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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.