Category Archives: Uncategorized

Shooting Statistical Delusions

Reader PeakTrader writes:

Mass shootings peaked when Bill Clinton assualted women in the ‘90s.

When such assertions are made, it is usually useful to refer to data. I do not see a peak in 1992-2000. I see a peak right now.


Figure 1: Mass shooting count. February observation for data through 2/14. Light green shading denotes Clinton administration. Orange shading denotes 2017 onward. Source: Mother Jones, news accounts for 2/14, and author’s calculations.


Figure 2: Mass shooting fatalities (red), and injured (pink). February observation for data through 2/14. Light green shading denotes Clinton administration. Orange shading denotes 2017 onward. Source: Mother Jones, news accounts for 2/14, and author’s calculations.

Median Real Weekly Earnings for Workers back to 2016Q4 Levels


Figure 1: Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings for Wage and salary workers, 16 years and over, 1982-84 CPI Adjusted Dollars, seasonally adjusted (blue), and Employed full time: Median usual weekly nominal earnings (second quartile)f or Wage and salary workers, High School graduates, no college, 25 years and over, seasonally adjusted, deflated by CPI, not seasonally adjusted (red). NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Orange shading denotes Trump administration. Source: BLS via FRED, and author’s calculations. (updated 8:30PM Pacific)

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.

Negative interest rates

A few years ago, most economic models presumed that interest rates were subject to a lower bound of zero. Why lend a dollar to someone who only promises to pay you back 99 cents, when you could just hold on to the dollar yourself? But we now have several years of experience from Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Japan, and the European Central Bank in which the central bank successfully induced negative interest rates in hopes of stimulating a greater level of spending on goods and services. We have enough data now to take a look at how much that seems to have accomplished, and update my earlier discussion of this topic.
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