “I await with bated breath the photo.” I had considered a photo, but wondered why you had any interest in it and more why you would print it? With this comment you confirmed there was no valid reason.
As to your comment regarding the use of anomalies in economics data, you have in the recent past had at lest 2 articles on how temperature impact economics. I chose not to discuss their and your understanding of climate in those papers. Now you claim: ” I think. My post had nothing to do with temperature data. I think. My post had nothing to do with temperature data. You make sufficient grotesque errors with economic data I need not go there.” The reason was: You make sufficient grotesque errors with climate data I need not go there.
Repeatedly admitting you did not know what I was doing with nor understanding the anomaly approach, but then making value judgements on its appropriate uses in economics, while citing the very same anomaly derived climate data in articles is the epitome of (you fill in the blank). Please, please show this response to your students.
After you do that you might extol the current benefits derived from the current anti fossil fuel policies used fighting climate change.
I can only guess you do want another soybean-like saga. Hint:” Repeatedly admitting you did not know what I was doing with nor understanding the anomaly approach” is not a sound starting point.
https://english.news.cn/20220628/1d11a1373fdc4a98a9255c7bc4916736/c.html
June 28, 2022
German consumer sentiment drops to new record low: GfK
Annual inflation in Germany in 2022 is expected to reach near-record levels at 7.4 percent, significantly higher than the price increases during the 1970s oil crisis, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
BERLIN — After a brief recovery, consumer sentiment in Germany was “continuing its downward spiral” and fell to a new record low, according to a monthly study published by the market research institute GfK on Tuesday.
The forward-looking index for July decreased by 1.2 points to minus 27.4 points compared to the previous month. The GfK study is based on interviews of around 2,000 consumers in Germany.
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and the global supply chains disruptions were “causing energy and food prices in particular to skyrocket, resulting in a gloomier consumer climate than ever before,” GfK consumer expert Rolf Buerkl said.
Inflation in Europe’s largest economy reached its highest level in almost 50 years in May. Consumer prices in Germany were up 7.9 percent year-on-year, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).
Soaring energy prices driven by the Russia-Ukraine conflict had a “substantial impact on the inflation rate,” as overall energy prices skyrocketed by 38.3 percent year-on-year, Destatis noted.
The German government has adopted several measures to cushion the effects of rising energy prices on consumers and companies. These include an increase in the basic tax-free allowance, higher mileage allowances for long-distance commuters, a discount ticket for public transport and a fuel tax cut.
The European Central Bank (ECB) should now pursue an “appropriate monetary policy,” GfK said. However, “all implemented measures must be carefully considered to prevent an excessively restrictive monetary policy from plunging the already ailing German economy into recession.” …
As for potential GDP, I wrote:
Well, let’s see how the CBO defines potential GDP:
“Potential output is an estimate of “full-employment” gross domestic product, or the level of GDP attainable when the economy is operating at a high rate of resource use. Rather than being a technical ceiling on production, potential GDP is a measure of the economy’s maximum sustainable output, in which the intensity
of resource use is neither adding to nor subtracting from inflationary pressure.”
And what of pGDP trend?
“The long-term trend in real (inflation-adjusted) GDP is generally upward (see Figure 1) as more resources—primarily labor and capital—become available and as technological change allows more-efficient use of existing resources.”
To me, that reads like “some sort of speed limit”. If GDP growth were unlimited or unconstrained, potential GDP would be a meaningless concept. (And it may be, in fact.)
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/03-16-gdp.pdf
and
And I didn’t say it was a hard constraint. I said it was “some kind of speed limit.” It has to be for potential GDP to be a useful concept as a forward forecasting or policy tool.
But I don’t know Menzie. It does vary. Not a lot, but it does, and particularly during times of stress. It’s like ‘the speed limit is 55, unless it’s been raining or it’s really sunny.” If that’s true, then I really need a weather forecaster more than an economist, if you get my drift.
In any event, I saw the ‘natural rate’ as a virtue. If we take a binding constraint view, then oil has restrained growth. With that constraint removed for the moment, the gate should be open for accelerated growth to the next binding constraint. If I believe Larry Summers, it could be labor. And if that’s so, it suggests some pretty interesting dynamics coming up within a matter of months (several months). Put another way, if we take a binding constraint approach, and assume a rotation among constraints, then the easing of one constraint prompts us to undertake a search for the proximate constraint. In that sense, both a supply-constrained oil markets view, as well as the ‘natural rate’ aspect of potential GDP, help focus our investigations on key areas.
I stand by my statement.
Speed limit? Damn – you come up with some really strange analogies. I bet you have zero idea how CBO estimates potential GDP or how it contrasts with your “natural rate”. There is an entire literature on alternative definitions of potential GDP which our host have provided for his readers. Something else you choose not to read.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cassidy-hutchinson-to-testify-at-jan-6-hearing-who-is-the-former-aide-to-mark-meadows/ar-AAYXuAZ?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=2cf686b6bd4642928797db37a58ae787
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant to ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, is expected to testify before the House Jan. 6 committee Tuesday. Hutchinson, with a key vantage point as Meadows’ aide, provided the committee with information on a variety of subjects. A person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press she will testify at the hearing, the sixth in a series the committee is holding on its findings about the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021. She has told the committee about White House strategy sessions where Republican House members, whom she named, discussed how to reject electors from certain states Joe Biden won in the 2020 election.
