Amazon has shifted from monopsony (and tax avoidance) to monopoly. Monopsony tended to enforce lower prices by lowering costs. An important side-effect was to drive competitors out of business. Monopoly aims at enforcing higher prices, which is only possible due to reduced competition.
This is, by the way, exactly the model that Uber was created to exploit.
Break them up! Break them up!
Macroduck
Individual chapters are quite short, highly digestible and focused. No reason to shy away from this book.
Macroduck
Only slightly off topic, given the centrality of energy to sanctions –
Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition
-Future energy system costs are estimated for three different scenarios
-A rapid green energy transition will likely result in trillions of net savings
-Energy models should be updated to reflect high probability of low-cost renewables
From the introduction:
“…Most energy-economy models have produced energy transition scenarios that overestimate costs due to underestimating renewable energy cost improvements and deployment rates…Hence, even without accounting for climate damages or climate policy co-benefits, transitioning to a net-zero energy system by 2050 is likely to be economically beneficial.”
Of course, the “fake science” troll choir will now fake up sciencey-sounding arguments to cast doubt on actual cost/benefit analysis.
CoRev
MD claims: “Of course, the “fake science” troll choir will now fake up sciencey-sounding arguments to cast doubt on actual cost/benefit analysis.” ?Fake Science? is that science that doesn’t BLINDLY accept or questions what he claims as truth.
That kind of comment from someone who can;t even get a link entered correctly. How’s that for a sciencey-sounding argument?
Enjoy that cup of ideology!
pgl
Are you in a contest with Rick Stryker for the STUPIDEST MAN ALIVE?
Barkley Rosser
pgl,
Oh, there is no contest. CoRev is far stupider than “Rick Stryker,” aka “John Marshall, although the latter has been making a pretty big fool of himself here lately as well.
pgl
I was able to access the paper. You might want to read it as it is very clearly written so even a total mental retard (that would be you) can follow its evidence and logic. Of course you pretend you could not access. I don’t blame you for not reading it as it undermines the serial BS you peddle routinely.
Summary
Rapidly decarbonizing the global energy system is critical for addressing climate change, but concerns about costs have been a barrier to implementation. Most energy-economy models have historically underestimated deployment rates for renewable energy technologies and overestimated their costs. These issues have driven calls for alternative approaches and more reliable technology forecasting methods. Here, we use an approach based on probabilistic cost forecasting methods that have been statistically validated by backtesting on more than 50 technologies. We generate probabilistic cost forecasts for solar energy, wind energy, batteries, and electrolyzers, conditional on deployment. We use these methods to estimate future energy system costs and explore how technology cost uncertainty propagates through to system costs in three different scenarios. Compared to continuing with a fossil fuel-based system, a rapid green energy transition will likely result in overall net savings of many trillions of dollars—even without accounting for climate damages or co-benefits of climate policy.
pgl
Are you in a contest with Rick Stryker for the STUPIDEST MAN ALIVE?
I doubt seriously that you actually read the article. you just lie too much.
Are you in a contest for the STUPIDEST MAN ALIVE commenting here? BTW, you’re the clear leader. 😉
pgl
Hey CoRev – ask the other puppies to teach you how to cut and paste. DAMN you are DUMB!
pgl
I did read the entire article but of course you did not even read the summary. Else you’d be barking your pathetic tail off at what was written. I tell the truth which you are incapable of doing.
CoRev
Bark, bark please stop lying. I know you didn’t cut & past MD’s link. You didn’t even notice the difference between the two. What is it with you that make you such a liar?
baffling
covid, i did a cut and paste to get to macro’s link. that worked fine. i just submitted the hyperlink for those less technically inclined. there is no controversy here.
pgl
Yea CoRev is too dumb to cut and paste a link. Thanks for doing it for the little boy?
Macroduck
On a closely related topic, China has just told Russia to stay the heck out of Kazakhstan:
“China warns against meddling in Kazakhstan ahead of Putin meeting”
Settig the right tone for the Uzbekistan hug-fest, I guess.
baffling
my guess is, xi has is eyes on this land in the future. after all, he can claim at one time it was under Chinese imperial control.
Barkley Rosser
baff.
Sorry, but except for small parts briefly, China never ruled either Kazakhstan or Uzvekistan.
baffling
barkley, that was a statement of fact. the qing dynasty included lake balkhash, in present day kazakhstan. how much of the land or for how long is irrelevant to this fact. the chinese use similar arguments for taiwan. taiwan is not historically chinese, but you would not know that by the chinese narrative. they have taken limited historical control of taiwan and extrapolated it into a total right today.
Barkley Rosser
baff,
The lake formed the northwest corner of Qing China, but we are as I noted talking about a relatively small part of Kazakhstan, which is large, and zero of Uzbekistan, none of which China has ever ruled. As for Taiwan, when China has ruled it, it has ruled all of it.
baffling
Barkley, that does not make my comment incorrect. I did not intend for my comment to include Uzbekistan, and that was not clear.
JohnH
We’ll, that’s Eurasia’s take on what Xi said. He could just as easily have been referring to what Xi perceived as an attempted color revolution earlier this year.
MacroDuck should really stay in his lane, whatever that is.
pgl
Your link and Macroduck’s link are referring to the same position. So one has to wonder WTF you are babbling about? Oh yea – from Macroduck’s link:
Russian-ally Kazakhstan has been shaken by the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, while facing down saber-rattling from Russian nationalists angry at what they deem Kazakh disloyalty over the war. After meeting President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Kazakhstan’s capital, Xi made it clear that Beijing would not tolerate any encroachments on Kazakhstan’s territory.
