Like the peace movement, the environmental movement in the West was probably not Soviet-originated but they did latch onto it as an opportunity to hold us back, and largely succeeded. In both cases this produced very heterogeneous movements.
In California the most visible enviros by far are the Sierra Club, a group which has the demographics of Marin County (upper-middle-class incomes and above, call it $200K and above today). For these folks, environmentalism brings them direct benefits. It created the urban-planning industry, which amounts to a real estate cartel that legally declares most of other people's unbuilt land off-limits to development, thus raising the price of their own nice homes astronomically at the expense of anyone who comes after them and needs a home. "They can live somewhere else." The club also gets governments to create big new parks and "greenbelt preserves" to buy up that unbuilt land, where its rich members can see it from their front yards. The most outrageous thing about the club, and the broader environmental movement, is that it successfully portrays these selfish grabs to the public as if the members had done them for the benefit of you and me, who as a result will never be able to afford to live anywhere near.
According to Basic Books, publisher of DeLong's book:
"Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870–2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.
Economist Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe, and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it reveals the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction. "
I'm still laughing at that idiocy. Then, in Amazon, I read Piketty's editorial review
“Brad DeLong learnedly and grippingly tells the story of how all the economic growth since 1870 has created a global economy that today satisfies no one’s ideas of fairness. The long journey toward economic justice and more equal rights and opportunities for all shall and will continue.”
And I'm sure I will laugh at it all day long. Today one of my grandsons is finishing the study of world history for his 8th grade exam later this week and I promised him to review it together.
I stopped reading DeLong's blog a long time ago. It looks like that in the meantime he has been thinking again and again the same simple idea: richer but yet unhappy. Although the book may be a masterful interpretation of econ history as asserted by Christina Romer in Amazon, I bet it provides no serious analysis of people's unhappiness.
"It matters whether inflation is driven by increases in the costs faced by S&P 500 firms or whether it is driven by their ability to raise the amount by which they mark up their costs. It matters what form any recession induced by inflation fighting takes."
Tim does a great job with multiple true charts, which give various views on "Truth".
Neither mention that our Boomer experience of 70's inflation & stagflation came with the huge boomer demographics - and today's demographics are far far different.
Another one of the biggest things that matter which seems underdiscussed is - when sellers sell, and get cash, what are they doing, now, with that cash? The stock market tug-of-war is showing lower prices, but those who sell get cash. What are their alternative investments?
The biggest reason US deficits are not leading investors to invest elsewhere is that ... nowhere else is clearly better. Not Europe, Bitcoin/ crypto, China (ha!*), Russia; no Islamic dominated country. The US choices don't look great, but other choices look worse.
US Dollars remain dominant world currency - but weaker than last decade.
Uhmm....the U.S. has always had more high tech / high growth companies than Europe. And the historical CAPE is usually based on returns for U.S. equities. So no, I don't buy Mr. Taylor's 2nd argument.
"The green movement in the West mostly helps Russia and other non-U.S. oil producers. Some people suspect that Russia is behind much of the green movement." Only the anti tax on net CO2, anti domestic production of fuels portions of the movement.
And trade restrictions, low immigration and fiscal deficits -- the Trump trifecta -- certainly helps China, but I doubt that they are behind these policy errors.
Like the peace movement, the environmental movement in the West was probably not Soviet-originated but they did latch onto it as an opportunity to hold us back, and largely succeeded. In both cases this produced very heterogeneous movements.
In California the most visible enviros by far are the Sierra Club, a group which has the demographics of Marin County (upper-middle-class incomes and above, call it $200K and above today). For these folks, environmentalism brings them direct benefits. It created the urban-planning industry, which amounts to a real estate cartel that legally declares most of other people's unbuilt land off-limits to development, thus raising the price of their own nice homes astronomically at the expense of anyone who comes after them and needs a home. "They can live somewhere else." The club also gets governments to create big new parks and "greenbelt preserves" to buy up that unbuilt land, where its rich members can see it from their front yards. The most outrageous thing about the club, and the broader environmental movement, is that it successfully portrays these selfish grabs to the public as if the members had done them for the benefit of you and me, who as a result will never be able to afford to live anywhere near.
According to Basic Books, publisher of DeLong's book:
"Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870–2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.
Economist Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe, and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it reveals the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction. "
https://www.basicbooks.com/?s=Delong++slouching+towards+utopia
I'm still laughing at that idiocy. Then, in Amazon, I read Piketty's editorial review
“Brad DeLong learnedly and grippingly tells the story of how all the economic growth since 1870 has created a global economy that today satisfies no one’s ideas of fairness. The long journey toward economic justice and more equal rights and opportunities for all shall and will continue.”
And I'm sure I will laugh at it all day long. Today one of my grandsons is finishing the study of world history for his 8th grade exam later this week and I promised him to review it together.
I stopped reading DeLong's blog a long time ago. It looks like that in the meantime he has been thinking again and again the same simple idea: richer but yet unhappy. Although the book may be a masterful interpretation of econ history as asserted by Christina Romer in Amazon, I bet it provides no serious analysis of people's unhappiness.
It's Eric Zitzewitz, as ref. by Tim, with info on the stock market (he's also interested in prediction mkts):
https://econofact.org/is-the-u-s-stock-market-fairly-valued
"It matters whether inflation is driven by increases in the costs faced by S&P 500 firms or whether it is driven by their ability to raise the amount by which they mark up their costs. It matters what form any recession induced by inflation fighting takes."
Tim does a great job with multiple true charts, which give various views on "Truth".
Neither mention that our Boomer experience of 70's inflation & stagflation came with the huge boomer demographics - and today's demographics are far far different.
Another one of the biggest things that matter which seems underdiscussed is - when sellers sell, and get cash, what are they doing, now, with that cash? The stock market tug-of-war is showing lower prices, but those who sell get cash. What are their alternative investments?
The biggest reason US deficits are not leading investors to invest elsewhere is that ... nowhere else is clearly better. Not Europe, Bitcoin/ crypto, China (ha!*), Russia; no Islamic dominated country. The US choices don't look great, but other choices look worse.
US Dollars remain dominant world currency - but weaker than last decade.
(Not Brazil - it's the country of the Future!
... and always will be.)
Uhmm....the U.S. has always had more high tech / high growth companies than Europe. And the historical CAPE is usually based on returns for U.S. equities. So no, I don't buy Mr. Taylor's 2nd argument.
"The green movement in the West mostly helps Russia and other non-U.S. oil producers. Some people suspect that Russia is behind much of the green movement." Only the anti tax on net CO2, anti domestic production of fuels portions of the movement.
And trade restrictions, low immigration and fiscal deficits -- the Trump trifecta -- certainly helps China, but I doubt that they are behind these policy errors.
"Some people suspect that Russia is behind much of the green movement."
I'm sure you mean "Some knowledgeable people," I'm sure you're right, and I'm sure they're right. Middle-Eastern petrostates too.