28
Aug
2012
Murphy Responds to Ezra Klein’s Crazy Fed Proposal
Steve Landsburg took a swing (and missed! But head up Steve no one bats a thousand) at Ezra Klein’s crazy Fed proposal when I was down at Mises U, just in time for me to incorporate it into my talk that day.
Thanks to Chad Parish for editing. Music by Kevin MacLeod.
Funny.
I confess I just don’t get everyone’s interest in Klein and Yglesias, who are arrant partisans with — from what I have seen — a tendency to distort and misrepresent. It’s like there’s some kind of bloviating middlebrow leftist pundit bubble …
Totally with you on this. I particularly don’t get it given the (unjustified, in my view) credentialism some people (ahem) sometimes exhibit and Yglesias’ and Klein’s notable lack of credentials.
I agree to a certain extent. It bugs me that they call themselves “wonks”. They’re not wonks at all – they’re journalists. All this stuff is second hand, and some of it isn’t communicated very well second hand.
The thing that’s tough to get around, though, is that they’re both very insightful. They’re journalists, not economists, and it shows – but they’re insightful journalists that follow the debate much better than most.
Tomorrow morning, Bernanke could walk in front of a camera and announce that the Federal Reserve intends to begin buying huge numbers of Washington Post stock with the simple intention of bringing the newspaper prices down to about 2.5 cents and holding it there for one year, and one year only.
The message would be clear: If you have any intention of ever buying a WaPo newspaper, the next 12 months is the time to do it. This is Uncle Ben’s Crazy Paper Sale, and you’d be crazy to miss it.
Do you mean shorting WaPo stock?
I meant buying newspapers themselves.
Yeah,what I said is ambiguous.
I don’t mind that they are journalists. Honest journalists can do very good things. It’s their partisanship, bias, and (from what some bloggers have demonstrated) low reliability and trustworthiness. Yet the libertarianosphere seems obsessed with them. Cowen can be positively embarassing.
Yeah FWIW Ken the only reason I even talk about them is because not only Krugman but also Scott Sumner treat them like they’re colleagues. So, I like to keep them humble.
Yes, you’ve mentioned before how you cannot resist fish in a barrel …
You “don’t get” people’s interest in Krugman, but he’s the modern day Bastiat? Or did you abandon that quixotic crusade?
This depends on if there really is a settled methodology to solve all economic disputes and there is not. Also a degree in public policy administration does not mean you are an economist.
Bob, IMHO you’re an excellent orator.
Great talk.
By the way there is a very interesting paper from… The Dallas FED. What do you think about this?:
Title: “Ultra Easy Monetary Policy and the Law of Unintended Consequences*”
Abstract:
“In this paper, an attempt is made to evaluate the desirability of ultra easy monetary policy by
weighing up the balance of the desirable short run effects and the undesirable longer run
effects – the unintended consequences. The conclusion is that there are limits to what
central banks can do. One reason for believing this is that monetary stimulus, operating
through traditional (“flow”) channels, might now be less effective in stimulating aggregate
demand than previously. Further, cumulative (“stock”) effects provide negative feedback
mechanisms that over time also weaken both supply and demand. It is also the case that
ultra easy monetary policies can eventually threaten the health of financial institutions and
the functioning of financial markets, threaten the “independence” of central banks, and can
encourage imprudent behavior on the part of governments. None of these unintended
consequences is desirable. Since monetary policy is not “a free lunch”, governments must
therefore use much more vigorously the policy levers they still control to support strong,
sustainable and balanced growth at the global level.”
It gets even better if you go though it.
http://www.dallasfed.org/assets/documents/institute/wpapers/2012/0126.pdf
*through*
Note to Murphy: bomb is funnier than shoot.
But variety is important too, and ammunition is more logically linked with shooting than bombing. Hence my perfect performance.
I could almost see you descending from the heavens with your umbrella and carpet bag …
Are you putting a space before you type out the ellipses? This man is a force of nature!
I do, as is right and proper. My ellipses are practically perfect in every way!
Yeah, I screw that one up every time.
I will say this, Ken B.: When you furnish a non sequitur to attack a position I don’t even hold, you do so with flair and precision.
Now Bob, you know non sequiturs are only applicable to positions you do not hold . All the positions you do, have cogent objections
🙂
I’m sure there exists at least one cogent objection to every position that I hold, Ken B. I’m just pointing out that you rarely provide any.
Bob, I’m just playing along with your premise. The secret to good improv is agree with the premise and extend it.
