Biden can’t hammer out an agreement on immigration because the GOP doesn’t want an agreement on immigration--they want immigration as an issue in elections. The right will continue to move the goal posts ever further right.
They're watching funding dry up now that Republicans think the abortion matter is fixed, not to mention the diversion of small contributions from the Party to Trump's defense fund. If they lose "the border" as an issue, they'll have no reason to ask for money.
Regarding the vibes theory, I’m mostly with you. End of the day people don’t like inflation and it takes awhile for people to adjust to a “new normal”.
But two things to add that I’ve mentioned on Matt Yglesias’ substack. One, you have to take into consideration asymmetrical media consumption/polarization. Democrats thinking economy is worse than it is under GOP Presidents and vice versa is long standing. But it’s way more pronounced on the GOP side and has become more pronounced in recent years. There’s just way less GOP leaning voters willing to say economy is good under and Dem President than vice versa. We just have to always keep that in mind.
Second, we have to remember that the Democratic coalition is increasingly made up of educated middle/upper middle/upper class voters. Just the sort of cohort most likely than most people at large to have large amounts of their money in stocks, even if it’s just 401K. Meaning the market being stagnant or dropping most of the year I’m positive is some factor here. And sure enough the timing of when consumer sentiment is getting better coincides with the stock market going up significantly the last month. And even for people who don’t have money in the market, I think we underestimate how much regular people see market gyrations as a proxy for economic health. It’s an extremely flawed proxy but it’s sort of like gas prices; it’s in the news everyday, it’s something you often see if just in passing and so it’s in your head even if you’re not actively seeking out this info. It also I think complements Stancil’s “vibes” theory in that it’s about negative media coverage swamping actual good economic news.
Last six months is heavily weighted towards run up in the last month (it was increasing even before Fed announcement). But before that there were pretty substantial declines summer onwards until end of October. And this also coincides with when Biden’s approval went from bad to real bad. Also, this is when 10-year treasury skyrocketed to above 5% (though still actually not that high historically) meaning borrowing costs really shot up even without Fed raising rates.
Curious to see polls in January and February if market really does continue to go up. At least will have a test of my theory. The problem is this is when GOP primary will finally be back in the news as Iowa caucus and NH primary will have happened. Which brings me to another huge variable here. This is the first time since modern primaries began in the 60s and 70s that there is no real competitive primary on either side. Usually, the party out of power’s primary race is front and center news. That is decidedly not the case now in a way that’s never happened in the era of modern media. I truly don’t think we grasp how much that’s likely skewing polls right now
Further to the housing item and it's useful links, it could have been clearer on distinguishing localised impacts of new market-rate on rents and other the 'filtering' impact on communities where higher income residents or potential residents migrate to new 'Yuppie fishtanks' in in 'hipster' areas.
With respect to the latter, any evidence of the resulting impacts on socio-economic outcomes within the lower income areas, such as educational attainment or quality of local schools?
There is some evidence, and the impacts are positive. I'll try to dig that up. Really flies in the face of worries about upzoning causing "gentrification".
file:///C:/Users/ADMIN/Downloads/The%20affordability%20impacts%20of%20new%20housing%20supply%20-%20GLA%20Housing%20Research%20Note.pdf, provides a short UK literature review, covering UK, Germany, US, and other countries.
Its summary is nuanced on any inter-relationship - noting that its identification and measurement is complex and difficult - between longer term filtering and shorter term localized effects of new supply on rents.
With respect to the latter, I personally find it a bit counter-intuitive that new market developments generating amenity and other external benefits will reduce local rental levels over the medium term.
This is, perhaps, because I do not follow the transmission mechanism involved insofar that more vibrant neighbourhoods -certainly in a London context - invariably attract more self sustaining housing demand from market purchasers.
However, I am on board with the general YIMBY approach and analysis.
My understanding of the some of the institutional differences between the US and UK rental markets and its overarching public policy framework is that low-income households (sometimes disproportionately BME) are encouraged to move out to 'better' areas by vouchers or other means to benefit from school and other environments more conducive to socio-economic advancement and social mobility.
