Apologies for lack of my own posts. Competing responsibilities, including taping a session with Harry Shearer today.
This is by far the cutest baby bat we’ve ever seen Grist
Trees Call for Help—And Now Scientists Can Understand National Geographic
Defense lawyer shows Steele’s links to Prenda Law ars technica (Scott S)
India promises to upgrade its rail network Telegraph. Lambert highly recommends the pix.
More on China’s debt-to-GDP ratio FTAlphaville
Fed and Bank of Japan caused gold crash Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph
Yen gains on Japanese investor inflows Financial Times
The New “Nazis” Of Spain Wolf Richter. The creepy bit here is the branding: the anti-bank types are being called Nazis.
IMF warns on risks of excessive easing Financial Times
U.S. takes step toward possible military intervention in Syria Los Angeles Times
Shell Shock Lite Jeremiah Goulka, Tom Dispatch
Karl Rove heckled as “terrorist!”, “war criminal!” during college speech AmericaBlog
A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip Gabrielle Gifford, New York Times (Richard Smith)
Jon Stewart eviscerates CNN’s misreporting of Boston Marathon bombing case Raw Story
Police: Five to 15 Killed in Texas Explosion Wall Street Journal
Search For Explosion Victims Will Continue Through The Night In West KWTX. Lambert says best coverage so far. Sad too.
Has Exxon Mobil Tried to Cover Up the Truth at Arkansas Oil Spill? OilPrice
NY voters say corruption is a major problem Politics on the Hudson. Quelle surprise!
Cheap theater Michael Smith
More Reinhardt/Rogoff fallout. I need to write something on this, aargh:
Austerity after Reinhart and Rogoff Robert Pollin and Michael Ash, Financial Times. This was the least the pink paper could do after putting RR’s lame defense on the first page yesterday.
Counterparties: R-squared regression analysis Felix Salmon. Notice dig of Ezra Klein
Reinhart-Rogoff, Continued Paul Krugman. Krugman’s first of three. Noteworthy because the good professor finds it very hard to criticize a seemingly upstanding member of his club
Marathon Angry Bear
BANK-INDUCED DEFAULT: THE NEXT WAVE OF FORECLOSURE DEFENSE 4closurefraud
Foreclosing On The Life Story In Your Head Credit Slips
A ‘Whom Do You Hang With?’ Map Of America NPR (Lambert). This is pretty cool
An Aside To My Readers Archdruid Report
Antidote du jour:
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FT’s headline ‘IMF Warns on Risks of Excessive Easing’ is a quite selective cherry-pick from the thrust of the article, which includes this as well:
In other words, ‘Lord give us sobriety … but not today!’
How many times have we seen this simple-minded movie, whose plot never changes?
Springtime in the stock market in 1999 … springtime in the housing market in 2005 … springtime in the gold market in 2011 … the Bubble hits just keep on comin’.
Viñals’ warning about liquidity side effects is bit like a whorehouse madam cautioning customers about venereal disease with a smile and a wink, as the piano player strikes up a jaunty tune.
It’s pretty clear that the global fiat fanatics are just going to keep pumping until we reach the Promised Land of Global Jubilee.
This video is very important. Jeffrey Sachs calls out the Wall Street bankers for what they are (and says it to European bankers): greedy, pathological and immoral, the bunch of them, plus politics is completely corrupted in the US:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3185287
so, except for a few years from FDR to 1960-ish, nothing’s changed.
TFTFY:
In other words, ‘Lord give us virginity … but not tonight!’
The flaw is that they think all processes work the same whether in forward or reverse (and in 15 minutes both
ways, no less)
Reinhardt/Rogoff: I had reservations about their thesis, in being sceptical about there being a magical threshold point (at whatever %age might be claimed), and about trying to identify causation from correlations involving multivariable systems.
Oh, and I’m sceptical about macroeconomics anyway; it’s microeconomics that seems to me to have merit.
I’m not particularly sceptical about generalised warnings against accruing piles of debt, mind, but about the notion that obsessive number-juggling concerning ill-measured quantities is likely to be a source of scientific enlightenment.