Must see TV. Assuming someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene murders her this morninig.
Watching Liz Cheney questions this lady. Some of what is being presented is chilling. Trump traitors carrying AR 15s with body armor and a lot more towards the Capitol. The White House knew there was a military assault on the Capitol in live time. And Trump and his team did not do a damn thing to stop it. Of course not – the domestic terrorists were following Trump’s orders.
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/28/1108170076/cassidy-hutchinson-jan-6-hearing
Last week the former Meadows aide said in that video testimony that GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz had been asking for a pardon since “early December,” and noted that Reps. Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert, Mo Brooks and Scott Perry also sought pardons from the White House. John McEntee, a former White House aide, also said Gaetz had told him he asked Meadows for a pardon. Hutchinson also testified she had heard that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia had requested a pardon from the White House counsel’s office. All of the members mentioned by name later denied the allegations.
They may deny whatever they want but the question remains – why did these Trump traitors need a pardon?
It has been a few days since the Usual Suspects blamed Biden for high oil prices. A little reminder that the oil market is a global market:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-gulf-coast-crude-oil-exports-touch-record-high-this-quarter-2022-06-27/
HOUSTON, June 27 (Reuters) – Exports of crude oil from the U.S. Gulf Coast could hit a record 3.3 million barrels per day (bpd) this quarter, analysts said on Monday, as Europe chases U.S. crude to offset sanctioned Russian oil. U.S. exports have risen in the last three months, helped by Washington’s decision to release 180 million barrels of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which have flooded the domestic market. Exports to Europe are expected to average about 1.4 million (bpd) this quarter, about 30% higher than the year-ago quarter, while export to Asia is set to drop to under 1 million bpd, according to energy data firm Kpler.
The higher purchases by European buyers have more than offset the decline in flows to Asian countries, which have been buying heavily discounted Russian crude.
“The 1.53 million bpd of U.S. crude exports to Europe recorded in April is the second-highest reading on record,” said Viktor Katona, co-head of crude analysis at Kpler. He said the figure illustrates “a very strong pull in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
I think it is a very good thing US exports are helping Europe out. Also, lowers our trade deficit and keeps our economy strong.
But yea our Usual Suspects could care less about Europe, Ukraine, or the performance of the US macroeconomy. They only want two things – cheap gasoline and being able to call Biden a socialist. Of course a socialist might try limiting US exports of oil
A Big 4 accounting firm had their employees cheat on ethics exams?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/sec-fines-ernst-young-100-million-for-employees-cheating-on-cpa-ethics-exams/ar-AAYX2XA?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=9400d946174448d682e635cd90bc2113
Accounting giant Ernst & Young will pay $100 million to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission that hundreds of its employees cheated on the ethics components of the Certified Public Accountant examination and continuing education courses and for withholding information about the misconduct to regulators. “It’s simply outrageous that the very professionals responsible for catching cheating by clients cheated on ethics exams of all things,” Gurbir Grewal, the SEC’s enforcement chief said in a press release. “And it’s equally shocking that Ernst & Young hindered our investigation of this misconduct.” The SEC’s order states that between 2017 and 2019, 49 audit professionals at the firm sent or received answer keys to the CPA ethics exams, while hundreds more cheated on continuing professional education courses required by state accountancy boards for accountants to maintain their licenses.
It is outrageous but should we be surprised? There is big money to be made by these accountants for helping their clients cheat. Ethics be damned!
If you don’t reason by ethnicities, I guarantee you’ll show up too early for a party in Latin America…
[ A point about prejudice, beyond encouraging a disdain for people, is that prejudicial stereotypes are invariably false. Reveling in prejudice is no more than malicious. ]
Well said. Thank you!
Poor little Marjorie Taylor Greene. People are mocking her!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-demands-justice-people-are-attacking-me-mocking-me-using-bible-verses/ar-AAYXV3u?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=19f1b3f4821d4cf3a4d2db1d07906bfe
I would say this is even more pathetic than Rudy Guiliani’s whining about a light tap on the back. Except Marjorie Taylor Greene proudly carries a gun and has threatened to use it against people simply exercising right to speech.
Yeah, it is definitely against the law and worthy of being prosecuted to mock anybody using Bible verses.
We should call Giulianjinae and ask him how to avoid prosecution:
https://slate.com/culture/2020/10/borat-giuliani-sacha-baron-cohen-video-analyzed.html
RUDY is one disgusting pervert in so many ways!
“I stand by my statement.”
“I’m on the record”.
Who writes this way? Oh way – someone who has a gigantic ego but little common sense.