If so, that connects to the point I made on the impact on the communities in my comment and represents a point of departure from UK policy which is more concerned with creating 'mixed communities', which has had mixed and uncertain results, however.
If the link does not work, please advise and I will send it (literature review) as an attachment by email.
I've written something very similar to Will Stancil's tweets, but mine was addressed to right-libertarians:
"As for whether I"m ideological, I don't need ideology to rebut your arguments. Your ideology is YOUR weakness. It provides you with a bountiful supply of ready-made errors to spare you the pain of rubbing your own two brain cells together to come up with an original idea. Your ideology necessarily makes stuff up and ignores the real world where it is inconvenient. I don't need ideology to spot such lies and omissions."
For Hsieh and Moretti, one comparison point I like is the real value of the number of housing units added in the long term. For example, one common claim is "Benchmarked against other states on a housing units per capita basis, California is short about two million units. To satisfy pent-up demand and meet the needs of a growing population, California needs to build 3.5 million homes by 2025"
If we value those new homes at a modest $500,000, that's $1 trillion to $1.75 trillion. That's a one-time increase in GDP of 4% to 8%.
So make of that what you will. Hsieh and Moretti claim 6 times that much growth for SF/SJ/NYC, which probably has more missing homes than CA, but not by more than 50% or so. And obviously we should expect other effects beyond just the value of the homes. Indeed, Hsieh and Moretti is mostly about other agglomeration and productivity effects. And maybe I undervalued the homes.
Given all this, I'm not surprised by their estimate, but who knows.
I don't think it's quite that easy. To build those 3.5 million homes takes a lot of inputs like labor and material that will go into building those homes instead of doing something else, so that GDP number needs to reflect the other side of the ledger.
Obviously, that isn't a reason not to build the homes - they really do need to get built - but it does imply that the H&M estimates are suspect at best.
As a follow up to your post about the world being a "jungle of wars". I worry about Venezuela and Guyana and new wars in Africa.
President Felix in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) blames Uganda & Rwanda for funding the rebel groups M23. (Both Museveni and Kagame deny this but the UN seems to side with DRC)
Felix already compared Kagame to Adolf Hitler and I don't think he'll just accept the fact that M23 is destabilizing families in East Congo. This can turn into the Congo wars again.
Spam? People are seeking safety and refuge. Compromise that Republicans want on Asylum are internationally illegal - thus putting American on the side of dismantling the international system and completely turning away from the post WWII moral consensus with predictable devastating future effects. The only way to take the border other than massive crimes against humanity is to increase legal options and processing - the order can be orderly but you can not make desperate people disappear without committing crimes against them.
For that matter, why even write about Summers in a column? Perhaps Summers serves as a foil for all the applied economists who have been right the past 20 years?
> The main assumption is that the productivity level of cities is just an inherent characteristic of those cities — that there’s some magical thing about San Francisco that makes workers who live there more productive than workers who live in Cleveland.
The main mechanism is the weather is better. The second one is the sushi is better so they get more DHA.
I'm not sure if polycules are productivity enhancing though.
As a retired educator I find it no surprise at all to read that the study you referenced in thing #1 of your most recent post found that smartphones in the classroom are deleterious to learning...DUH! Anyone who has been in a classroom, middle or high, would notice the negative effects right away. It certainly shouldn't take a high falutin' 'meta study' to come to that conclusion. Of greater interest to me is the success (or lack thereof) of efforts by school districts to keep them out of the classroom. I suspect from my experience that that effort will be met with a lot of 'blowback'...
Collapse of global test scores: more than just smart phones that entered the industrialized countries is the increase in wifi and other microwave level radiations that their public is exposed to.
Microwave radiation is non-ionizing radiation so it doesn’t cause chemical damage / cancer the way UV light and higher does (wear sunscreen!). Like the name, it works the same as your microwave, making things warmer and penetrating a bit below the surface. A microwave has a lot of power and makes things a lot warmer. A cell phone has a little power and make things a little warmer. I have no idea what biology would lead from your head being a fraction of a degree warmer to a drop in intelligence. It’s not out of the question but it’s quite unlikely.