Come to think of it, the thrust of these remarks covers “climate science” pretty well too.
why on earth would you be skeptical about macroeconomics?
the deficiencies of the R&R study have come as a complete shock. It’s as if gravity itself accelerates differently from mass to mass. No doubt the truth is objective and quantifiable to the 15th decimal place, the profession simply needs to brush up on the Excel skills and find it.
When you work the spreadsheet, be sure to check the automatic calculation button or when you put new numbers in the totals don’t change. How could they have made Excel like that? It’s like having a button on your car dashboard that says “enable wheel turning”. You’d think most people would want wheels to turn. At first I thought that was the problem, so it might be next time. Anybody can make that mistake in good conscience. Debt = 84.9814747449899. That’s what I get.
Name a few models and the differences between them… eh.
The difference between economic models and climate is… one deals with reality (real stuff: observed back hundreds of thousands of years+) and not arbitrary fleeting reality’s like price, debt, human promises, etc, especially when handled by mental defectives seeking individual wealth – status.
Skippy… how you conflate the failure of R$R’s ideological criminality with modeling climate is well… a repeat of R$R’s M.O.
PS. What a tool…
Well, think of all those climate scientists who turned out to have fudged their data the same way R-R did, like…uh…hmm…
The mainstream media picked up the story as negotiations over climate change mitigation began in Copenhagen on 7 December.[12] Because of the timing, scientists, policy makers, and public relations experts said that the release of emails was a smear campaign intended to undermine the climate conference.[13] In response to the controversy, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released statements supporting the scientific consensus that the Earth’s mean surface temperature had been rising for decades, with the AAAS concluding “based on multiple lines of scientific evidence that global climate change caused by human activities is now underway…it is a growing threat to society.”[14]
Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.[15] However, the reports called on the scientists to avoid any such allegations in the future by taking steps to regain public confidence in their work, for example by opening up access to their supporting data, processing methods and software, and by promptly honouring freedom of information requests.[16] The scientific consensus that global warming is occurring as a result of human activity remained unchanged throughout the investigations.[17] – snip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy
skippy… I wonder if bias is an evolutionary dead end trait…
In my opinion, we don’t devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks. Watterson
Huge protests are planned in Argentina today, as the Black Widow conveniently exits to Peru to shore up Venezuela’s faltering Bolivarian revolution:
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1573829-la-oposicion-se-sumara-hoy-al-cacerolazo-contra-el-gobierno-en-plaza-de-mayo
It is necessary to understand what is behind, and who is organizing, these demonstrations in Argentina.
Cristina Kirchner’s party has grown increasingly popular in the elections, garnering 22% of the vote in 2003, 45% en 2007, and 54% in 2011. The oppoisiton parties have suffered major losses, Frente Amplio Progresista garnered only 16%, and la Coalición Cívica, that in 2007 garnered 23% of the vote, received only 1.82% of the vote in 2011.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/8N
Even though it is being denied, these demonstrations are being organized by persons with close links to the losers in the elections, as this article explains:
http://www.diarioregistrado.com/Politica/66658-que-hay-detras-de-los-organizadores-del-8n.html
With the reassertion of the importance and power of the state, after the great neoliberal experiment between 1976 and 2001, the neoliberal complaint is that the government has become a dictatoriship.
For instance, the group “La Yrigoyen” asserts that the government of Cristina Kirchner “is a dictatorship which came to power through the elections.”
The group “Argentina Sin Korrupción” maintains that the government of Cristina “is not a dictatorship because it was democratically elected, but it acts like one.” This even though Cristina remains extremely popular in the polls, with an approval rating in excess of 70%.
Cristina and her party’s popularity are undoubtedly linked to the enormous economic success of their anti-neoliberal economic polices, which experienced spectacular success from 2002 to 2011. It is unclear now, however, whether Cristina can stay on a roll.
The United States is doing everything in its power in order to make sure that Argentina’s anti-neoliberal policies fail. Besides the maneurvering in NY court rooms to try to bring Argentina to heel, it is doing its share of sabre rattling by deploying its instruments of state violence — the police and the military — in Paraguay and Chile in order to intimidate Argentina.