It sounds like Putin’s pet poodle (JohnH) is actually hoping Putin decides to invade Kazakhstan. No – you of all people should not be telling people to stay in their own lane as you are promoting war crimes.
JohnH
And Xi won’t tolerate any encroachment by NATO…via a “color revolution.” Of course, non-interference in the domestic affairs is a very basic UN principle that that “rules based international order” violates practically every day.
Oh, and Tokayev owes his position and perhaps his life to Russia, which helped stifle the color revolution. Somehow I don’t think that Tokayev needs to be reminded by Xi as to where the real threat comes from.
Barkley Rosser
JohnH,
As usual you are fully of lying bs.
In June Tokayev criticized Putin over his invasion of Ukraine, and after that Putin and many of his aides suggested that Russia had the right to conquer Kazakhstan just as it has been trying to do in Ukraine, that all former Soviet republics are really Russian territory.
It has been widely reported that indeed Xi’s visit to Kazakhstan and statements were directed at these blatant threats against Kazakhstani sovereignty by Putin and his henchmen. You are completely wrong and as usual spouting straight-up Russian propaganda.
Are you hoping to sleep with RT Chief Margarita Simonyan, JohnH? You are so pathetic with your lies here.
pgl
‘non-interference in the domestic affairs is a very basic UN principle that’ Putin’s invasion of Ukraine violated in the worst sort of way. Which is the point that Putin’s pet poodle denies. You are beyond a disgusting POS.
JohnH
Rosser fails to refute anything I said…but then calls me a liar! Standard operating procedure for a neocon like Rosser.
Oh, and then he asserts (without any citation whatsoever) that “Putin and many of his aides suggested that Russia had the right to conquer Kazakhstan.” A figment of Rosser’s imagination? Or just a lie?
Now tell me this, why wouldn’t Kazakhstan (and China) be concerned about another US attempt at a color revolution and publicly warn against it?
JohnH: Still waiting for your response to my query regarding the “trap” laid by Ukrainian forces for the Russians. Or are you still asserting the Russian invasion is doing well?
pgl
“And Xi won’t tolerate any encroachment by NATO”. Dude – buy a damn map. You must no clue where this country is located. Hint Central Asia is not the same as Europe.
Barkley Rosser
JohnH,
Eff you, you are a worthless immoral liar who will go to hell when you die, and it does exist (probably).
There are too many links I could provide, but Putin threatened Tokayev and Xi has supported him against the obviously increasingly loser Putin. Putin has threatened Tokayev given all the ethnic Russians in northern Kazakhstan, and Xi went specifically there before going to Samarkand and supported the independence and territorial integrity of Kazakhstan.
You are as usual repeating lies and delusions that the the threat to Kazakhsran is from a “color revolution” where in fact the threat comes from VV Putin himself. Xi has made it clear that in the real current version of the “Great Game” in Central Asia, Xi will not tolerate any territotial power grabs by the worthless loser Putin
CoRev
“You are beyond a disgusting POS.” Says the largest lying disgusting POS on the blog.
Barkley Rosser
JohnH,
Google “Putin threatnes Tokayev.” There are lots of stories in outlets like Bloomberg and the Daily Telegraph from mid-June, especially the 17th to the 20th, about Putin declaring that Kazakhstan is all “historic Russian territory” after Tokayev criticized Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It is exactly this threat from Putin that Xi was addressing when he visited Kazakhstan prior to the SCO summit in Samarkand, not any nonexistent “color revolution” pushed by the US.
Sorry, I nailed your behind, JohnH. You are just spouting Margarita Simonyan propaganda.
pgl
Googled color revolution’ in Kazakhstan and got this:
Yes Putin will forment any lie in order to spread his war crimes. And right on cue his pet poodle JohnH stands right behind Putin.
Macroduck
Johnny, Two things:
1) I will when you do, you hypocrite. You know nothing about economics and rant about economic all the time.
2) Since you don’t know anything about my training or experience you don’t know what my “lane” is. You feel at liberty to pretend that you do because…you’re a hypocrite.
pgl
Did you catch the fact that Johnny is still back in February (before the invasion of Ukraine) but then he calls out Barkley as allegedly lying simply because Barkley had to remind this troll about developments in June. Seriously Johnny boy is still learning how to read a damn calendar.
Macroduck
Off topic, Fed policy error –
A recent paper from the Fed examines a period of high inflation, easy monetary and fical policy and tight labor markets, using a new data set, for clues about the current period:
It reaches a worrying conclusion. From the introduction:
“Strong (tight) labor markets can become weak (slack) faster than policymakers may anticipate. Indeed, our results demonstrate that labor demand reacted sharply and quickly to the tightening of monetary policy, at a speed which can outpace policymakers’ abilities to track current economic conditions.”
In other words, the depth of the recession of 1920-1921 was due to the Fed staying too tight for too long, having failed to anticipate the speed at which employment would crash.
Macroduck
What does the outlook for policy have to say about the outlook for inflation?
To the extent fiscal policy has an effect on inflation, fiscal policy has been a drag since late 2020, and is due to remain a drag through 2023 under current law:
Porfolio shrinkage will persist, creating an increasing drag on inflation for some time.
We can argue about what the neutral rate of interest might be, and it would be hard to argue that rate policy is contractionary based on real rates, but the tide has turned, and the housing market probably doesn’t run so much on real rates as nominal ones.
So we can already find some effects from tightening monetary and fiscal policy, and we know that fiscal policy and the portfolio drawdown are likely to persist, tightenin policy further.