That is based on no evidence whatsoever. The graph Noah puts in from OECD is misleading (surprisingly, since he hates bad graphs) in that the only scores included are from 2015, 2018 and 2022 according to the OECD ( https://www.oecd.org/publication/pisa-2022-results ). The tests are done every 3 years and 2021 was delayed by the pandemic. So the most obvious factor would be the pandemic and school lockdown learning loss. Phone use would have shown up in 2015 and 2018 as would WiFi electromagnetic radiation which has no known effect on intelligence or brain function.
As a failed physics major from a half century ago....haha...I think you have a superb point.
It's not the number of cell phones and wifi but the 10x increase in EM-RF radiation Density. Except for absorption, which is small, literally some portion of millions of cell phones, wifi, satellite signal reaches you and everyone all the time. 24/7 that radio station and cell tower, DirecTV, are ... there with you.
Density is important as strength follows the 1/r^2 power law. So the effects (if actually true and some probably is true) of the increase in cell phone and wifi radiation numbers is really almost the square of the numbers as density/intensity goes up quickly. Cell phone use WW grew 4x over 10 years.
i will submit these 2 documents for everyone's interest in nonthermal, nonionizing biologic effects of low level EMF radiation. It is very detailed information in terms of content, authors, as well as the intended audiences.
The country which pioneered the research is the Soviet Union. That there was a phenomenon came to American attention at the US Embassy in Moscow in 1976. Staff and ambassadors came down with malaise and fatigue and were unable to serve for a prolonged period. Eventually most of them died of malignancy. They suspected microwave radiation as there were radio towers pointed towards the embassy. Johns Hopkins scientists made radiation measurements in the building, but none were detectable. Requests were made to the Soviets to remove the towers, but they refused, citing that the radiation levels were well within American safety limits (as the embassy was considered American territory).
The first paper is a Russian paper published in 1996 at the end of the Cold War, summarizing Russian findings of low level EMF on biological systems. The contents becomes very detailed and very mathematical. This is what they know and the details they were operating with. They have advanced as far as reading the EM radiation from the human brain.
The second paper is summarizing Russian research on the topic which is compiled by SIAC for the US Government (military). It also discusses radiation emissions from biologic systems which correspond to biologic activities. Of interest there is a Russian device which is commercially available made for discerning disease states by reading the alpha waves. Seemingly this encompasses goals to be that are poised to be duplicated by Neuralink. Another interesting phenomenon is on page 99, UHF radiosound. This may be research related to Havana Syndrome, suffered by American diplomats and intelligence agents over the last several years, in which power was increased sufficient to cause nervous system damage with a very specific pattern. There is a JASON report available which came to no conclusion, though one scientist mentioned that this may have been a microwave type weapon. At the very least Russia and the US, and perhaps others, are well aware of this phenomenon. It would appear that the common physics and biology understanding of EMF by conventional scientists and military scientists are very different, indeed.
I don't like to listen, so did not to the discussion of which energy source is "better." I hope that is just shorthand for something real, like, what policies lead investors (that would include public sector investors, too) to chose the lowest cost energy source for any given time and place.
I spend a couple of hours every day walking. That's a good time to listen. Otherwise, I agree. If in the office or at home, I'd rather read. Much more efficient use of time.
Biden can’t hammer out an agreement on immigration because the GOP doesn’t want an agreement on immigration--they want immigration as an issue in elections. The right will continue to move the goal posts ever further right.
They're watching funding dry up now that Republicans think the abortion matter is fixed, not to mention the diversion of small contributions from the Party to Trump's defense fund. If they lose "the border" as an issue, they'll have no reason to ask for money.
Keep up your 5 Interesting Things. I love it! And the lack of a catchy title or pithy turn of phrase is actually quite refreshing.