“The United States is doing everything in its power in order to make sure that Argentina’s anti-neoliberal policies fail”
EXACTLY and thank you for distinguishing the parties AGAIN
It’s pretty standard operating procedure for the US Duopoly Consensus to do all manner of dirty tricks to those who fail to dance to their tune. Why they even admit it, and seem terribly proud of themselves for doing so:
http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/003685.html
This is a political culture that works toward monoculture, ultimately as deadly dangerous for civilization as it is in agriculture. But am I surprised? Mercy, no. We’re led by “good politicians” and the received wisdom is that their staying safely bought is what makes them “good” to those who have laid out the money/future promises to effecuate the purchase.
‘Cristina remains extremely popular in the polls, with an approval rating in excess of 70%.’
You provide no source for this statement, probably because it’s a couple of years old. Here’s a poll published yesterday by the respected MORI polling agency:
http://www.espectador.com/noticias/262884/situacion-economica-no-afecta-popularidad-de-cfk
Claiming that the U.S. is ‘maneuvering in NY courtrooms’ against Argentina is silly. Argentina CHOSE the U.S. as the judicial venue when it sold the bonds, and the suit was filed by private parties.
In fact, last year the U.S. Justice Dept. submitted an amicus curae brief supporting Argentina:
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2012/04_-_April/U_S__walks_dangerous_line_to_support_Argentina_in_bond_cases/
Facts 2, ideological windbaggery 0. Sorry.
@ Jim Haygood
I think the kinds of errors you are making are due to the fact that everything you cite comes from the English-speaking press, either that or Argentina’s right-wing neoliberal press, which has all the financial backing in the world and is plenty powerful. You shouldn’t believe everything you read.
Here, for instance, is a poll from January, 2013 that puts Critina’s approval rating above 70%
http://vn24.com.ar/?p=900
Here’s another from November, 2012 that puts her approval rating at 61.9%
Furthermore, if the election were held today, she would win again with 53.4% of the vote, while the two leading opposition candidates, Binner would garner 11.1% and Mauricio Macri 10.8%. The election, just like that in 2011, would be a complete wipeout of the neoliberals.
http://www.cba24n.com.ar/content/el-gobierno-nacional-cuenta-con-una-aprobacion-del-60
I’m sitting in La Paz, Bolivia as we speak. Trust me, the view from here is quite different from what it is from New York or London.
La Nacion is not an objective source on anything related to the Kirchner government. Its director is involved with the La Clarin industrial combine, which feels its interests have been attacked by Kirchner with the proposed (but defeated) agro-combine tax, and the loss of its monopoly on soccer television broadcasts, among others events.
re Indian MASS transit
pic #5…i tote a backpac everywhere and imagining a full grown adult hanging onto it while i hang onto the outside of a moving train leaves me gasping for air (at the least)
pic #9…reminds me of the ole tarzan movies where they tie people to the top of trees that are crossed with rope and hack the rope (fucking ouch)
wild ride Lambert…they got a bit of work in front of them
Will Obama go to West Texas to show support for community and those who lost loved ones in plant explosion?
Unlikely.
Does not fit the narrative of America being attacked, even though industrial companies figure possible worker deaths into their financial and operating plans, in effect an attack on employees.
He’ll do that right after he puts on his comfortable shoes and walks with protesting union workers.
musta been too sticky for potus to show up for this one:
Explosion Savages Massive Sugar Mill: What Went Wrong
When two blasts rocked a Georgia sugar refinery, the culprit turned out to be an innocuous and ubiquitous industrial hazard—dust
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/4272856
John Galt Kills Texans In Massive Fertilizer Plat Explosion
Check out the Google Maps photo:
—Who needs pesky safety regulations or zoning laws when there is money to made running a fertilizer plant?
Sadly, the small Texas town of West, which is just north of Waco, is suffering the consequences of unregulated free enterprise today, as a massive explosion at West Fertilizer has leveled much of the town.