What do we know about consumer price inflation? We know it is cooling off, but the broadest inflation measures are not back to the level the Fed would like. However, for some broad segments of consumption, such as nondurable consumer goods, and in fact all consumption excluding shelter, we’ve had a couple of months of deflation:
Aren’t we supposed to be scared of deflation? If housing is the real culprit behind rising CPI, with other broad categories tame, do we really have a general rise in prices?
And there is reason to think the economy is slowing and that recession risk is rising, what with the yield curve somewhere between flat and inverted:
This link explains how they construct their fiscal impact measure. Note in particular that this measure includes the endogenous impact from the recovery which reduced the deficit as well as their measure even if there was no change in fiscal policy. I would argue that the drop in their impact measure overstates how much actual fiscal policy turned restrictive. Then again – the 1954 AER paper by E. Cary Brown has never really received the attention it deserves.
Macroduck
Oh, what the heck! Even service prices ex-shelter have cooled off:
And I should have mentioned that longer-tern inflation expectations are right back where the Fed wants them.
Market pricing has zeroed out any chance of a 50 bp hike next week, but the chit-chat on the day can lean into recent good inflation news and lean away from “scary labor market tightness”. Not that I think that’s gonna happen just yet, but it should.
baffling
I think we should have a 50 bp hike, and continue to see how the last couple of hikes impact things. continuing with 75 bp in the next meeting is unnecessary, in my opinion. it is still an aggressive hike at 50 bp.
just curious, will the fed only operate on their once a month meeting for rate changes? or has there been instances where they would add an new meeting to address changes in the economy mid-month? just wonder how constrained our policy is to these once a month meetings, if we are in a very fluid environment.
Macroduck
There have been instances of rate changes at non-scheduled times. As far as I’m aware, there has never been an emergency rate hike. Inflation doesn’t work like that. When the financial sector starts to burn dow, the Fed brings out the liquidity fire hose.
baffling
i ask from the perspective that the fed may realize between scheduled meetings that the previous rate hike (or drop) was a mistake. they are willing to let the mistake simmer for a couple of weeks before acting? i could see this being the case after the next rate hike. if it is 0.75%, or especially 1.0%, it may be seen as a mistake quite quickly. would they correct it, or not act so as not to admit fault? a couple weeks really could have consequences on the economy if it is decidedly wrong.
pgl
I checked with FRED which reports the interest rate on long-term corporate bonds with AAA credit ratings back to Jan. 1919. It seems this interest rate rose from 5.35% to 6.38%. A 1% increase in interest rates is not really that large compared to what this FED seems to be planning now.
AndrewG
Haven’t read the article yet, but labor markets were more flexible in that period of time than they are today, maybe much more flexible. (One story about this is that increasing supply chain and production complexity creates all sorts of price rigidities … starting in the 1920’s!) Because of that flexibility, we would expect a faster response to monetary policy.
Today we seem to be seeing the big lags in labor market response that we are used to, and that’s in response to a very, very aggressive Fed. Paints a different picture. And just an anecdote: I’m still seeing hiring ads on YouTube for companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon – after two 75bp hikes and an expected third this month. Of course, all of that *could* be misleading about what’s around the corner.
Moses Herzog
Random thought, from slightly sauced, glassy-eyed Uncle Moses What kind of world do I wish I lived in??~~not perfect, but closer to the ideal. A world in which Mikhail Gorbachev’s death has as much, or more, resonance with the masses, than Elizabeth the 2nd’s death. A woman who other than her World War II service and producing fornicating incestuous offspring, didn’t really do a hell of a lot for this world, vs a man who risked his own mortality, for a different world-wide path. Is there any sense of significance here in the big picture?? Not one the idiot American housewife picking up “The Enquirer” at the grocery check out line or watching David Muir put on an act for the 15th “royalty” TV special in 2030 can see.
Macroduck
But… princesses! Crowns and titles and gowns!
The Disney hit-man is checking your locks.
Moses Herzog
I’m getting the “gist” but not the exact joke here, but I feel very happy anyone, especially my Brother MD, answered my comment. : )
Moses Herzog
@ Macroduck Heh, I think I JUST got your meaning, with an extra swig of Smirnoff cooler. Yeah, I think women take so much more from royalty stories than men do, Honestly I don’t know why, If women take some “heart” or “inspiration” from that, I wouldn’t deny them that. From my own personal view though, royalty stories are near useless
baffling
every nation needs somebody to rally around. sometimes its a king or queen. other times its a president. but if you don’t have that leader to galvanize the nation, you could be in trouble. can you imagine what would have happened to America if we had an event that required a nation to rally around its leader during the trump years? oh yes, that was the pandemic. what a public policy disaster by trump. he was utterly useless. Great Britain had its own fool in Boris Johnson. at least they had a queen to help show the way…
Macroduck
Let’s do nurses and teachers.
baffling
could not agree more. but something tells me the maga crowd will never really embrace those two professions.
Rick Stryker
A couple of days ago I performed my legal analysis of the DOJ’s response to Trump’s filing, and concluded “Based on what I saw, I don’t expect the judge to grant the DOJ the partial stay they are seeking.”
The judge ruled tonight. To quote: “Accordingly it is hereby ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the Motion for Partial Stay Pending Appeal [ECF 69] is DENIED.
Barkley Rosser
Thank you, “John Marshall,” indeed the judge has declared that she is unable to determine what is classified and what is not. That a document has “classified” writtten on its front is not good enough.
Rick Stryker
Barkley,
That’s not what she said.
pgl
OK John Marshall – please rephrase what Judge Bimbo said. This should be fun!
