Arnold Kling Thinks Like Me
On those life expectancy puzzles:
Does anyone know how, if at all, unnatural deaths affect these data? Consider four possibilities–young in the U.S., young in the Netherlands, old in the U.S., old in the Netherlands. I would bet that of these four groups, the rate of unnatural death (murder, car accidents, and so on) is highest for the young in the U.S. If true, and if the life expectancy data are not adjusted to remove unnatural deaths, then this seems to me the most likely explanation for the fact.
On stagflation:
The bottom line is that I think that in 2011 and 2012 we may be experiencing increased inflation while unemployment is high. This would be true whether we tried using monetary policy to stimulate the economy or using the unfortunate delayed-action fiscal policy to stimulate the economy.