“We’re going to walk down….. to the Capitol!!!!! And I’ll be there with you.”
I just heard something insightful on MSNBC (it’s about time folks).
So establishment Republicans like John McCain wanted a big tent Republican Party and let the Tea Party types join them in 2008. Didn’t work for McCain but the GOP did take over the House in 2010. But the Tea Party took over the Tea Party. Of course Donald Trump took over the Tea Party which owned the GOP. Now today the Trump crowd rules and even some Tea Party types are not happy with that.
Be careful who you go to bed with as that person might move in, take over, and make your life miserable.
Another reason I am glad we made Eric Adams our mayor!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/adams-giuliani-should-be-investigated-for-falsely-reporting-assault-by-si-shoprite-worker/ar-AAYXXTg?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=30d7100f8834468da751c24a5591b1af
Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday that former that former Mayor Rudy Giuliani should be investigated for falsely reporting a crime after he claimed that he was assaulted in a Staten Island supermarket. Adams said he will talk with NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell to see about investigating Giuliani who said he was “hit as if a boulder hit me” by Daniel Gill, a 39-year-old ShopRite employee. Giuliani has also likened the strike to being hit by a bullet. “Falsely reporting a crime is a crime. And from what he stated about being punched in the head, felt like a bullet. What he stated, there was a lot of creativity. And I think the district attorney, he has the wrong person that he’s investigating,” Adams said.
What is the punishment for Giuliani’s crime? LOCK HJM UP! LOCK HIM UP!
Mob boss Donald Trump and his minions are not having a good week:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/agents-seize-phone-of-lawyer-who-pushed-trump-false-elector-claims/ar-AAYVTf9?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=34f9a0aa2bba40b793d4a78ab55d8beb
Federal agents last week seized the cellphone of John Eastman, a lawyer who pushed false claims that mass voter fraud tainted the 2020 election and who urged President Donald Trump and other Republicans to block Joe Biden from becoming president. Eastman’s lawyer, Charles Burnham, filed papers in federal court in New Mexico on Monday asking a judge to order the cellphone be returned to Eastman. It was seized pursuant to a search order when he left a restaurant on Wednesday — a day in which federal agents around the country delivered subpoenas, executed search warrants and interviewed witnesses in a significant expansion of the criminal probes surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. That same day, federal agents conducted a search at the Northern Virginia home of Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who Trump considered appointing to run the department because he was willing to further a scheme to declare the election results invalid in some key states. Both Clark and Eastman played crucial roles in Trump’s efforts in late 2020 and early 2021 to persuade state legislators in about a half-dozen states to replace the electors that Biden had won with electors for Trump. In theory, such a replacement would have kept Trump in the White House.
Astonishing testimony before the J6 committee today.
1. Trump screamed “I don’t F’ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt ME. Take the F’ing mags [magnetometers] away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the F’ing mags away.” So Trump knew his supporters were armed, not to hurt him, but to attack Congress.
2. Trump sent the armed mob to the Capital.
3. Trump then got into his limo to be driven to the Capital to lead the armed mob in the attack. Except the Secret Service wouldn’t let him. Trump: ‘I’m the effing President, take me to the Capitol now.” Trump then tried to grab the steering wheel and lunged at a Secret Service agent but they fended him off.
So it seems the only thing preventing a murderous enraged Trump from leading an armed mob in a bloody coup to take over the government was the Secret Service.
She was awesome. Of course the Trump mob is going after this brave young woman hard.
Remember the time “sammy” claimed to be “half-Asian”??
“We’re gonna walk down, and I’ll be there with you”
To be clear, the Secret Service wasn’t acting to prevent a coup, per se. They were just under orders to return the President to a secure location because the Capital was under attack. But it did prevent Trump from further inciting his mob at the Capital.
Menzie,
I would add to your list:
“Why we don’t ascribe large structural effects to the actions of individual policy makers and politicians.”
Here, too, you could single Kopits out, though many others commit this error. It is the basis of many partisan economic sissy fights.
MD says: “Why we don’t ascribe large structural effects to the actions of individual policy makers and politicians.”
I question whether you believe this or not? If it is NOT, then explaining the current Russia/Ukrainian war, or OPEC production targets, or Macron’s Saudi oil commentary to Biden yesterday, etc.
I await your response.
So many others that I had to coin the term The Usual Suspects. I think you know the entire cast.
Why no confidence intervals on GDP, eh?
Just for Econned. Is Menzie responding to a non-existent comment?
“Menzie Chinn Post author
June 30, 2022 at 4:55 pm
CoRev: Whatridicule? Is anything I’ve written about your misadventures with economic data incorrect? I don’t think so.
The Kaufmann data you mention is response to something 2slugbaits wrote, I think. My post had nothing to do with temperature data. You make sufficient grotesque errors with economic data I need not go there.
I await with bated breath the photo.”
That highlighted word only appears in this copied comment. Is there an imaginary comment out there to which he is responding? This might be even another example, perhaps especially for his more advanced classes, of how to discuss ” misadventures with economic data”.