Friday, May 1, 2009

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Brad DeLong some cracking recent posts

This one on Jeff Sach's gloomy condemnation of US monetary policy contains a surprising statement:

I confess, I don't see why the Fed can't prevent a recession. Push the value of the dollar down far enough and export and import-competing manufacturing will grow fast enough to prevent a recession. The Fed may not like the inflation that this generates. But I don't see why monetary expansion will necessarily be ineffective in boosting output and employment.

As a naive economist I find that almost alarming; a statement that growth can be achieved whatever the circumstances if monetary growth is allowed to proceed far enough. Unsurprisingly, this occasions a host of comments below. Is this not Philips curve territory? Or is the fact that the US is not being treated like a closed economy, and the rest of the world (Asia at least) is doing well, significant in squaring the circle?

Surely, at some point, just devaluing the US currency cannot bring about endless growth for US citizens? If they have been borrowing off the rest of the world, surely they have to repay at some point, and devaluing the currency the rest of the world is owed in, again surely, has some kind of bad consequence?

This piece about the way the lower sections of US income distribution are not joining in the endless growth is also worth filing away. There is a splendidly pessimistic Malthusian analysis in one of the comments by someone calling himself Maynard, and via his blog I found THIS list of lectures about finance. Christ was a sad man I am, but they look intersting and useful

What is so surprising

I've often felt like reflecting on how mystifying it is that the Tories are so popular again, before veering over to the theme of self-doubt, wondering if I have a clue about what people in Britain really think. Then I read Paul Flynn in the Express, and wonder why I was finding it so mystifying.

Here he is ranting about the EU Constitution, which has, apparently, sold us down the river. You can find 100 articles like this for every opposing one in the Guardian.

Actually, what is perhaps more surprising and encouraging is that people like this have been raving on as if Britain were a diminishing speck of land mired in poverty and beseiged on all sides by fanatical murderers, for years and years, during which time the Conservatives have averaged 33%. It must mean that the UK electorate are actually capable of reading quite phenomenal bile and hatred with perfect equanimity, without turning extreme. Cue fatuous comment about us not turning to Fascism in the 1930's. But perhaps Britain is more moderate than a depressing surf of the tabloid commentariat would suggest.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Deleted posts

I tried twice to try to put on electronic paper my disquiet at recent events in politics, and ended up with nothing much worth recording. It all mashes together my own personal position, the somewhat ambiguous Lib Dem results and some quite clear difficulties with discerning a clear position in Liberalism that I can relate to. If it exists, I am fortunate enough that it can be found at CF; the stuff I read in Lib Dem news and the Liberator swerves between quite hard-headed recognition of the inevitable trade-offs necessary to policy making and a wishy-washy pressure group anti-capitalist politics that adds up to nothing much.

The great luxury of being in one of the extreme wings of political thought is the avoidance of any need to strike difficult balances. At the LSE you could find it in the dominant left-wing anti-markets rhetoric that is somehow easier to spout if you've never worked at all; and anything that seemed to oppose this could be acceptable. The right-wing side, on the other hand, can be found all over the online broadsheet commentariat (Heffer, Littlejohn, anyone from the Telegraph) and the raving commenters below. I suspect that any discomfort I currently feel is simply symptomatic of being a moderate, and is moreover common across all parties; I imagine how the left of the Tory party winces at the anti-immigration line is rather similar to how the Right of the Lib dems wince when some blowhard starts fulminating against consumerism.

This is worthless rambling; what was deleted was far more so. Ramble over.

A few random notes

I earned a quick escape to the cafe this morning after heaving my toddler and Schauzer round Wandsworth Park for an hour. The FT.

Relevant to the "middle class is suffering" bit: here is something on the German middle class. It is defined objectively (rather than the opinion polling asking "who do you think you are") as 70-150% of median income, and it is projected to shrink - the so-called 'hollowing out".

Larry Summers' view on globalisation and its victims struck me as correct in the liberal line; not standing in the way of forces that ultimately benefit the world, but recognising how they produce winners and losers (I tend to distinguish Tories from Liberals in how the former are more disingenuous in seeing the rich/winners in general as having deserved it, the latter with the more nuanced views that see the injustices and path dependencies).

I liked this in particular:

There has been a race to the bottom in the taxation of corporate income as nations lower their rates to entice business to issue more debt and invest in their jurisdictions. Closely related is the problem of tax havens that seek to lure wealthy citizens with promises that they can avoid paying taxes altogether on large parts of their fortunes. It might be inevitable that globalisation leads to some increases in inequality; it is not necessary that it also compromise the possibility of progressive taxation.

Labour's very immobility in relation to capital requires differential treatment.

