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Back in 2010, I predicted that India would have the world's largest economy (in PPP terms) within 100 years. A few months later, I moved up the predicted date to 2081. Based on this graph, I'd now say some time in the 2060s: Today, India and China both have a bit over 1.4 billion people. But look at the
During the 2010s, Jim Bullard was probably my favorite Federal Reserve bank president. David Beckworth has an interview with Bullard, in which he makes a number of insightful observations. As usual, I'll focus on an area where I seem to spot a difference of opinion: Bullard: So, the mentality at the time [2020] was, still, that this shock was going
[I've received complaints that I don't do enough posts on monetary policy. I have a long one over at Econlog with zero comments, while my moronic Trump posts get dozens of comments.] 1. Here's Janan Ganesh: Because, in Britain, someone who is nationalist in general will be anti-EU in particular, the Anglo-American intelligentsia tends to assume the same of Europeans. In
I'm certainly no Nostradamus, having incorrectly forecast both the 2016 and 2020 elections. But it seems to me that I have made a number of more general claims that are looking increasingly plausible:1. I've consistently said that Biden is a senile old guy, not fit to be president. (I've said the same about Trump, but that's neither
Trump has done so many awful things that it's hard to single out any one example. But for my money, picking Vance as his VP is his single worst decision. Vance is my least favorite US senator. Picking Vance confirms what I already suspected. The traditional Republican Party is dead---it's officially the party of nationalism from
Tyler Cowen directed me to a Greg Mankiw essay on inflation: And as a textbook author, I sometimes get the suggestion that the whole discussion of the Phillips curve be removed from my books on the grounds that the idea is hopelessly out-of-date. By contrast, my own thinking is closer to that of George Akerlof (2002), who in his Nobel prize
There are times when it's cruel to be kind. At some point in the not too distant future, the quality of my blogging will drop below a certain threshold. (Maybe it already has.) At that point, I hope my best commenters will tell me so. You won't be doing me any favors by hiding my senility
Happy 4th of July to everyone---especially to my stepfather, who earned a Purple Heart in Okinawa. Consider the following two definitions of macroeconomics:1. Macro is the study of aggregate economic variables, including inflation, real output, unemployment, interest rates and exchange rates.2. Macro studies the effects of the market for the medium of account, in a world of nominal contracts. The first definition
1. One state has avoided MAGA madness: A pair of moderate Utah Republicans won primary elections Tuesday for U.S. Senate and governor over far-right candidates who are loyalists to former President Donald Trump, the latest example of how Utah is a rare Republican stronghold that doesn’t fully embrace the MAGA-led GOP.U.S. Rep. John Curtis, who won the Utah GOP primary for
1. In a previous post I showed that the recent NYT article on the lab leak hypothesis was based on an ignorance of Chinese geography.Philipp Markolin has a very long piece that is well worth reading. It does an excellent job of debunking the view that the Covid-2 virus looks
1. I frequently argue that the money/happiness correlations are misleading, that it is happiness causing prosperity. An expert on happiness now suggests that there is abundant evidence for that proposition: Choosing to engage in practices like building strong social connections and finding a purpose that fuels you is what actually leads to happiness and fulfillment, not achieving a specific financial goal,
Tyler Cowen directed me to the blogger Daniel Frank, who has a post discussing my non-monetary blogging. I always find it gratifying when someone indicates that they find something of value in these non-monetary posts. I worry they are merely a self-indulgence, taking advantage of the fact that I have a captive audience from my market monetarist posts.
It's amazing how similar these two cases are. Both involve prosecutors going after people who committed minor technical violations, with the full force of the law. It's likely that neither case would have been brought if the individuals had not been famous. There is one big difference however. One guy is the top Republican, and the other guy
1. Bad monetary policy produces inflation and/or recessions. But the greatest cost of bad monetary policy is that it leads to bad policies in other areas, including wasteful fiscal stimulus, protectionism, bank bailouts and price controls. In China, an overly restrictive monetary policy has led the government into a project involving the purchase of large quantities of
During my recent trip to the Bay Area, I met lots of people who are involved in the field of AI. My general impression is that this region has more smart people than anywhere else, at least per capita. And not just fairly smart, I'm talking about extremely high IQ individuals. I don't claim to have met a representative cross
I recently attended a blogging conference in Berkeley. From the perspective of interesting conversation, it was probably the best weekend of my life. Lots of super smart people. As I get older (I'm 68), I notice that most other people in the blogging/twitter world are one or even two generations younger than me. Most of the ones I follow
The New York case against Trump was one of those all too frequent examples of prosecutorial overreach. It was a bullshit charge based on a highly creative definition of election law. If I had been a juror, Trump would have gotten off due to a hung jury.Having said that, Trump is a criminal many times over, and deserves
In a recent post, Tyler Cowen offers some views on a wide variety of issues. He begins with some reassuring remarks about the future of American democracy, and then offers some highly pessimistic remarks about Germany: Meanwhile, being reasonable with your constituents is overrated. Look at Germany, which has non-ideological, non-polarized politics. They’ve gotten every decision wrong. Their whole strategy of
1. The FT reports that we are edging ever closer to WWIII: European intelligence agencies have warned their governments that Russia is plotting violent acts of sabotage across the continent as it commits to a course of permanent conflict with the west. Russia has already begun to more actively prepare covert bombings, arson attacks and damage to infrastructure on European soil,
So let me get this straight. The President of the United States encouraged the Chinese to build concentration camps in Xinjiang. The Chinese built concentration camps in Xinjiang. In response, we complain about human rights violations and launch a cold war that could easily turn into a hot war. Increasingly, I feel that America is just a giant lunatic asylum.
I don't think people realize how profoundly nationalism distorts their view of the world. Consider a recent comment in response to my complaint about people's obsession with the Gaza War: I suggest you ask a Palestinian for their views. Maybe he was joking, as from a certain perspective this is an amusing response to my earlier post. But I
You: What do you think of the Gaza situation?Me: That's the problem.You: What do you mean? I asked for your view on the situation.Me: My view is that the question you asked is the problem. The problem is that we are asking questions about Gaza. If we were not asking those questions, there would be no problem.You: Please explain. Me:
As you may know, the actual Phillips Curve is about the relationship between unemployment and wage inflation. That's the relationship A.W. Phillips actually identified, and it's still the correct version. Price inflation doesn't correlate well with unemployment. Painful disinflation is and always has been about getting wage inflation down.Forget payroll employment, the big news in today's job
1. Commenter Floccina directed me to a video showing Matt Yglesias's ideal city. 2. A back issue of Harpers had an article discussing the possibility of legalizing drugs. This comment caught my eye: At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask [former Nixon aide] Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky
1. Tyler linked to an interesting article on Portugal. This caught my eye: Then, in 2023, the Immigration Control Agency was dissolved, ostensibly in response to an extremely uncharacteristic display of violence where, in March 2020, two officers beat a Ukrainian man to death in the airport of Lisbon. No protests followed the unjust death of this man on Portuguese