Author Archives: Menzie Chinn

California in Recession? (Part II)

The release of labor market indicators suggests not, contra some recent commentary.


Figure 1: California civilian employment over age 16 from household survey (black), nonfarm payroll employment (dark blue), private nonfarm payroll employment (pink) from establishment survey, all in thousands, seasonally adjusted, on log scale. NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Source: BLS and NBER.
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Ruminations about What (and How) to Post in the Current Times

Reader rtd admonishes me:

Someone with your smarts & level of education should be able to ignore these types of political rhetoric & certainly not induce you to create a blog post devoted to such atrocious comments & lunacy (particularly considering, as you’ve explicitly noted in the past, that you hold your readers to a relatively high regard as it relates to their intellectual capabilities). Unfortunately your (persistent) biases & subjectivity don’t seem to allow you to take the high road

He’s writing in response to the December 2015 post entitled NYT: “Donald Trump Calls for Barring Muslims From Entering U.S.”. At the time, I re-worded the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to fit then-candidate-Trump’s call.

Now, in the context of the Mr. Trump’s recent discussion of determining immigration and refugee status, rtd says, don’t sink to the level of Mr. Trump’s terminology of “s***hole” countries, as Mr. Trump considers what legislation he is willing to sign.

I will admit in these changed times, it is hard to stomach much of the language being used (it’s not how my parents taught me to speak) — as well as the intent behind this language. The question is, if Mr. Trump is saying he’s going to do X, shouldn’t we consider outcomes if he does X (taking into account that within the first week of his administration, he did try to ban residents from several majority Muslim countries from entering the country — and finally managed to)? In other words, will ignoring coarse language and intent make those things disappear?

My answer is no.

No Retraction: TCJA Average Growth Acceleration = 0.01-0.02%

In response to my quote of CRFB’s assertion that average growth acceleration under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act relative to baseline will be only between 0.01-0.02 percent (shown below),


Source: Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (Jan. 3, 2018).

Reader Vivian Darkbloom writes:

I’m asking myself how an average increase of only 0.01 percent to 0.02 percent in GDP growth over a decade could result in an average of increase in the level of GDP output of 0.7 percent of that same ten-year period as reported by the CFRB and Menzie.

and continues:

Either you need to justify it (and the related text regarding the assertion that it is 1/20th to 1/40th of the McConnell estimate), or retract it.

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