News Stories

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Heat grips half the nation, schools close early
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...06-09-15-41-07
Is also unusualy hot here in Canada

The Bay Area broke its record for Rainfall in June Last week.

[Vexx]

As pathetic as the US GOP running field is, its unfortunate that Gingrich is having trouble. As problematic as he is, he's one of the one or two non-lunatics and one of the few more likely to strike a middle path of pragmatism.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...75864A20110609

I suspect he's being told to run so far right that he realizes it would be impossible to win after the primary.

[Endless Soul]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Heat grips half the nation, schools close early
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...06-09-15-41-07
Is also unusualy hot here in Canada

It's unusually cool here in So Cal.

[Ithekro]

Mid-80s (F) in the Bay Area...which is normalish for early June from what I remember

[flying ^]

Originally Posted by Endless Soul

It's unusually cool here in So Cal.

it's ~70 F all week here in the City of Angels

[Hooves]

Hmm, that explains the temperature from where I live yesterday. The temperature then was at 87°F but where I live in Missouri, it ranges about 70-90

[FDW]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Mid-80s (F) in the Bay Area...which is normalish for early June from what I remember

That's inland, the coast is always 20 degrees (F) cooler than that.

[Ithekro]

San Francisco has a reputation since Mark Twain's time as having the coldest winters ever to be had during the summer. And it is true. My Great-grandmother came out from Tennessee a long time ago. Wrote home and said all you need is a swimsuit and a heavy jacket in California. Cause it was 90+ inland (Pleasant Hill area I believe) and 50 or so in San Francisco.

[FDW]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

San Francisco has a reputation since Mark Twain's time as having the coldest winters ever to be had during the summer. And it is true. My Great-grandmother came out from Tennessee a long time ago. Wrote home and said all you need is a swimsuit and a heavy jacket in California. Cause it was 90+ inland (Pleasant Hill area I believe) and 50 or so in San Francisco.

So true...

[ganbaru]

Special Report: After Japan, where's the next nuclear weak link?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...75828N20110609

(Reuters) - Imagine a country where corruption is rampant, infrastructure is very poor, or the quality of security is in question. Now what if that country built a nuclear power plant?

Somehow, I got a few name in mind...

[Endless Soul]

I believe the list is very short.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Endless Soul

I believe the list is very short.

I wish than you would be right but don't really belive so...

In India, Dynamism Wrestles With Dysfunction
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/wo...gaon.html?_r=1

Gurgaon, located about 15 miles south of the national capital, New Delhi, would seem to have everything, except consider what it does not have: a functioning citywide sewer or drainage system; reliable electricity or water; and public sidewalks, adequate parking, decent roads or any citywide system of public transportation. Garbage is still regularly tossed in empty lots by the side of the road.

With its shiny buildings and galloping economy, Gurgaon is often portrayed as a symbol of a rising “new” India, yet it also represents a riddle at the heart of India’s rapid growth: how can a new city become an international economic engine without basic public services? How can a huge country flirt with double-digit growth despite widespread corruption, inefficiency and governmental dysfunction?

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

I wish than you would be right but don't really belive so...

In India, Dynamism Wrestles With Dysfunction
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/wo...gaon.html?_r=1

in china at least the taking of the top comes after the job is done. Because if the local official embarrasses the top guy in beijing, he could end up in front of a firing squad.

[ganbaru]

Helicopters open fire to disperse Syrian protesters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73N02P20110611

(Reuters) - Syrian helicopter gunships fired machineguns to disperse pro-democracy protests, witnesses said, in the first reported use of air power to quell unrest in Syria's increasingly bloody three-month-old uprising.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Helicopters open fire to disperse Syrian protesters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73N02P20110611

Are those machine-guns or cannons?

Death of Keynesianism?

STAMFORD, Conn. (MarketWatch) — I do not subscribe to the conventional economics view of how the world works. If there are two theories that animate the Powers That Be when it comes to defining Economics, they are the Output Gap theory of inflation and Keynesianism (the idea that putting cash in consumers’ pockets will generate a huge spending response).

I have contended repeatedly over the last few years that if there is one good thing that may come out of the economic mess we have suffered through over the last several years, it might be a once-and-for-all discrediting of these two hoary 1960s mantras. Both were all but killed in the 1980s after they had contributed mightily to the stagflationary debacle of the 1970s but in the last decade both have been resurrected with a vengeance, much like a serial horror film character, to terrorize a new generation of victims.

Stephen Stanley says it’s time to kill off discredited Keynesian theories once and for all.

Both of these theories have one important thing in common: they assume that all that matters in the economy is determined on the demand side. Supply-side considerations are all but irrelevant to economic performance in the world of a Keynesian Output Gapper. Putting an extra dollar of cash in the pocket of a consumer will generate a multiplier as the first person buys something, creating income for someone else, who in turn spends, etc., etc.

Similarly, the output gap model suggests that inflation is mostly a function of whether households have money to spend. If unemployment is high (i.e. an output gap exists), then wages are constrained and consumers will refuse to tolerate higher prices. There is no room for the supply side in either case.