Amazing. Ken B.–with confidence–tells Christians about the historicity of their favorite gospel accounts, chastises a Muslim for his erroneous beliefs concerning the Qur’an, and now tut tuts me for screwing up a joke. I forget: On Landsburg’s blog do you ever point out his careless errors in number theory?
Lemme fix that for you.
” Ken B.– correctly–tells Christians about the historicity of their favorite supposed gospel accounts”.
It’s symptomatic that you seem to think only believers can be confident about the contents of the bible. A convenient way to dismiss questions.
And if you mean ABT then I corrected him — as he acknowledges — about the HADITH not the KORAN. They are very different things.
And yes I correct Steve when he errs. The thing you will find hard to credit is Steve appreciates the corrections.
The movie Dogma was based on the premise that if God could be caught in a contradiction, the universe would cease to exist. I imagine something similar would happen Ken B. if you ever admitted you had overstepped on the Internet.
This can only mean one thing. Ken is God.
Who would have thought that after a burning bush God now uses more contemporary less conspicuous ways of communicating as some sort of a wise guy commenting on fringe blogs, basically just showing off that he knows everything better?
Anyone ever tried to see if Ken posts multiple comments at the same moment on different blogs?
Though I guess it wouldn’t be that easy, would it?
Joke all you want Bob (and skylien of course), but we have fought our battles on ground of your choosing. I didn’t bring up the woman caught in adultery, or claims about what the hadith say. Perhaps that should shake your blithe confidence in your rightness on such topics.
And he’s self-righteous to boot! Winner winner chicken dinner.
You’ve descended to just name calling, you don’t even TRY to answer points anymore.
I’m out-trolling the troll.
Ahh grade 3. How I miss the good old days.
Just to crash in with something completely off topic but how do people feel about what happened with Ron Paul and the convention?
I’m actually a bit shocked because here are Ryan and Romney giving speeches about freedom (some of them even quite good speeches) but when it comes down to tin tacks and real action they show they are afraid of an old man ready to retire, giving one simple message at their convention. They already knew what Ron Paul was going to say, because he always says the same stuff.
I kind of don’t get it. No I completely don’t get it. Romney had over a thousand delegates, he could afford a bit of politeness and respect for his fellow party members. Why not go to the extra effort of demonstrating impeccable procedural correctness? Obama with his, “you didn’t build that” comment managed to almost single-handedly throw away the election, but now the Republicans are fighting back by alienating all the Libertarian voters.
Not being (remotely) a Ron Paul fan I cannot get worked up over this, but I agree. It fits with the standard gripe agaisnst Romney too: that’s he’s a manufactured focus grouped soundbited assembly of positions not a real person with his own ideas and the courage to articulate them. This is another example of massaging and controlling the message, putting on a fixed smile.
Here’s a joke
A liberal, a conservative, and a moderate walk into a bar.
‘Hi Mitt’ says the bartender.
Even if you are not a Ron Paul fan (and I understand why some people have a problem with him), you should at least be a fan of allowing diverse points of view to have their say. Also, if there’s going to be a vote, you have a straight-up clean vote without jiggering the nominations or screwing around with the process.
If I was Mitt I would insist that Ron Paul’s name went on the ballot and that he had all the delegates he was entitled to, and that he gave a speech. Mitt already won the nomination months ago, his challenge now is the presidency, so making a real big show of being a real big guy is going to get a lot more people onside than trickery.
I read somewhere that Ron Paul was offered a speaking slot, but he declined because the Romney camp wanted to approve his message, and it was contingent on him endorsing Romney. Ron Paul of course replied that endorsing Romney would, “undo everything I’ve worked for in the last 30 years”. No one can accuse him of equivocating his position, that’s for sure.
On the one hand, you’re right about alienating a large voting block. And the disrespect to his delegates was beyond reprehensible.
However, I can only assume they thought it was worth the risk rather than allowing him to speak at an event with everyone watching as he exposes the RNC and GOP at their own superficial PR rally how they really aren’t fiscal conservatives, concerned about civil liberties, and are unrepentant bloodthirsty warmongers.
Not to mention, it would be rather funny inviting someone to speak who doesn’t even endorse the ticket. And who makes Paul Ryan look like LBJ on spending.
Did you also see the token Ron Paul tribute video? It was actually fairly well done (all things considered), but obviously carefully scripted by almost solely focusing on his fiscal conservatism. It was almost like they were saying: “Hey the old man may have been wacky, fringe, and stubborn, but he was right about spending!”
“Fed Pulls Trigger, to Buy Mortgages in Effort to Lower Rates” … Oh crap.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/49018964