After all,, over 1 million Americans are about to see their UI benefits not extended and in North Carolina their about to start this delightful 'natural experiment' where they're going to really roll back the state's benefits. I'm sure he must be humming: It's the most wonderful time of the year!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFtb3EtjEic
Sumner complains-how do I know he supports the policy. Ok, he's really going to pretend there's any doubt. So how do I know? Well, if Nick Rowe can have evil central bankers in his model who want ever increasing deflation and ever worsening recession
http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2013/12/getting-the-right-sign-on-the-nominal-interest-rate-signal.html#comments
why can't I have evil macroeconomists who want ever stiffer cuts in government, increased austerity, and an ever worsening life for those who aren't rich?
"There is some interesting recent commentary over North Carolina’s reduced UI benefits (here and here). I’m waiting until we have more data before I chime in. I’m an agnostic on the issue, and don’t even know if state level results would carry over to the national level. In 2014 we may get a similar experiment at the national level."
"In my time in central banks one definitely encountered a breed of policymaker that behaved as if they were above actually doing macro, but yet seemed to know all the answers for sure, and know how macro should be done [of course by someone else, not them]. It seemed to many of us who observed them as though they had fallen victim to the illusion that since they had done so well in life, their gut feelings about stuff must really be valuable, and that perhaps that’s where macroeconomic truth lay, in what they as great individuals felt and said. Many can tell stories of attempting to advise them, and being met with the condescending twinkle in the eye that translates as ‘Ah, so that’s what’s true in your silly little toy world, is it, tee hee, how quaint that you think such things worth repeating, well, I can only hope that one day you glimmer the real source of truth, namely, the instinctive knowledge of the chosen’. If the meme that microfounded macro has ‘no merit’ were to gain any more traction, I assert that great danger would lie ahead!: theorising that is incomplete and ‘accidental’ [in the sense meant by Krugman]; policy promises that are unverifiable; discretion untamable; and a search for new economic knowledge that is empty and futile (since the truth is already felt by the great policymakers, and the only way to divine it is to draw the few charts they ask us to plot, and sit around and wait until the charts work their inner magic and they are kind enough to write it down in speeches for us).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFtb3EtjEic
Sumner complains-how do I know he supports the policy. Ok, he's really going to pretend there's any doubt. So how do I know? Well, if Nick Rowe can have evil central bankers in his model who want ever increasing deflation and ever worsening recession
http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2013/12/getting-the-right-sign-on-the-nominal-interest-rate-signal.html#comments
why can't I have evil macroeconomists who want ever stiffer cuts in government, increased austerity, and an ever worsening life for those who aren't rich?
"There is some interesting recent commentary over North Carolina’s reduced UI benefits (here and here). I’m waiting until we have more data before I chime in. I’m an agnostic on the issue, and don’t even know if state level results would carry over to the national level. In 2014 we may get a similar experiment at the national level."
"Update: Kebko’s lastest update on North Carolina is fascinating."
"PPPPS. Off topic, but file this under “It’s good to be the king.” King Obama has waved what the Supreme Court has ruled is a tax, for lots of Americans. What a nice Christmas present!"
I mean that says it all-he says by having the ACA tax waived is a nice Christmas present but never wonders that for many Americans-over 1 million-they're getting a lump of coal in their stocking.
How do I know he favors the policy? Yes that's rich. I don't know, maybe based on everything you've ever said about UI-how many times has he cited the extension of benefits for 99 weeks as a major drag?
"For years I’ve been saying about 0.5% of the roughly 5.0% jump in unemployment was due to extended UI (albeit by much more than 13 weeks by 2009.)"
I think that piece by the Freshwater Tony Yates the other day really got at something important.
"Three concerns make it hard to resist attempting a defence, however. First, there is the concern that the macro project at large gets tarred with the same brush as the microfounders who insist almost religiously that prices are flexible and markets are efficient. So it’s worth trying to disentangle the defence of the project as a whole from defending those substantive positions. Second, there’s the concern that someone with some influence might take Adam or others who say these things seriously. Third, there’s the concern that if people inside macro don’t respond to challenge, no matter how high-handed and ill thought through, there’s the risk that we come to seem like a cult bent on disengaging, concerned to interact with those outside the cult only so far as is necessary to squeeze them for the money we need to continue playing with our toys. [Perhaps that day has already come?!]"
"In my time in central banks one definitely encountered a breed of policymaker that behaved as if they were above actually doing macro, but yet seemed to know all the answers for sure, and know how macro should be done [of course by someone else, not them]. It seemed to many of us who observed them as though they had fallen victim to the illusion that since they had done so well in life, their gut feelings about stuff must really be valuable, and that perhaps that’s where macroeconomic truth lay, in what they as great individuals felt and said. Many can tell stories of attempting to advise them, and being met with the condescending twinkle in the eye that translates as ‘Ah, so that’s what’s true in your silly little toy world, is it, tee hee, how quaint that you think such things worth repeating, well, I can only hope that one day you glimmer the real source of truth, namely, the instinctive knowledge of the chosen’. If the meme that microfounded macro has ‘no merit’ were to gain any more traction, I assert that great danger would lie ahead!: theorising that is incomplete and ‘accidental’ [in the sense meant by Krugman]; policy promises that are unverifiable; discretion untamable; and a search for new economic knowledge that is empty and futile (since the truth is already felt by the great policymakers, and the only way to divine it is to draw the few charts they ask us to plot, and sit around and wait until the charts work their inner magic and they are kind enough to write it down in speeches for us).
Yes, Mr. Yates piratically drips condescension. However, he's aware in a way that doesn't occur to anyone else from Stephen Williamson to Scott Sumner, that maybe caution is required-if the arrogance is too naked and no attention is giving to criticisms the public might tire of financing their betters. Sumner likes to talk about economists vs. laypeople as some ontological distinction.
However, the great Unwashed may tire of the CB's independence and the smug superiority of those who know so much better than they. So while Sumner is humming, he might be smart to do it inside.
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