Last May a group of economists, central bankers, market participants, and financial journalists convened at Stanford’s Hoover Institution “to put forth and discuss a set of policy recommendations that are consistent with and encourage a more rules-based policy for the Federal Reserve and would thus improve economic performance…” Here’s the agenda, the published volume, and my summary.
The Richmond Fed updated its "bailout barometer," at left. Post here and longer report here. (WSJ coverage here) I found the numbers and the table from the longer report interesting as well. Guaranteeing more than half of financial sector liabilities is impressive. But most of us don't know how large financial sector liabilities are. GDP is about $17 Trillion. $43 Trillion is a lot.
Things are starting to collapse, abroad and at home. We all sense it, even as we bicker over who caused it and why. ISIS took Ramadi last week. That city once was a Bastogne to the brave Americans who surged to save it in 2007 and 2008. ISIS, once known at the White House as the “Jayvees,” were certainly “on the run” — right into the middle of that strategically important city.
Amid way too much talk about testing and the Common Core, not enough attention is being paid to what parents will actually learn about their children’s achievement when results are finally released from the recent round of state assessments (most of which assert that they’re “aligned” with the Common Core).
This is the season of college graduations, and many people may be wondering what kinds of gifts would be most appropriate for young people leaving the world of academia and heading out to face the challenges and opportunities of adulthood in the real world.
This Memorial Day found President Obama laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery. As for the man or woman who’ll be doing this honor in 2017, there’s a question of a connection (or lack thereof) to the military. Hillary Clinton didn’t serve, though she once claimed that she considered joining the Marine Corps about 40 years ago.
Later this year, the UN will set the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. These goals will follow on from the previous Millennium Development Goals. The plethora of targets that is likely to emerge will make it hard to use them either as policy levers for change or as a means of charting progress. Instead, because knowledge capital is of utmost importance for inclusive world development, the primary post-2015 development goal should be that all youth achieve at least basic skills. The boost to future prosperity would be immense.
Dan Klein, with whom I've been arguing about designer babies lately, recently suggested that I post about an article I wrote for Reason 26 years ago: Henderson's Law of Heroic Movies.
Our society is worried about radicalization. What is radicalization? Apparently it is all about violence. According to the UK government's Prevent strategy (2011), "radicalisation is driven by an ideology which sanctions the use of violence." According to the more recent Tackling extremism in the UK (2013) "we must confront the poisonous extremist ideology that can lead people to violence."
Serious students of California’s housing woes may recognize the middle part of this column’s headline. It’s also the subtitle of 101 Steps to Better Housing, The California Housing Plan 1982, a document now over three decades old. Produced by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), the publication proposes solutions for many issues the Golden State still struggles with today.
Oil that leaked from a ruptured pipeline is fouling one of the most picturesque parts of California’s coastline. The company that operated the pipeline has a poor safety record, but with all the finger-pointing and commentary, nobody has mentioned the government’s dirty little secret: What could have been an effective high-tech method to clean up oil spills was killed by EPA regulators.
Or at least that's how Google translate renders "straw man." Dick Thaler is in the news, with a long review of his book in the Wall Street Journal and a thoughtful opinion piece in the New York Times, earning plaudits from Greg Mankiw no less. The pieces are nice reference points to think about just where psychological economics is. Bottom line: People do a lot of nutty things. But when you raise the price of tomatoes, they buy fewer tomatoes, just as if utility maximizers had walked into the grocery store.
The famous game theorist John Nash and his wife Alicia were killed in a traffic accident yesterday in New Jersey. He was 86. I met him and had lunch with him when he came to speak at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey a few years ago.
“If the facts change,” John Maynard Keynes is supposed to have said, “I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?” It is a question his latter-day disciples should be asking themselves today. Long before this month’s general election, which the Conservatives won by a margin that stunned their critics, the facts about Britain’s economic performance had indeed changed. Yet there is still no sign of the Keynesians changing their opinions.
Henry Kissinger recalls when George C. Marshall, speaking at Harvard’s Commencement in 1947, extended America’s hand to a battered Europe, helping to create a stable postwar order.