Perhaps the only remotely fortunate aspect of this tragedy is that it occurred at 8 pm local time and so West Middle School, which burned after the explosion, was not full of children.
…..Special FREEDOM bonus: Did you notice the name of the street to the west of the middle school? It’s North Reagan Street, because, well, freedom.—
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/04/18/john-galt-kills-texans-in-massive-fertilizer-plant-explosion/
Could also be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reagan
(apologies if I blew the link code)
Unfortunately, Google Maps are not yet four-dimensional.
The plant has been in operation for 55 years (see http://www.manta.com/c/mmcfc1w/west-fertilizer-co). The two schools in the immediate vicinity are pretty obviously much newer (judging from the photographs at http://westisd.net), and the nearby nursing home received its operating certificate in 1986.
Far more interesting, to my mind, is the plant’s history of safety violations and lax regulation. Weak regulation kills.
That the police chief saw fit to announce that “Nothing at this point indicates we have had criminal activity” tells you all you need to know about America in 2013.
Almost was bowled down on the street by a ped texter yesterday. Then had to laugh at this:
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/513401/safe-texting-while-walking-soon-there-may-be-an-app-for-that/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-computing&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20130418
Mortgage relief checks bouncing. For serious?
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/victims-of-foreclosure-abuses-face-another-woe-bounced-checks/?hp
Reading is our friend
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/independent-foreclosure-review-fiasco-occ-and-fed-decided-not-to-find-harm.html
Germany is the most unequal country in Europe:
http://www.voxeu.org/article/are-germans-really-poorer-spaniards-italians-and-greeks
Who did they bribe to get such a low GINI coefficient?
cut bat indeed. too bad it’s also a major disease vector (okay, maybe not this cuties, but….)
Re: Karl Rove being heckled, Robert Rizzuto of The Republican reports that Rove lashed back at the protesters at least once on Tuesday, accusing them of being hypocritical with their criticism on Iraq, considering many Democrats voted for the invasion: “If you object to that, I want you to show up the next time Hillary Clinton comes here and tell her you disagree with her vote,” Rove yelled back as he completely lost his temper on stage. “It’s either that or you’re saying those people were hoodwinked and that’s an insult to those people including Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, and others.”
Rove is exactly right here. The DNC Dems such as Obama are just as guilty. Why does the fake left not get this?
He’s committing ridiculous fantasies that grade school children can see through.
1) Whether Rove is a terrorist and a murder has nothing to do with whether Hillary Clinton is, or whether I call Hillary Clinton one, or whether I recognize that she is one. His being a terrorist is independent of that. I do not have to run around calling every terrorist a terrorist to be correct. He’s pretty much saying, look, maybe I am, but so are a bunch of other people. Wow, what a defense.
2) I find it unlikely that those calling Rove a terrorist in public are big supporters of Democrats. Maybe this is wrong, since Rove is one of the standard villains for your rank-and-file Democrats. Nonetheless, it just doesn’t matter. Bush and Obama both belong in prison for life. If somebody asks you, “Hey we have an opportunity to punish Bush for what he did, but we can’t do anything about Obama,” what should you say, “Oh, forget it then”?
Fallacies, not fantasies. Might actually qualify as a Freudian slip.
Because it has nothing to do with principle and everything to do with the pettiness of party politics. The United States’ electoral two party system is it’s cross to bear.
Please be sure to post a link to where we can hear the Harry Shearer show. I just found out last night he just got dumped by his home station in L.A. where I have been listening to him for years. Sunday mornings without Harry on the radio is going to be sad for me. :(
The “Whom Do You Hang With” post is excellent and the comments over there are quite amusing. Thanks for finding that.
Here’s a link to Brockman’s full paper:
http://rocs.northwestern.edu/projects/community_structure_assets/thiemann2010pone.pdf
I love how distinct Cascadia is. Everyone in northernmost California drives over the border for groceries in Oregon where there’s no sales tax. I love how Pennsylvania is clearly split in half. (sort of expected part of Connecticut to belong to NYC as well) I love how clearly the Great Lakes region is not part of NYC, most of New York State has nothing to do with planet NYC.