2slugbaits
Barkley Rosser has “classified” writtten on its front
In the government anything that is marked as classified is assumed to be classified. For example, when computer programmers test code changes to classified applications, they always use completely fake and made-up data for test purposes. But even if it’s fake data that is only used for testing purposes, it is still assumed to be classified if the output header says “CONFIDENTIAL” or “SECRET” or “TOP SECRET.” So what’s a programmer to do? They change the headers to read “LAITNEDIFNOC” or “TERCES” or “POT TERCES.” First time I encountered test outputs with those headers I laughed myself silly.
BTW, even if Trump “declassified” those documents (and if you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you), Biden has the authority to reclassify those documents. Of course, it’s all beside the point because what Trump did was still a crime regardless of the documents’ classification. It’s a crime to take unclassified documents with you when you leave government. In fact, technically it’s a crime to take a government pen home with you, which is something they teach you on your first day at work.
pgl
Oh no – I did take a couple of pens home with me. But no – it was clear that any documents I had in my office during my Treasury days should never be taken out of the office for any reason. Ricky the star porn attorney clearly does not get how this all works.
pgl
To call her a judge is a bit of a joke. She is in the tank. So are you but hey great copying and pasting BS dressed up as your legal analysis.
Rick Stryker
pg13,
Show me where I copied and pasted. My legal analysis is all original.
pgl
Oh that’s right – you slightly rephrased what they said. Dude – you have one overinflated ego for someone who never learned to use Westlaw. And I thought Princeton Steve was the arrogant moron here.
baffling
how did those exceptional coronavirus models of yours turn out? yeah, the virus was not really going to be a problem. according to rick. a real polymath.
can you imagine the uproar from rick if a president Hillary Clinton had her court cases presided over by her own appointee?
no worries, the case will continue to move forward against trump. at one time, I was against jail time for trump. my mind has changed. perhaps counselor rick will join the trump legal team soon, and expedite the process?
Rick Stryker
Baffled,
My models made me a lot of money.
Trump isn’t going to jail so whether you are for it or not is irrelevant.
pgl
Lying and cheating can be lucrative indeed!
Baffling
Doubtful on both counts, rick.
pgl
Former senator Russ Feingold — who leads the liberal American Constitution Society, which closely tracks judicial nominations — said Trump and his Republican allies in the Senate sought out judicial nominees like Cannon, showing an “overwhelming preference” for individuals often lacking the experience “previously considered necessary to sit on the bench.” “We’re now seeing the impact of this, with an alarming disregard of the rule of law by some,” he said in a statement.
She is rather incompetent but at least she is not as pathetic at law than Ricky pooh Stryker. Ricky pooh is so incompetent he cannot even get a guest appearance on Fox and Friends.
Famed legal expert Ricky pooh Stryker may have a new MAGA assignment. It seems Marjorie Taylor Greene decided to kick an 18 year woman because that woman is not as much of a Second Amendment as Taylor Greene. And the young woman is thinking about legal action against Taylor Greene.
Come on Ricky! MAGA needs you. After all your version of the Second Amendment not only gives MAGA types to carry military assault weapons onto NYC subways but also give ugly cows like Taylor Greene the right to kick people exercising their First Amendment rights.
if one does not want to deal with the NYTimes firewall.
pgl
“I’ll give the pronuclear folks this: They do make a good case that nuclear has gotten a too-bad rap. Nuclear power is relatively safe, reliable and clean; compared to the planetary destruction wrought by fossil fuels, nuclear power looks like a panacea.”
My son once had an engineering job at a nuclear power plant and he agrees with this. Now the cost issue is an important concern for sure. My view is we should take a diversified approach to providing emission free sources of energy.
Ivan
I agree that if the question was fossil fuel vs. nuclear I would go with the later. But this one will be decided by the market forces – and it appears that in that contest, nuclear is not making it at all. It is way to expensive and takes forever before there is any income coming back from the investment -and then there is an expensive long term commitment to dealing with waste. So at least the traditional plants are unlikely to be build without massive public subsidies. That would be a hard sell without some very critical advantage compared to renewables.
AndrewG
“Nuclear power is doomed and going nowhere.”
That’s not really what the article says. Moreover, Manjoo massively underestimates the problems implementing still-developing storage technologies and with equal grace brushes off still-developing cheap/small nuclear reactor technologies. (This is the same lazy tech reporter who called the Apple Watch “life-changing.”) As long as intermittency is a problem — and it will be for the foreseeable future — low-carbon but expensive sources like nuclear make a lot of sense, even with current technology.
Here’s physicist and science YouTuber Sabine Hossenfelder on the state of energy storage tech (she’s not bullish):
It is not enough to have warm bodies – you need soldiers. A warm body on the front line quickly becomes a cold body – if not trained in warfare. Russian generals must be able to understand that – their desperate recruiting suggest that their loses must be terrible. If you lose 25% of your men to gain less than a mile, then you will quickly run out of men – and your offensive will stall.
Of topic, inflation regime change –
California is suing Amazon for price fixing:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/technology/california-files-antitrust-lawsuit-against-amazon.html
Amazon has shifted from monopsony (and tax avoidance) to monopoly. Monopsony tended to enforce lower prices by lowering costs. An important side-effect was to drive competitors out of business. Monopoly aims at enforcing higher prices, which is only possible due to reduced competition.
This is, by the way, exactly the model that Uber was created to exploit.
Break them up! Break them up!
Individual chapters are quite short, highly digestible and focused. No reason to shy away from this book.
Only slightly off topic, given the centrality of energy to sanctions –
Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition
http://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X
-Future energy system costs are estimated for three different scenarios
-A rapid green energy transition will likely result in trillions of net savings
-Energy models should be updated to reflect high probability of low-cost renewables
From the introduction:
“…Most energy-economy models have produced energy transition scenarios that overestimate costs due to underestimating renewable energy cost improvements and deployment rates…Hence, even without accounting for climate damages or climate policy co-benefits, transitioning to a net-zero energy system by 2050 is likely to be economically beneficial.”