Regarding the vibes theory, I’m mostly with you. End of the day people don’t like inflation and it takes awhile for people to adjust to a “new normal”.
But two things to add that I’ve mentioned on Matt Yglesias’ substack. One, you have to take into consideration asymmetrical media consumption/polarization. Democrats thinking economy is worse than it is under GOP Presidents and vice versa is long standing. But it’s way more pronounced on the GOP side and has become more pronounced in recent years. There’s just way less GOP leaning voters willing to say economy is good under and Dem President than vice versa. We just have to always keep that in mind.
Second, we have to remember that the Democratic coalition is increasingly made up of educated middle/upper middle/upper class voters. Just the sort of cohort most likely than most people at large to have large amounts of their money in stocks, even if it’s just 401K. Meaning the market being stagnant or dropping most of the year I’m positive is some factor here. And sure enough the timing of when consumer sentiment is getting better coincides with the stock market going up significantly the last month. And even for people who don’t have money in the market, I think we underestimate how much regular people see market gyrations as a proxy for economic health. It’s an extremely flawed proxy but it’s sort of like gas prices; it’s in the news everyday, it’s something you often see if just in passing and so it’s in your head even if you’re not actively seeking out this info. It also I think complements Stancil’s “vibes” theory in that it’s about negative media coverage swamping actual good economic news.
The S&P 500 went up 14% in the first six months of this year and 7% (so far) in the last six months.
In other words, a pretty solid year for stocks overall.
Maybe what they're remembering is how terrible the market was in 2022 and Noah's "lag period" effect is kicking in starting only a year later.
Last six months is heavily weighted towards run up in the last month (it was increasing even before Fed announcement). But before that there were pretty substantial declines summer onwards until end of October. And this also coincides with when Biden’s approval went from bad to real bad. Also, this is when 10-year treasury skyrocketed to above 5% (though still actually not that high historically) meaning borrowing costs really shot up even without Fed raising rates.
Curious to see polls in January and February if market really does continue to go up. At least will have a test of my theory. The problem is this is when GOP primary will finally be back in the news as Iowa caucus and NH primary will have happened. Which brings me to another huge variable here. This is the first time since modern primaries began in the 60s and 70s that there is no real competitive primary on either side. Usually, the party out of power’s primary race is front and center news. That is decidedly not the case now in a way that’s never happened in the era of modern media. I truly don’t think we grasp how much that’s likely skewing polls right now
Further to the housing item and it's useful links, it could have been clearer on distinguishing localised impacts of new market-rate on rents and other the 'filtering' impact on communities where higher income residents or potential residents migrate to new 'Yuppie fishtanks' in in 'hipster' areas.
With respect to the latter, any evidence of the resulting impacts on socio-economic outcomes within the lower income areas, such as educational attainment or quality of local schools?
There is some evidence, and the impacts are positive. I'll try to dig that up. Really flies in the face of worries about upzoning causing "gentrification".
Thanks, Noah.
file:///C:/Users/ADMIN/Downloads/The%20affordability%20impacts%20of%20new%20housing%20supply%20-%20GLA%20Housing%20Research%20Note.pdf, provides a short UK literature review, covering UK, Germany, US, and other countries.
Its summary is nuanced on any inter-relationship - noting that its identification and measurement is complex and difficult - between longer term filtering and shorter term localized effects of new supply on rents.
With respect to the latter, I personally find it a bit counter-intuitive that new market developments generating amenity and other external benefits will reduce local rental levels over the medium term.
This is, perhaps, because I do not follow the transmission mechanism involved insofar that more vibrant neighbourhoods -certainly in a London context - invariably attract more self sustaining housing demand from market purchasers.
However, I am on board with the general YIMBY approach and analysis.
My understanding of the some of the institutional differences between the US and UK rental markets and its overarching public policy framework is that low-income households (sometimes disproportionately BME) are encouraged to move out to 'better' areas by vouchers or other means to benefit from school and other environments more conducive to socio-economic advancement and social mobility.