It’d be really nice to see a breakdown of how these money borders work. How the map overlays with natural features (Appalachia is clearly defined) and non natural features (Mormonism seems to be it’s own state). Much of the lower Mississippi divides people while the upper mississippi unites. Fascinating. It’s a beautiful decription of our country in that it seems to capture the feelings of alliance involved with location.
Pulling the Trigger – Yasha Levine NSFWCORP
How big business is “empowering” parents to destroy public education
Open source with Chinese characteristics.
Re the gun bill, beware of political theater and cosmetic votes. This was all kabuki from start to finish. A chance for politicians to play to various constituencies among us rubes without anything really happening. I was just surprised that Obama put it through this last go round. I thought the issue had been milked out a month ago.
The thing is too many in this country have a sick obsession with guns. It is all about fear and manipulation, and of course kleptocracy. People are fearful because they are politically and economically disempowered. We have been trained to distrust each other so that we may never stand together against those who rule and loot us. Gun ownership gives a false sense of control and security to lives that have neither. It is all a sick, sad, expensive joke. Gun activists cling to their sacred Constitutional right to “bear arms”, to stand up to tyranny, even as they kiss all their other Constitutional rights goodbye without a whimper, kowtowing in all else to the very tyranny their guns are supposed to oppose. And for this, 30,000 Americans die each year and 70,000 are wounded. For the dead, that’s like ten 9/11s a year. Think of the paroxysms we went through as a country over 9/11. Compare that to the yawns and hackneyed defenses over our ten domestic 9/11s each year. And please do not tell me that 2/3 of those 30,000 were suicides. They are still just as dead, and the indifference to three 9/11s a year would be just as indefensible as to ten.
Far from being a sign of freedom and responsibility, gun ownership as practised in the United States is damning evidence of failure and weakness.
Understand the game that is being played against you. Conservatives and liberals don’t give a rat’s ass about you. Conservatives who wrap themselves up in the Second Amendment aren’t doing it to defend your right to “bear arms”. They are defending the right of corporations to sell guns to you. They are doing it to increase your reasons to be afraid so that you will stay isolated, disempowered and alone.
Liberals are no better. They don’t talk about why you are afraid. They don’t fight for anything. They engage in charades. No one in this country needs an assault rifle. No one needs extended clips. But this is not what this bill was about. Obama could have called Congress back before Christmas to enact real reform. Reid could have threatened to kill the filibuster over it. They could have used public outrage to force the Republican House to go along. They might have succeeded. Instead they allowed the outrage to die down. They gave time for the pro-gun forces and NRA to rally. They waited four months for things to go back to business as usual, and the result was business as usual.
What we really need to think about is why are we afraid and what we need to understand is owning guns has done and will do nothing to alleviate that fear.
Indeed, fear is the best way to control people. When someone is fearful, she will listen to whatever she is told and will even act against her own interests. Fear is insidious in its effects and sometimes undetectable itself until too late.
Fear and greed.
When one can master them, one can master the stock market…hopefully.
Hugh,
How old are you? If you pass, may I collect your internet posts into a book and profit from them? If no response, I will just go ahead and publish the book. Thanks!
I’ve often agreed with you, Hugh, but not at all on the gun issue.
People in the USA are fully correct to insist on their 2nd amendment rights, and to insist upon those rights being broadly and genrously interpreted.
You object that many gun owners, in your view, don’t seem to be sufficiently ardent in defense of other rights. But it is understandable that various citizens will esteem certain of their constitutional rights more highly than others. How could that be a reason for anyone to object to any other of those constitutional rights? The problem is not with the rights themselves, still less is it a reason to curtail any of them.
You claim that no one needs an assault rifle. Nobody’s consitutional rights should be contingent on your determination of which of those rights are necessary. Would you wish others to treat your more cherished rights in like fashion?
I also disagree with you about the matter of need. Hugh, your country has a government which now openly and quite shamelessly admits to a longstanding policy of torturing people all over the world. I think that any people who find themselves subject to such a government definitely require assault rifles, and plenty else besides.