Of course, the “fake science” troll choir will now fake up sciencey-sounding arguments to cast doubt on actual cost/benefit analysis.
MD claims: “Of course, the “fake science” troll choir will now fake up sciencey-sounding arguments to cast doubt on actual cost/benefit analysis.” ?Fake Science? is that science that doesn’t BLINDLY accept or questions what he claims as truth.
That kind of comment from someone who can;t even get a link entered correctly. How’s that for a sciencey-sounding argument?
Enjoy that cup of ideology!
Are you in a contest with Rick Stryker for the STUPIDEST MAN ALIVE?
pgl,
Oh, there is no contest. CoRev is far stupider than “Rick Stryker,” aka “John Marshall, although the latter has been making a pretty big fool of himself here lately as well.
I was able to access the paper. You might want to read it as it is very clearly written so even a total mental retard (that would be you) can follow its evidence and logic. Of course you pretend you could not access. I don’t blame you for not reading it as it undermines the serial BS you peddle routinely.
link was broke above:
https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X
Summary
Rapidly decarbonizing the global energy system is critical for addressing climate change, but concerns about costs have been a barrier to implementation. Most energy-economy models have historically underestimated deployment rates for renewable energy technologies and overestimated their costs. These issues have driven calls for alternative approaches and more reliable technology forecasting methods. Here, we use an approach based on probabilistic cost forecasting methods that have been statistically validated by backtesting on more than 50 technologies. We generate probabilistic cost forecasts for solar energy, wind energy, batteries, and electrolyzers, conditional on deployment. We use these methods to estimate future energy system costs and explore how technology cost uncertainty propagates through to system costs in three different scenarios. Compared to continuing with a fossil fuel-based system, a rapid green energy transition will likely result in overall net savings of many trillions of dollars—even without accounting for climate damages or co-benefits of climate policy.
Are you in a contest with Rick Stryker for the STUPIDEST MAN ALIVE?
Meant for CoRev obviously.
Hey Bark, bark, at least Baffled showed how easy it was to show the actual link.
MD’s version: http://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X
Baffled’s : https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X
I doubt seriously that you actually read the article. you just lie too much.
Are you in a contest for the STUPIDEST MAN ALIVE commenting here? BTW, you’re the clear leader. 😉
Hey CoRev – ask the other puppies to teach you how to cut and paste. DAMN you are DUMB!
I did read the entire article but of course you did not even read the summary. Else you’d be barking your pathetic tail off at what was written. I tell the truth which you are incapable of doing.
Bark, bark please stop lying. I know you didn’t cut & past MD’s link. You didn’t even notice the difference between the two. What is it with you that make you such a liar?
covid, i did a cut and paste to get to macro’s link. that worked fine. i just submitted the hyperlink for those less technically inclined. there is no controversy here.
Yea CoRev is too dumb to cut and paste a link. Thanks for doing it for the little boy?
On a closely related topic, China has just told Russia to stay the heck out of Kazakhstan:
“China warns against meddling in Kazakhstan ahead of Putin meeting”
https://eurasianet.org/china-warns-against-meddling-in-kazakhstan-ahead-of-putin-meeting
Settig the right tone for the Uzbekistan hug-fest, I guess.
my guess is, xi has is eyes on this land in the future. after all, he can claim at one time it was under Chinese imperial control.
baff.
Sorry, but except for small parts briefly, China never ruled either Kazakhstan or Uzvekistan.
barkley, that was a statement of fact. the qing dynasty included lake balkhash, in present day kazakhstan. how much of the land or for how long is irrelevant to this fact. the chinese use similar arguments for taiwan. taiwan is not historically chinese, but you would not know that by the chinese narrative. they have taken limited historical control of taiwan and extrapolated it into a total right today.
baff,
The lake formed the northwest corner of Qing China, but we are as I noted talking about a relatively small part of Kazakhstan, which is large, and zero of Uzbekistan, none of which China has ever ruled. As for Taiwan, when China has ruled it, it has ruled all of it.
Barkley, that does not make my comment incorrect. I did not intend for my comment to include Uzbekistan, and that was not clear.
We’ll, that’s Eurasia’s take on what Xi said. He could just as easily have been referring to what Xi perceived as an attempted color revolution earlier this year.
“ Xi Jinping: China opposes external forces fomenting ‘color revolution’ in Kazakhstan.”
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-07/Xi-Jinping-sends-verbal-message-to-Kazakh-president-16DddMCma5O/index.html
MacroDuck should really stay in his lane, whatever that is.
Your link and Macroduck’s link are referring to the same position. So one has to wonder WTF you are babbling about? Oh yea – from Macroduck’s link:
Russian-ally Kazakhstan has been shaken by the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, while facing down saber-rattling from Russian nationalists angry at what they deem Kazakh disloyalty over the war. After meeting President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Kazakhstan’s capital, Xi made it clear that Beijing would not tolerate any encroachments on Kazakhstan’s territory.
It sounds like Putin’s pet poodle (JohnH) is actually hoping Putin decides to invade Kazakhstan. No – you of all people should not be telling people to stay in their own lane as you are promoting war crimes.
And Xi won’t tolerate any encroachment by NATO…via a “color revolution.” Of course, non-interference in the domestic affairs is a very basic UN principle that that “rules based international order” violates practically every day.
Oh, and Tokayev owes his position and perhaps his life to Russia, which helped stifle the color revolution. Somehow I don’t think that Tokayev needs to be reminded by Xi as to where the real threat comes from.