If so, that connects to the point I made on the impact on the communities in my comment and represents a point of departure from UK policy which is more concerned with creating 'mixed communities', which has had mixed and uncertain results, however.
If the link does not work, please advise and I will send it (literature review) as an attachment by email.
I've written something very similar to Will Stancil's tweets, but mine was addressed to right-libertarians:
"As for whether I"m ideological, I don't need ideology to rebut your arguments. Your ideology is YOUR weakness. It provides you with a bountiful supply of ready-made errors to spare you the pain of rubbing your own two brain cells together to come up with an original idea. Your ideology necessarily makes stuff up and ignores the real world where it is inconvenient. I don't need ideology to spot such lies and omissions."
I've used this statement several times.
For Hsieh and Moretti, one comparison point I like is the real value of the number of housing units added in the long term. For example, one common claim is "Benchmarked against other states on a housing units per capita basis, California is short about two million units. To satisfy pent-up demand and meet the needs of a growing population, California needs to build 3.5 million homes by 2025"
If we value those new homes at a modest $500,000, that's $1 trillion to $1.75 trillion. That's a one-time increase in GDP of 4% to 8%.
So make of that what you will. Hsieh and Moretti claim 6 times that much growth for SF/SJ/NYC, which probably has more missing homes than CA, but not by more than 50% or so. And obviously we should expect other effects beyond just the value of the homes. Indeed, Hsieh and Moretti is mostly about other agglomeration and productivity effects. And maybe I undervalued the homes.
Given all this, I'm not surprised by their estimate, but who knows.
I don't think it's quite that easy. To build those 3.5 million homes takes a lot of inputs like labor and material that will go into building those homes instead of doing something else, so that GDP number needs to reflect the other side of the ledger.
Obviously, that isn't a reason not to build the homes - they really do need to get built - but it does imply that the H&M estimates are suspect at best.
As a follow up to your post about the world being a "jungle of wars". I worry about Venezuela and Guyana and new wars in Africa.
President Felix in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) blames Uganda & Rwanda for funding the rebel groups M23. (Both Museveni and Kagame deny this but the UN seems to side with DRC)
Felix already compared Kagame to Adolf Hitler and I don't think he'll just accept the fact that M23 is destabilizing families in East Congo. This can turn into the Congo wars again.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67669187
https://yawboadu.substack.com/p/history-of-the-democratic-republic-9be
Please give us a long piece on Will Stancil dunking on people. He's dunking on Nate Silver now and it's glorious
Spam? People are seeking safety and refuge. Compromise that Republicans want on Asylum are internationally illegal - thus putting American on the side of dismantling the international system and completely turning away from the post WWII moral consensus with predictable devastating future effects. The only way to take the border other than massive crimes against humanity is to increase legal options and processing - the order can be orderly but you can not make desperate people disappear without committing crimes against them.
Ugh sorry for all the typos. Tame the border, the border can be orderly. Etc.
Even if the titles aren't attention-grabbing, I appreciate these round ups.
Why Does Anyone Listen to Larry Summers Redux
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/18/opinion/inflation-economists.html
For that matter, why even write about Summers in a column? Perhaps Summers serves as a foil for all the applied economists who have been right the past 20 years?
> The main assumption is that the productivity level of cities is just an inherent characteristic of those cities — that there’s some magical thing about San Francisco that makes workers who live there more productive than workers who live in Cleveland.
The main mechanism is the weather is better. The second one is the sushi is better so they get more DHA.
I'm not sure if polycules are productivity enhancing though.
I like the picture at the top :)
As a retired educator I find it no surprise at all to read that the study you referenced in thing #1 of your most recent post found that smartphones in the classroom are deleterious to learning...DUH! Anyone who has been in a classroom, middle or high, would notice the negative effects right away. It certainly shouldn't take a high falutin' 'meta study' to come to that conclusion. Of greater interest to me is the success (or lack thereof) of efforts by school districts to keep them out of the classroom. I suspect from my experience that that effort will be met with a lot of 'blowback'...