As I mentioned in a comment on Bryan Caplan's response to Dan Klein, the further I get away from Dan Klein's piece on "designer babies," the less persuaded I am. That glide path has continued. Virtually all of Dan Klein's objection was based on the idea of comparison with the past.
In 2009, Glenn Greenwald wrote, for the Cato Institute, a study of the effects of drug decriminalization in Portugal. Among his findings were that drug usage actually decreased among various populations.
Hoover fellow John Cochrane discusses Janet Yellen's, the Federal Reserve Chairman, speech. Cochrane notes that the Fed is waiting for labor markets to get stronger and Yellen is not going to fight inflation when there is not any inflation.
Hoover fellow Paul Gregory discusses his Forbes piece, “A Russian Crisis With No End In Sight, Thanks To Low Oil Prices And Sanctions.” Gregory notes that Russia’s fate depends on economic factors beyond its control (energy prices and gas markets) and on Putin’s continued international adventurism, which he is loath to abandon for fear of regime change. Putin can no longer keep his promise to the Russian people of prosperity and stability.
Hoover fellow Henry Miller discusses his Defining Ideas piece, “Bureaucrats Battle Science.” Miller notes that regulatory incentives and disincentives are potent. The vastly inflated development costs caused by over-regulation are the primary reason that more than 99 percent of genetically engineered crops that are being cultivated are commodity crops grown at huge scale—corn, cotton, canola, soy, alfalfa, and sugar beets.
Bent Flyvbjerg of Oxford University speaks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the political economy of megaprojects--massive investments of a billion dollars or more in infrastructure or technology. Flyvbjerg argues that such projects consistently end up costing more with smaller benefits than projected and almost always end up with costs that exceed the benefits. Flyvbjerg explores the reasons for the poor predictions and poor performance of giant investment projects and what might be done to improve their effectiveness.
Online abuse has got much worse since the annexation of Crimea: the Russian-language debates on Twitter are much more personal. Sometimes it’s just a few very unpleasant tweets. Sometimes it’s hundreds of Twitter messages saying the same thing, as if they are coordinated. Occasionally people send threatening tweets to me about my physical security, they even threaten my children. I’ve moved back to the US to teach at Stanford University and it’s only got worse.
What are the qualities that mark a young entrepreneur? It’s a question of immense interest to parents, educators and budding entrepreneurs themselves. All of them are on the lookout for the strengths that show someone is likely to launch a company when they get older. And all of them want to know what strengths to foster to provide prospective entrepreneurs with the best foundation for a career.
"The successful sunset clauses in the surveillance context have not signaled to anyone that Congress lacks the resolve for aggressive U.S. surveillance past the sunset date…Similarly, a sunset on an [authorization for use of military force] will mean, and should signal, only that in our democracy it is prudent that Congress reconvene to assess and update the President’s authorities to use force every few years,”
Illinois is facing one of the worst fiscal crises of any state in recent decades, largely because it has mismanaged its pension system. The shortfalls could potentially mean sharply higher taxes and cuts in spending. And even though the state’s highest court just this month threw out a landmark plan to cut worker and retiree benefits, some lawmakers say they may have to find another way to make those reductions as well.
Kevin Warsh, one of the Federal Reserve's former governors, told a conference on May 21 that, in its meetings, policymakers deliver prepared remarks, for the minutes, and then look at smartphones while other colleagues read from their notes. Serious conversation is reserved for coffee breaks.
Likening Fiorina’s prospects to those of a Vermont senator who is also a long-shot candidate for president, Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution joked, “She and Bernie Sanders look like a lock.” Failing in California might not cause a Republican to despair. The state is so heavily Democratic that no Republican could likely have defeated incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010.
“The answer to how to get people prepared for the jobs of this economy is not, let’s just throw free school at them,” he said. “The right response is, are we providing the proper avenues to ensure that students are getting access to the education they need to be productive members of the economy?”
With two weeks to go before New Mexico was set to administer its new standardized tests, Angel Mendez’s seventh-grade math classes at Truman Middle School here were taking an official practice exam online. The new tests from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (or PARCC, for short) are the first to be associated with the new higher standards of the Common Core and, unlike the past state exams, are being given on computer and with a time limit.