JohnH,
As usual you are fully of lying bs.
In June Tokayev criticized Putin over his invasion of Ukraine, and after that Putin and many of his aides suggested that Russia had the right to conquer Kazakhstan just as it has been trying to do in Ukraine, that all former Soviet republics are really Russian territory.
It has been widely reported that indeed Xi’s visit to Kazakhstan and statements were directed at these blatant threats against Kazakhstani sovereignty by Putin and his henchmen. You are completely wrong and as usual spouting straight-up Russian propaganda.
Are you hoping to sleep with RT Chief Margarita Simonyan, JohnH? You are so pathetic with your lies here.
‘non-interference in the domestic affairs is a very basic UN principle that’ Putin’s invasion of Ukraine violated in the worst sort of way. Which is the point that Putin’s pet poodle denies. You are beyond a disgusting POS.
Rosser fails to refute anything I said…but then calls me a liar! Standard operating procedure for a neocon like Rosser.
Oh, and then he asserts (without any citation whatsoever) that “Putin and many of his aides suggested that Russia had the right to conquer Kazakhstan.” A figment of Rosser’s imagination? Or just a lie?
Now tell me this, why wouldn’t Kazakhstan (and China) be concerned about another US attempt at a color revolution and publicly warn against it?
JohnH: Still waiting for your response to my query regarding the “trap” laid by Ukrainian forces for the Russians. Or are you still asserting the Russian invasion is doing well?
“And Xi won’t tolerate any encroachment by NATO”. Dude – buy a damn map. You must no clue where this country is located. Hint Central Asia is not the same as Europe.
JohnH,
Eff you, you are a worthless immoral liar who will go to hell when you die, and it does exist (probably).
There are too many links I could provide, but Putin threatened Tokayev and Xi has supported him against the obviously increasingly loser Putin. Putin has threatened Tokayev given all the ethnic Russians in northern Kazakhstan, and Xi went specifically there before going to Samarkand and supported the independence and territorial integrity of Kazakhstan.
You are as usual repeating lies and delusions that the the threat to Kazakhsran is from a “color revolution” where in fact the threat comes from VV Putin himself. Xi has made it clear that in the real current version of the “Great Game” in Central Asia, Xi will not tolerate any territotial power grabs by the worthless loser Putin
“You are beyond a disgusting POS.” Says the largest lying disgusting POS on the blog.
JohnH,
Google “Putin threatnes Tokayev.” There are lots of stories in outlets like Bloomberg and the Daily Telegraph from mid-June, especially the 17th to the 20th, about Putin declaring that Kazakhstan is all “historic Russian territory” after Tokayev criticized Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It is exactly this threat from Putin that Xi was addressing when he visited Kazakhstan prior to the SCO summit in Samarkand, not any nonexistent “color revolution” pushed by the US.
Sorry, I nailed your behind, JohnH. You are just spouting Margarita Simonyan propaganda.
Googled color revolution’ in Kazakhstan and got this:
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/01/07/is-kazakhstan-victim-of-color-revolution/
Yes Putin will forment any lie in order to spread his war crimes. And right on cue his pet poodle JohnH stands right behind Putin.
Johnny, Two things:
1) I will when you do, you hypocrite. You know nothing about economics and rant about economic all the time.
2) Since you don’t know anything about my training or experience you don’t know what my “lane” is. You feel at liberty to pretend that you do because…you’re a hypocrite.
Did you catch the fact that Johnny is still back in February (before the invasion of Ukraine) but then he calls out Barkley as allegedly lying simply because Barkley had to remind this troll about developments in June. Seriously Johnny boy is still learning how to read a damn calendar.
Off topic, Fed policy error –
A recent paper from the Fed examines a period of high inflation, easy monetary and fical policy and tight labor markets, using a new data set, for clues about the current period:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/labor-market-tightness-during-WWI-and-the-postwar-recession-of-1920-1921.htm
It reaches a worrying conclusion. From the introduction:
“Strong (tight) labor markets can become weak (slack) faster than policymakers may anticipate. Indeed, our results demonstrate that labor demand reacted sharply and quickly to the tightening of monetary policy, at a speed which can outpace policymakers’ abilities to track current economic conditions.”
In other words, the depth of the recession of 1920-1921 was due to the Fed staying too tight for too long, having failed to anticipate the speed at which employment would crash.
What does the outlook for policy have to say about the outlook for inflation?
To the extent fiscal policy has an effect on inflation, fiscal policy has been a drag since late 2020, and is due to remain a drag through 2023 under current law:
https://www.brookings.edu/interactives/hutchins-center-fiscal-impact-measure/
To the extent that Fed asset holdings have an effect on inflation, asset holdings are shrinking, and the pace of shrinkage is about to increase:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm
Porfolio shrinkage will persist, creating an increasing drag on inflation for some time.
We can argue about what the neutral rate of interest might be, and it would be hard to argue that rate policy is contractionary based on real rates, but the tide has turned, and the housing market probably doesn’t run so much on real rates as nominal ones.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=TKu0
Meanwhile, rate policy is having a disinflationary impact through the dollar exchange rate:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=TKuE
Commodity prices peaked in June and are down over 10% since then, partly as a result of dollar gains:
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crb
So we can already find some effects from tightening monetary and fiscal policy, and we know that fiscal policy and the portfolio drawdown are likely to persist, tightenin policy further.