Reilly Rix
Collapse of global test scores: more than just smart phones that entered the industrialized countries is the increase in wifi and other microwave level radiations that their public is exposed to.
Microwave radiation is non-ionizing radiation so it doesn’t cause chemical damage / cancer the way UV light and higher does (wear sunscreen!). Like the name, it works the same as your microwave, making things warmer and penetrating a bit below the surface. A microwave has a lot of power and makes things a lot warmer. A cell phone has a little power and make things a little warmer. I have no idea what biology would lead from your head being a fraction of a degree warmer to a drop in intelligence. It’s not out of the question but it’s quite unlikely.
That is based on no evidence whatsoever. The graph Noah puts in from OECD is misleading (surprisingly, since he hates bad graphs) in that the only scores included are from 2015, 2018 and 2022 according to the OECD ( https://www.oecd.org/publication/pisa-2022-results ). The tests are done every 3 years and 2021 was delayed by the pandemic. So the most obvious factor would be the pandemic and school lockdown learning loss. Phone use would have shown up in 2015 and 2018 as would WiFi electromagnetic radiation which has no known effect on intelligence or brain function.
As a failed physics major from a half century ago....haha...I think you have a superb point.
It's not the number of cell phones and wifi but the 10x increase in EM-RF radiation Density. Except for absorption, which is small, literally some portion of millions of cell phones, wifi, satellite signal reaches you and everyone all the time. 24/7 that radio station and cell tower, DirecTV, are ... there with you.
Density is important as strength follows the 1/r^2 power law. So the effects (if actually true and some probably is true) of the increase in cell phone and wifi radiation numbers is really almost the square of the numbers as density/intensity goes up quickly. Cell phone use WW grew 4x over 10 years.
i will submit these 2 documents for everyone's interest in nonthermal, nonionizing biologic effects of low level EMF radiation. It is very detailed information in terms of content, authors, as well as the intended audiences.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267996020_Mechanisms_of_Interaction_of_Electromagnetic_Radiation_with_a_Biosystem
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00792R000100070001-9.pdf
The country which pioneered the research is the Soviet Union. That there was a phenomenon came to American attention at the US Embassy in Moscow in 1976. Staff and ambassadors came down with malaise and fatigue and were unable to serve for a prolonged period. Eventually most of them died of malignancy. They suspected microwave radiation as there were radio towers pointed towards the embassy. Johns Hopkins scientists made radiation measurements in the building, but none were detectable. Requests were made to the Soviets to remove the towers, but they refused, citing that the radiation levels were well within American safety limits (as the embassy was considered American territory).
The first paper is a Russian paper published in 1996 at the end of the Cold War, summarizing Russian findings of low level EMF on biological systems. The contents becomes very detailed and very mathematical. This is what they know and the details they were operating with. They have advanced as far as reading the EM radiation from the human brain.
The second paper is summarizing Russian research on the topic which is compiled by SIAC for the US Government (military). It also discusses radiation emissions from biologic systems which correspond to biologic activities. Of interest there is a Russian device which is commercially available made for discerning disease states by reading the alpha waves. Seemingly this encompasses goals to be that are poised to be duplicated by Neuralink. Another interesting phenomenon is on page 99, UHF radiosound. This may be research related to Havana Syndrome, suffered by American diplomats and intelligence agents over the last several years, in which power was increased sufficient to cause nervous system damage with a very specific pattern. There is a JASON report available which came to no conclusion, though one scientist mentioned that this may have been a microwave type weapon. At the very least Russia and the US, and perhaps others, are well aware of this phenomenon. It would appear that the common physics and biology understanding of EMF by conventional scientists and military scientists are very different, indeed.
I don't like to listen, so did not to the discussion of which energy source is "better." I hope that is just shorthand for something real, like, what policies lead investors (that would include public sector investors, too) to chose the lowest cost energy source for any given time and place.
I spend a couple of hours every day walking. That's a good time to listen. Otherwise, I agree. If in the office or at home, I'd rather read. Much more efficient use of time.