Whether gun ownership gives people a false sense of control, or false sense of safety, is also quite irrelevant with regard to the constitutional right to bear arms. One might similarly argue that Americans’ right to vote gives many of people in that country a wholly erroneous sense of control and liberty, and therefore the right to vote can thus be dispensed with, too.
Finally, you say that the right to bear arms results in high murder and suicide rates. That is correct–widespread gun ownership means more people get shot. The price of the right is high. Is it a fair price? Twenty-five years ago I didn’t think so. Since then I have changed my mind: I would now accept the high murder rate, and keep my assault rifles.
Hugh, there are ways to reduce the murder rate without infringement of the Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms. Hint: try liberalizing the narcotics laws.
The record shows clearly that guns (and we aren’t even talking manhood toys like assault rifles) result in vastly more deaths (suicides, domestic disputes, accidents) of immediate family members than friends than stopping criminals. Moreover, the widespread presence of guns deters civilians from intervening in crimes. I have twice, once in Oz, once in NYC, and it was because, in both cases, I was pretty confident the aggressor did not have a weapon (here thanks to our tough NYC gun laws).
1. If you think you can stand up to the government with an assault rifle, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
2. Police studies show a gun is useless with an assailant within 21 feet. The perp can get to the cop before he can pull out his weapon. And remember, guns in holsters are far more accessible than civilian weapons are (where do you keep your gun in the house? If it is accessible, it is a danger to your entire family too).
ALERT: ANOTHER METH INDUCED EGO PROWLIN
Three weeks after stepping down as the Chief Executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp., Aubrey McClendon has launched a new energy company half a mile from his old office, The Oklahoman newspaper reported.
McClendon, who co-founded Chesapeake in 1989, left the company April 1. The latter months of his tenure were dogged by intense criticism and accusations he personally benefited from questionable transactions involving the company, including using his stakes in wells drilled by Chesapeake to secure personal loans. In internal investigation found no wrongdoing, and McClendon agreed to retire.
His new venture is American Energy Partners LP. The former CEO declined to talk about the company, but an e-mail obtained by the newspaper showed he is actively seeking new oil and gas drilling opportunities.
bloomberged
Got to love the prose style of Ambrose Evans-Pritchard! A global crisis in the gold market certainly brings out his finest stylings: watch out for Mrs. Watanabe!
This here from his article is a bit puzzling:
The central banks of China and the emerging powers bought 535 tonnes last year to escape dollars and euros, the biggest wave of state purchases since 1964. Their strategy is to buy the dips, and they are no fools. The head of China’s reserve manager “SAFE” used to run a US hedge fund
Uh, buying a portion of that 535 tons last year was not buying the dips…looking back now.
While not fools, buying last year was not a genius thing to do either.
I am not sure running a US hedge fund means anything.
Eventually, they might proven to be right, though a bit premature perhaps. But it’s best to leave out comments about fools and geniuses.
Ricin mystery solved… it was a pissed off crazy Elvis impersonator… (only in America)
Mississippi entertainer charged in ricin scare http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/politics/tainted-letter-intercepted/index.html
I agree with brindle. Only a free market kleptocrat would allow a fertilizer plant to be located near a school and residences, including a nursing home.
Of Bombings and Tax Havens – Terrorizing the Economy
04/17/13 The Big Nausea: Waking Up With an Obama-Ache
‘Classified American embassy cables obtained by WikiLeaks cannot be used as evidence in English and Welsh courts because they breach diplomatic privilege, judges have ruled.
The decision by Lord Justice Richards and Mr Justice Mitting in the high court will have far-reaching consequences and is a severe setback for the use of material obtained from leaks or whistleblowers.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/18/chagos-islanders-court-rejects-wikileaks-cable
It’s official. Truth is inadmissible if it’s opponent is power. Empire 1, national sovereignty 0.
A rejoinder to the ‘avoid news for your health’ story from the other day – by the estimable Madeleine Bunting:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/18/rolf-dobelli-ideas-news-dangerous
Is ignorance bliss? Is knowledge power? Is there a ‘happy medium’?