What do we know about consumer price inflation? We know it is cooling off, but the broadest inflation measures are not back to the level the Fed would like. However, for some broad segments of consumption, such as nondurable consumer goods, and in fact all consumption excluding shelter, we’ve had a couple of months of deflation:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=TKwN
Aren’t we supposed to be scared of deflation? If housing is the real culprit behind rising CPI, with other broad categories tame, do we really have a general rise in prices?
And there is reason to think the economy is slowing and that recession risk is rising, what with the yield curve somewhere between flat and inverted:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=TKyd
Isn’t policy meant to be forward-looking and balanced? The FOMC-as-action-hero thing is starting to worry me.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-hutchins-centers-fiscal-impact-measure/
This link explains how they construct their fiscal impact measure. Note in particular that this measure includes the endogenous impact from the recovery which reduced the deficit as well as their measure even if there was no change in fiscal policy. I would argue that the drop in their impact measure overstates how much actual fiscal policy turned restrictive. Then again – the 1954 AER paper by E. Cary Brown has never really received the attention it deserves.
Oh, what the heck! Even service prices ex-shelter have cooled off:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=TKzm
And I should have mentioned that longer-tern inflation expectations are right back where the Fed wants them.
Market pricing has zeroed out any chance of a 50 bp hike next week, but the chit-chat on the day can lean into recent good inflation news and lean away from “scary labor market tightness”. Not that I think that’s gonna happen just yet, but it should.
I think we should have a 50 bp hike, and continue to see how the last couple of hikes impact things. continuing with 75 bp in the next meeting is unnecessary, in my opinion. it is still an aggressive hike at 50 bp.
just curious, will the fed only operate on their once a month meeting for rate changes? or has there been instances where they would add an new meeting to address changes in the economy mid-month? just wonder how constrained our policy is to these once a month meetings, if we are in a very fluid environment.
There have been instances of rate changes at non-scheduled times. As far as I’m aware, there has never been an emergency rate hike. Inflation doesn’t work like that. When the financial sector starts to burn dow, the Fed brings out the liquidity fire hose.
i ask from the perspective that the fed may realize between scheduled meetings that the previous rate hike (or drop) was a mistake. they are willing to let the mistake simmer for a couple of weeks before acting? i could see this being the case after the next rate hike. if it is 0.75%, or especially 1.0%, it may be seen as a mistake quite quickly. would they correct it, or not act so as not to admit fault? a couple weeks really could have consequences on the economy if it is decidedly wrong.
I checked with FRED which reports the interest rate on long-term corporate bonds with AAA credit ratings back to Jan. 1919. It seems this interest rate rose from 5.35% to 6.38%. A 1% increase in interest rates is not really that large compared to what this FED seems to be planning now.
Haven’t read the article yet, but labor markets were more flexible in that period of time than they are today, maybe much more flexible. (One story about this is that increasing supply chain and production complexity creates all sorts of price rigidities … starting in the 1920’s!) Because of that flexibility, we would expect a faster response to monetary policy.
Today we seem to be seeing the big lags in labor market response that we are used to, and that’s in response to a very, very aggressive Fed. Paints a different picture. And just an anecdote: I’m still seeing hiring ads on YouTube for companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon – after two 75bp hikes and an expected third this month. Of course, all of that *could* be misleading about what’s around the corner.
Random thought, from slightly sauced, glassy-eyed Uncle Moses What kind of world do I wish I lived in??~~not perfect, but closer to the ideal. A world in which Mikhail Gorbachev’s death has as much, or more, resonance with the masses, than Elizabeth the 2nd’s death. A woman who other than her World War II service and producing fornicating incestuous offspring, didn’t really do a hell of a lot for this world, vs a man who risked his own mortality, for a different world-wide path. Is there any sense of significance here in the big picture?? Not one the idiot American housewife picking up “The Enquirer” at the grocery check out line or watching David Muir put on an act for the 15th “royalty” TV special in 2030 can see.
But… princesses! Crowns and titles and gowns!
The Disney hit-man is checking your locks.
I’m getting the “gist” but not the exact joke here, but I feel very happy anyone, especially my Brother MD, answered my comment. : )
@ Macroduck Heh, I think I JUST got your meaning, with an extra swig of Smirnoff cooler. Yeah, I think women take so much more from royalty stories than men do, Honestly I don’t know why, If women take some “heart” or “inspiration” from that, I wouldn’t deny them that. From my own personal view though, royalty stories are near useless
every nation needs somebody to rally around. sometimes its a king or queen. other times its a president. but if you don’t have that leader to galvanize the nation, you could be in trouble. can you imagine what would have happened to America if we had an event that required a nation to rally around its leader during the trump years? oh yes, that was the pandemic. what a public policy disaster by trump. he was utterly useless. Great Britain had its own fool in Boris Johnson. at least they had a queen to help show the way…
Let’s do nurses and teachers.
could not agree more. but something tells me the maga crowd will never really embrace those two professions.
A couple of days ago I performed my legal analysis of the DOJ’s response to Trump’s filing, and concluded “Based on what I saw, I don’t expect the judge to grant the DOJ the partial stay they are seeking.”
The judge ruled tonight. To quote: “Accordingly it is hereby ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the Motion for Partial Stay Pending Appeal [ECF 69] is DENIED.
Thank you, “John Marshall,” indeed the judge has declared that she is unable to determine what is classified and what is not. That a document has “classified” writtten on its front is not good enough.
Barkley,
That’s not what she said.
OK John Marshall – please rephrase what Judge Bimbo said. This should be fun!
Barkley Rosser has “classified” writtten on its front
In the government anything that is marked as classified is assumed to be classified. For example, when computer programmers test code changes to classified applications, they always use completely fake and made-up data for test purposes. But even if it’s fake data that is only used for testing purposes, it is still assumed to be classified if the output header says “CONFIDENTIAL” or “SECRET” or “TOP SECRET.” So what’s a programmer to do? They change the headers to read “LAITNEDIFNOC” or “TERCES” or “POT TERCES.” First time I encountered test outputs with those headers I laughed myself silly.