I also enjoyed Paul Collier's contribution to Martin Wolf's thread on food prices. Collier is very hard-headed in the Bottom Billion, and here blames an addiction to small peasant farming amongst aid-givers as part of the problem (if I remember rightly). I can recall from Global History how massive plantations were not an effective way of ensuring that prosperity reached throughout an economy and enabled the wider demand and investment that leads to sustainable development. But perhaps those writers were not analysing a period of scarcity.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Roy Jenkins Biog

I owe Simon Griffiths a great deal. The Senior Researcher from the Social Market Foundation was responsible for the daringly open-minded act of considering my application for the internship this last winter, an experience that ended up being almost unremittingly positive (barring the labeling of post boxes). It left me with levels of self-confidence I normally only get after an exam result or gambling win, which I will need to draw upon for a while if I am to get anywhere.

As a parting gift Simon bought me a copy of Roy Jenkins' autobiography. His PhD was in the acceptance of market forces by the Labour movement, so such crossover characters must have been right up his street. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, barring the bits where the personalities of late 70's EU commissioners are dissected in venemous detail, and it has provided useful insight into how politics works, or at least did. To do it and the subject more generally full justice I ought to cross-reference it to other key autobiographies, in particular of those whom RJ with little disguise regards as the wreckers, over-promoted or wrong-headed characters of the era (David Owen's personality was seen as political fact of dismal significance to the future of 3rd party politics; Wilson as someone with scarcely a principle or longer term idea than himself; Tony Benn and Michael Foot as almost lunatic; Dennis Healey the might-have-been. Thatcher is intruiging, but is unlikely - as someone who actually made it - to have symmetric reflections on Jenkins himself).

The lifestyle of serious politicans, with the endless invitations to speak, the midnight and beyond clause negotiations, the critical decisions (in his case, budget cuts and prisoner-treatment were the most vital), the travel, was well illustrated. I don't have the option, but even if I did I am not sure I could make that much personal sacrifice.

Otherwise, it made me very curious to read some of his actual political output, given how close he might have been to becoming a proper right-Labour prime minister. Paul Lindford has made me more curious here.

He otherwise makes a telling point about how fine speeches don't win elections. See Paul Lindford's top 10 speeches for further evidence at the top.

Thanks Simon.

Counting them

Countering my dismal 6am tendency to see the worst in things, and multiply various doubts about my own direction, and that of the scarcely-understood political grouping that I find myself part of (posts perhaps to follow), I think it worth while jotting down my recollections of this lovely weekend that I am so lucky to have enjoyed just now.

Saturday was about Battersea park with Chewie gamboling away to greet dogs, the other four of us munching a picnic beneath some blossomy canopy. Battersea Park has everything: an adventure playground that suits Matilda's rather constrained risk-seeking perfectly, ice-cream vans, cherry trees and their blossoms, ambling dog-walkers, organised and improvise football. You can believe the spin of the London village when its like this, and when your miniature Schauzer forces you to exchange greetings with a dozen amiable strangers. In the afternoon, we ventured to the Roehampton to swim in the outdoor pool for the first time this year, the water warm enough but the cooling air enough to make you keep your shoulders dipped under as much as possible. Matilda has leapt on from the querelous trembling infant of a year ago, and now jumps in at the deep end and semi-flounders her way to the side, as comfortable under the water as above.

I wasted the early part of the evening trying to jot my thoughts down about the mediocre political results and their mystifying blue tide (what Tory voters have against a decade of low unemployment, massive wealth transfers to property owners, lower crime in general and cheaper Eastern European labour, I will never really get. Short memories of what 1995 was actually like, I suspect). Then later we got stressed to the last two episodes of 24.

Sunday (4th May) was what really got me in elegaic mood. The garden has been strenuously updated by several man-months of Africaner labour to suit the needs of spoilt girl toddlers, and it all seemed to pay off today. After a 6 mile jog down by the river (8:20 per mile to keep my HR down at 150; I feel like a cumbersone elk on the uphills), we camped in the garden all morning. Girls bounced on the trampoline, scootered or rode or trundled around the decking, dipped into the water-rill to fetch water for washing things, tapped tennis balls, clambered over carefully placed logs, and clamoured for a picnic. We went in at 12 to chop carrots and sweet potato for a soup, where C joined us after spending the morning marking. More of the same in the afternoon, enlivened by Chewie yelping around when trying to pass what eventually revealed itself to be half-shit, half-compacted-tinfoil. We sat down to a pot of hot chocolate, and ended the day eating roast chicken all together. (Florence: begged or threatened for each mouthful. Matilda: picking the food up like an artist scooping a blob of paint off a palette, grinning and passing extravagent praise on the gravy).

I am really very lucky. I may have a very confusing, pointless or alienating next 20 years, and end them largely insignificant in anyone's scheme of things: that seems to be the fate of most. But if I am sensible I will spend most of my years wishing I was in 2008 enjoying such a heavenly weekend with my family.