You’re on the beach, a mile high tsunami approaching. Best to 1 face the land not knowing what’s to come, 2 face the land knowing what’s to come but pretending not to, or 3 face the water, and the music, eyes wide open?
I go for 1. Pity that option’s no longer available. So 3 is the default and from that perspective you can hear the siren call of the ‘tune yourself out’ message. Taken to its logical extreme though it might as well be called ‘surrender’.
Testing Some of the first to question Reinhart and Rogoff (RR) was Alexandru Minea and Antoine Parent. Their CERDI paper ‘Is High Public Debt Always Harmful to Economic Growth? Reinhart, Rogoff, and some complex nonlinearities’ (published February 2012).
Though, initially, they deferred towards agreement (using RR data sets though not the spreadsheet) by stating: “…similarly to RR, average economic growth is lower for countries with debt levels between 90 and 115%, compared to countries with debt levels between 60 and 90%.”
They lacked the courage of their conviction to call it outright fraud when they discovered from the same data that: “Average economic growth is higher for countries with public debt above 115%, compared to countries with debt levels between 90 and 115%”, and more importantly…. “That average economic growth is not statistically different for the former group compared to countries with debt levels between 60 and 90%.”
Effectively, they discovered a debt to GDP doughnut- the hole (at the 90-115% range ) right where RR had stipulated the DGP to debt range and the dangerous tipping point – and an almost certain statistical impossibility.
As such, these brilliant economists provide a perfect example of how, in order not to be establishment (‘R&R’) heterodoxic (a death knell for their career no doubt) they lean, deferentially, towards couching their findings in such terms as: “Although one should reasonably refrain from concluding that governments should adopt loose fiscal policies, leading to high public debt levels, to foster economic growth, this latter result provides a new perspective on the “debt intolerance ratio” emphasized by RR.”
Emphasizing that: “Additional evidence is needed before suggesting policy recommendations regarding growth effects of fiscal policy in such high debt regimes, which may be subject to complex nonlinearities. Similar to RR, we find that a debt-to-GDP ratio over 90% is reducing average economic growth. However, contrary to RR, the contraction ineconomic (sic) growth is much less obvious”.
Unable to close the hole in the econometric doughnut (‘shortcomings, including (i) the specification of exogenous thresholds in the public debt-to-GDP ratio, (ii) the absence of econometric tests for the relevance of the régimes, and (iii) the presence of brutal transitions in the debt-growth relation around the debt thresholds’), they attempted to apply a technique called the ‘Panel Smooth Threshold Regression (PSTR) method’ (a statistical fudge factor).
Notwithstanding, this statistical deference to orthodoxy (as they call it, “In the spirit of RR”) they still find that: “… compared to countries with a debt ratio between 60 and 90%, countries with a debt ratio between 90 and115% experience a decline in their average economic growth rates.” and …
“Although this decline is statistically significant, (we) notice that the economic growth contraction is much less pronounced than acknowledged by RR. In addition, contrary to RR, we find that countries with a public debt ratio above 115% present an average growth rate which is higher compared to the average growth rate of countries with a public debt ratio between 90 and 115%”. More importantly: “….the growth rate of countries with a debt ratio above 115% is not found to significantly decline compared to the growth rate of countries with a debt ratio between 60 and 90%”, and “In addition, we even show that raising public debt can even increase economic growth, in a context of high debt levels, namely when the public debt-to-GDP ratio is above a threshold level estimated at around 115%.”
If these two young economists had been less concerned about upsetting the ‘establishment’ (Reinhart and Rogoff in particular), they might now be holding laurels and instead of bupkis; as their conclusions stated only:
“Consequently, additional evidence is needed before suggesting policy recommendations regarding growth effects of fiscal policy in such high debt regimes, which may be subject to complex nonlinearities.
Because the admin of this site is working, no uncertainty very rapidly it will be famous, due to its quality contents.
http://americanlivewire.com/nestle-ceo-says-water-is-food-that-should-be-privatized-not-a-human-right/
Oh rentiers, why do you have to be so gleefully hateable.
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