BTW, even if Trump “declassified” those documents (and if you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you), Biden has the authority to reclassify those documents. Of course, it’s all beside the point because what Trump did was still a crime regardless of the documents’ classification. It’s a crime to take unclassified documents with you when you leave government. In fact, technically it’s a crime to take a government pen home with you, which is something they teach you on your first day at work.
Oh no – I did take a couple of pens home with me. But no – it was clear that any documents I had in my office during my Treasury days should never be taken out of the office for any reason. Ricky the star porn attorney clearly does not get how this all works.
To call her a judge is a bit of a joke. She is in the tank. So are you but hey great copying and pasting BS dressed up as your legal analysis.
pg13,
Show me where I copied and pasted. My legal analysis is all original.
Oh that’s right – you slightly rephrased what they said. Dude – you have one overinflated ego for someone who never learned to use Westlaw. And I thought Princeton Steve was the arrogant moron here.
how did those exceptional coronavirus models of yours turn out? yeah, the virus was not really going to be a problem. according to rick. a real polymath.
but it is nice to have your day in court presided over by your own appointees.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/09/who-is-judge-aileen-cannon/
can you imagine the uproar from rick if a president Hillary Clinton had her court cases presided over by her own appointee?
no worries, the case will continue to move forward against trump. at one time, I was against jail time for trump. my mind has changed. perhaps counselor rick will join the trump legal team soon, and expedite the process?
Baffled,
My models made me a lot of money.
Trump isn’t going to jail so whether you are for it or not is irrelevant.
Lying and cheating can be lucrative indeed!
Doubtful on both counts, rick.
Former senator Russ Feingold — who leads the liberal American Constitution Society, which closely tracks judicial nominations — said Trump and his Republican allies in the Senate sought out judicial nominees like Cannon, showing an “overwhelming preference” for individuals often lacking the experience “previously considered necessary to sit on the bench.” “We’re now seeing the impact of this, with an alarming disregard of the rule of law by some,” he said in a statement.
She is rather incompetent but at least she is not as pathetic at law than Ricky pooh Stryker. Ricky pooh is so incompetent he cannot even get a guest appearance on Fox and Friends.
Maybe Russias finances are not that great:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/15/economy/russia-economy-budget-hole/index.html
Seem like the hydrocarbon income is down and spending is up.
Probably inflationary.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/teen-apparently-kicked-by-marjorie-taylor-greene-speaking-to-legal-team/ar-AA11UEJp
Famed legal expert Ricky pooh Stryker may have a new MAGA assignment. It seems Marjorie Taylor Greene decided to kick an 18 year woman because that woman is not as much of a Second Amendment as Taylor Greene. And the young woman is thinking about legal action against Taylor Greene.
Come on Ricky! MAGA needs you. After all your version of the Second Amendment not only gives MAGA types to carry military assault weapons onto NYC subways but also give ugly cows like Taylor Greene the right to kick people exercising their First Amendment rights.
Nuclear power is doomed and going nowhere.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/opinion/nuclear-power-still-doesnt-make-much-sense.html
It just cannot compete with other emission free sources of energy. It also takes forever to build.
https://www.dtnext.in/edit/2022/09/17/case-for-deterrence-nuclear-power-doesn-t-make-much-sense-the-argument-for-ramping-up-the-production-of-nuclear-power-especially-in-places-where-overall-energy-consumption-isn-t-growing-falls-short-nuclear-is-far-slower-to-build-than-most-other-forms-of-power-and-it-s-far-more-expensive-too
if one does not want to deal with the NYTimes firewall.
“I’ll give the pronuclear folks this: They do make a good case that nuclear has gotten a too-bad rap. Nuclear power is relatively safe, reliable and clean; compared to the planetary destruction wrought by fossil fuels, nuclear power looks like a panacea.”
My son once had an engineering job at a nuclear power plant and he agrees with this. Now the cost issue is an important concern for sure. My view is we should take a diversified approach to providing emission free sources of energy.
I agree that if the question was fossil fuel vs. nuclear I would go with the later. But this one will be decided by the market forces – and it appears that in that contest, nuclear is not making it at all. It is way to expensive and takes forever before there is any income coming back from the investment -and then there is an expensive long term commitment to dealing with waste. So at least the traditional plants are unlikely to be build without massive public subsidies. That would be a hard sell without some very critical advantage compared to renewables.
“Nuclear power is doomed and going nowhere.”
That’s not really what the article says. Moreover, Manjoo massively underestimates the problems implementing still-developing storage technologies and with equal grace brushes off still-developing cheap/small nuclear reactor technologies. (This is the same lazy tech reporter who called the Apple Watch “life-changing.”) As long as intermittency is a problem — and it will be for the foreseeable future — low-carbon but expensive sources like nuclear make a lot of sense, even with current technology.
Here’s physicist and science YouTuber Sabine Hossenfelder on the state of energy storage tech (she’s not bullish):
Renewable Energy Storage: No Wind, No Sun, Now What?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8xsg9iK5yo
Weaknesses in the Russian approach, and in their recruits, are becoming more apparent.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62914958
It is not enough to have warm bodies – you need soldiers. A warm body on the front line quickly becomes a cold body – if not trained in warfare. Russian generals must be able to understand that – their desperate recruiting suggest that their loses must be terrible. If you lose 25% of your men to gain less than a mile, then you will quickly run out of men – and your offensive will stall.