For Sumner it's about getting the other guy to say 'You were right and I was wrong.'
"First of all, Noah completely misses the point. Krugman now denies that 2013 was a test. That’s because he lost. That’s what this is all about. But Noah Smith doesn’t mention that embarrassing fact just as Brad DeLong didn’t mention that fact. Hmmm, I wonder why? I never thought 2013 was a particularly effective test, although I certainly think it tells us something. Which is true, it’s not that good a test, but does tell us something. But somehow I come off worse than Krugman in the paragraph. I wonder why?"
"There is nothing fuzzy about the MM view of fiscal stimulus. Monetary offset—how complicated is that? The only think fuzzy is the image of MM in the minds of people who have not taken the time to read our views."
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=25813&cpage=2#comment-312125
Actually what's fuzzy about monetary offset is it didn't happen in 2013 as Delong shows-we actually recovered less than 2/5 of the ouput gap which is what you'd expect with roughly neutral combined fiscal and monetary policy.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/01/now-were-talking-delong-takes-on-white.html
As to any 'test' Noah is right that 2013 is not in anyway a meaningful test. Sumner insists that while it's not a great test it shows us something. If it shows anything it's that QE3 failed to totally offset the sequester.
I don't usually like to do this but here I think I'll just recycle my comment to Sumner in the comments section which I think sum up a lot of it.
"But somehow I come off worse than Krugman in the paragraph. I wonder why?”
"First of all, Noah completely misses the point. Krugman now denies that 2013 was a test. That’s because he lost. That’s what this is all about. But Noah Smith doesn’t mention that embarrassing fact just as Brad DeLong didn’t mention that fact. Hmmm, I wonder why? I never thought 2013 was a particularly effective test, although I certainly think it tells us something. Which is true, it’s not that good a test, but does tell us something. But somehow I come off worse than Krugman in the paragraph. I wonder why?"
"There is nothing fuzzy about the MM view of fiscal stimulus. Monetary offset—how complicated is that? The only think fuzzy is the image of MM in the minds of people who have not taken the time to read our views."
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=25813&cpage=2#comment-312125
Actually what's fuzzy about monetary offset is it didn't happen in 2013 as Delong shows-we actually recovered less than 2/5 of the ouput gap which is what you'd expect with roughly neutral combined fiscal and monetary policy.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/01/now-were-talking-delong-takes-on-white.html
As to any 'test' Noah is right that 2013 is not in anyway a meaningful test. Sumner insists that while it's not a great test it shows us something. If it shows anything it's that QE3 failed to totally offset the sequester.
I don't usually like to do this but here I think I'll just recycle my comment to Sumner in the comments section which I think sum up a lot of it.
"But somehow I come off worse than Krugman in the paragraph. I wonder why?”
"Maybe because your gloating is both obnoxious and baseless. I mean it’s obnoxious anyway but you really have no reason to be gloating."
”MMs predict that NGDPLT will reduce the severity of the business cycle. Not easy to test, but certainly testable over a period of time.”
"The early results are not auspicious. When you look at the fact that we still haven’t made up the output gap clearly we could have used more fiscal stimulus or just less fiscal austerity over the last 5 years."
"The last 4 years have basically been MM. We’ve had no more FS and since the GOP got in in 2011 we’ve had sharply contractionary FP while we’ve had QE2 and QE3."
"How are the results? This is the weakest most shallow recovery in the postwar era. I get that you just want to make it about Krugman rather than the more important question of what these four years of MM have actually given us. it just makes you look narrowminded and petty. Who cares who gets bragging rights?
However, you and your fellow MMers continue to mischaracterize what Krugman said anyway. He never said that we’d have either a recession or that growth would fall off the cliff. So the fact that this hasn’t happened gives you nothing to gloat about."
"At the end of the day this is all that matters-not this putrid game of ‘I was right and you were wrong’-namely would growth have been better without the sequester. As Delong shows the answer is yes. If there were full monetary offset in 2013 growth would have been higher."
"While QE3 may have offset some of the sequester it surely didn’t offset all of it which means you have: nothing to gloat about."
"I know perfectly well this won’t stop you but facts are facts. No one outside of the little MM bubble-with fellow travelers like Bob Murphy, who cares about nothing but taking potshots at Krugman no matter how baseless-are buying into this perpetual ticker tape parade."
"If they are link to their posts so we can read them-again outside the MM bubble."
"No surprise that this post that you talk such a big game-’no one’s getting in my way’ doesn’t even look at Noah’s actual arguments which are dead on here. If he’s a Bayesian then you are a ‘small-sample Frequentist’ who is just doing limited ‘event studies.’
Some oldies but goodies. Daniel gave us the great definition of monetary offset-'code for letting people starve.
Becky Hargrove: 'Never mind the taper, brace yourself for the wrath of Mike Sax.'
As long as a guy like Sumner is out here, mocking anyone who even notices the pain of the poor, the unemployed, and struggling, peeing on their legs and telling them their idiots for not realizing it's raining this wrath just isn't going to quench.
No comments:
Post a Comment