Under Keynesianism, fiscal policy can be defined by how much cash is being thrust at the economy, via one-off tax breaks, transfer payments, or direct spending. Throwing cash out of helicopters, paying people to dig ditches with spoons, or propping up unsustainably expensive state and local government budgets all get you to the same place — adding cash to the demand side of the economy kicks off the Keynesian multiplier and gets the economy moving.

This theory is of course most fervently revered on the political left, but it has been a bipartisan conceit for the past decade, from the 2001, 2003, and 2008 rebate checks to temporary business tax breaks to the home buyers’ tax credit to cash for clunkers to the unprecedented $830 billion stimulus package in 2009.

At every turn, attempts at jumpstarting the economy by throwing cash at households and businesses has proven disappointing. Economic decision makers respond to incentives, most notably marginal tax rates, and one-off tax breaks tend to do little more than shift the timing of activity around a bit as well as encourage households to save most of whatever temporary windfall the government offers (so they can pay the bill when it inevitably comes due at some later date).

One of the few effective steps that the current administration has taken on fiscal policy was one that was thrust upon it last year, when President Barack Obama swallowed hard and reluctantly (bitterly might be a better word!) and accepted a two-year extension of the Bush income tax rates. However, the administration extracted two Keynesian provisions as their price for allowing such a move: extending unemployment benefits by another year and a one-year temporary break on the payroll taxes paid by employees.

At the time, I noted that the payroll tax break was doomed to failure. The stated objective was to incentivize businesses to hire workers, but the break was granted to employees rather than employers. Sure enough, almost halfway through the year, we haven’t heard the first example of a firm hiring anyone due to the tax break.

Now that the administration fears that hiring may be flagging again, a recent newswire story indicated that Obama’s advisers are considering, among other things, providing a temporary tax break on the employer half of the payroll tax break. David Rosenberg thinks it’s a lousy idea.

To be clear, this would not be my favorite prescription for encouraging hiring, but, hey, at least it might provide some added reason at the margin for businesses to add workers. The more important implication of this story is that it suggests that administration officials are finally willing to own up to the fact that Keynesian prescriptions have been a) a dismal failure and b) a massive waste of money.

Of course, the federal government could have saved itself $100 billion if they had come to that conclusion six months ago, and trimmed the employer rather than the employee side of the payroll tax last December. In any case, if the administration and Congress finally give up on trying to resurrect the economy with Keynesian prescriptions, then we have taken a giant leap forward, both in terms of the prospects for economic growth and for creating a more sustainable fiscal policy.

Of course, the problem in my mind with all of this is that fiscal policy operates most forcefully on the supply side, by creating the conditions that will encourage businesses and households to be confident enough to go out and spend and invest. A one-off tax break for businesses might entice a few fence sitters to hire workers now that they might have waited on otherwise, shifting around the timing of hiring a bit (a la the home buyers’ tax credit or cash for clunkers) without permanently boosting the trajectory of employment.

A modest cash enticement to hire will be of little use at the same time that the administration has terrified businesses with health-care reform, Dodd-Frank, hyperactive agencies from the NLRB to the EPA to the soon-to-be-live Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as threatening to put in place punitively higher marginal tax rates.

Incentives matter. And the tone of the public discourse matters.

Demagoguing businesses and trying to punish the rich via tax hikes played a major role in extending the Great Depression in the late 1930s. We don’t need to go down that dead-end street again. The most effective course of action on the fiscal side is pretty simple, but adopting it would probably require a politically untenable about-face from the administration.

Nonetheless, an abandonment of Keynesianism by the administration would be a hopeful step, both from a practical standpoint and in terms of my crusade to debunk the resurrected monsters from the 1960s.

To think that my school is still teaching this bull.

And you are late MW. Should have written this last year. Or at least after QE1. What took you so long?

The thing is that, Economics is a very large subject consisting of many theorists and economists, not just Keynes. What about Adam Smith? Thomas Malthus? Why are we only taught about Keynes all along?

[Xellos-_^]

to the home buyers’ tax credit

just want to point that is actually a no interest loan the homeowner still have payoff over 15 years or sooner if the house is so. it is not like we actually get the money for free.

[Frenchie]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Death of Keynesianism?

Well that sure sounds like an unbiased article!

[FDW]

Will new congressional districts squeeze out California Republicans?

Yes, they will. A couple of links on why:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...5644.htmlstory

http://www.nickburkhart.com/blog/pvi

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by FDW

Will new congressional districts squeeze out California Republicans?

Yes, they will. A couple of links on why:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...5644.htmlstory

http://www.nickburkhart.com/blog/pvi

Political parties gerrymandering political districts for their benefit? Who would have ever suspected such a thing? I'm 78.4% as outraged as when republicans do it.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

The thing is that, Economics is a very large subject consisting of many theorists and economists, not just Keynes. What about Adam Smith? Thomas Malthus? Why are we only taught about Keynes all along?

Maybe because the teacher learned only about Keynes. I haven't read about Thomas Malthus but I belive than Adam Smith should be a must know for a economist.

Somali militants claim minister's killing
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...06-11-07-36-26