John Cochrane on fiscal inflation; Timothy Taylor on grade inflation; Heather Heying on cynicism, faith, and skepticism; Willy Chertman on Institutional Review Boards
College is efficient at helping those who are intellectually comfortable with abstract thought to organize their thinking, and their critical faculties so as to better discern what is true.
Only about 25% of the people are of the MB Type abstract (N-iNtuitive) rather than concrete (S-Sensory). Except for signaling a work ethic and as a high IQ proxy, college has much less education value for the majority 75% who are not abstract iNtuitives.
It might well have lots of network effect benefits; but that's not the usual justification for huge gov't support of hedge funds attached to a non-profit/low taxed college - like Harvard.
IRB's are a pox. I've never seen any evidence they deliver better outcomes. Yet they are so burdensome that I know scientists that will pass on good research ideas to avoid them.
I'm excited about Chertman's idea for lawfare against IRB's. Who's working on that? I'd be happy to support them.
“Scientists should be neither faithful nor cynical. Scientists are skeptics. Scientists do not accept what authorities say simply because the authorities have said it…. etc.”
Except in public health, environmentalism, and climate (so-called) science, which are now a matter of ideology, not science.
As someone put it, no longer science based policy, but policy based science.
Leaving aside Cochrane’s eliding of the role of the Fed in controlling inflation, what is the argument about Federal Debt being a good investment? Is he saying that there has been a change in people’s judgement of the riskiness of Federal debt? Or is this a backdoor way of saying that interest rates on Federal debt, and generally, have been too low so too much was “spent” rather than “held,” so the Fed gets back into the picture after all?
Well, the Fed is also supposed to make sure that supply capacity does not outstrip demand. That's behind the dual mandate of stable prices and maximum employment. But what exactly do "stable" and "maximum" mean. I'd say that "stable" means taking into account that both too little and too much inflation reduce real incomes -- too little by producing unemployment of resources, and too much by producing an inefficient structure of resource employment -- "stable" means shooting for the middle. And "maximum" means the real income maximizing allocation of resources. Of course the hard part is knowing what settings of the policy instruments the Fed has -- how much of what it can buy and sell and persuade people to believe that it will buy and sell in the future -- will achieve its targets.
I took a look. It still seems completely wrong-headed to me. Yes, fiscal policy gave out billions of dollars in relief . The Fed's job did not change it was to make sure that relief of no relief, supply chain problems or not we have stable prices (stable inflation rate at whatever it thinks is optimal) and maximum employment. I think the Fed WAS trying to achieve that in 2021 but did not realized that (as everybody know in hindsight) it needed to start setting restrictive monetary policy instruments, dialing back QE and starting to raise ST interest rates sooner. Cochrane thinks that they abandoned their target or were at least culpably ignorant of the inflationary effects of the settings of their policy instruments.
I, too am critical of the Fed. So far it's failure to keep inflation and inflation expectations up during 2009-2020 is a lot worse than the failure to prevent the collapse of expectations in early 2020 and to prevent the actual and expected inflation since September 2021, but both are failures. One reason for judging the Fed more harshly for the earlier failure is that it was the result of a demand shock and the Fed has had plenty of experience with demand shocks. A supply shock like the public's reaction to COVID and then the massive switch from services to goods demands was novel and really did make it more difficult for the Fed to judge the impact of it's actions.
"the Fed is also supposed to make sure that supply capacity does not outstrip demand." Nope. Not part of stable prices, not part of max employment (in the USA).
AND, generally supply capacity outside of housing has outstripped demand since the 2006-2008 housing bubble/financial crisis, if not since the 2000 dot.com bubble burst. [my story, not John's, nor Arnold's]
It is precisely the supply constraints of the 70s (and of the post WW I 1920s) which combined with monetary expansion to beget the high inflation. The 70s supply constraint was also a Boomer surge in demand along with credit card consumer loan expansion, with huge competition for scarce investment capital to increase supply in the most profitable areas.
It was the "excess" supply available which, despite huge deficits and more money, resulted in continued low prices. (Few if any factories running at 100% capacity) "More money chasing fewer goods", or "Lots more money chasing the same or just a little more goods" are the two main inflation stories. Lots more money chasing flexibly more goods doesn't mean more inflation - and didn't for the 2010-2020 decade of big and increasing deficits.
Is the Fed " at least culpably ignorant" ?
Totally yes. Yellen should be fired - but no real accountability at the Treasury nor the Fed, not even from Reps who failed to vote against any Fed folk continuing. From the Dorn Cato note:
-- They fundamentally ignored the risk of inflation. Indeed, after President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan into law on March 11, 2021, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, when asked, “Is there a risk of inflation?,” responded: “I think there’s a small risk and I think it’s manageable.” She now admits her forecast error and thinks inflation will “remain high” and should be “our number one priority.” --
Better to be honest and say "we don't know" then to be wrong - but "experts" aren't supposed to "not know".
Economics is NOT a science with repeatable experiments - and no amount of math will make it so. Arnold was also surprised that huge deficits for years had not resulted in more inflation until combined with the reduced supply.
I was trying to be provocative. by "supply outstrip demand" I just mean inflation is not supposed to be too low, either. :)
I think Yelena was right to think that the Fed would be able to hit its targets. The risk of over target inflation was manageable. It did not manage it, but it could have.
Perhaps Yellen should have been fired, but while at the Fed for continuing Bernanke's policies of inadequate stimulation to achieve stable prices and maximum employment when we were clearly reaching neither. :)
I-Bonds are a good investment, currently yielding 9%, deferred to when the bonds are sold. Unfortunately individuals are capped in the amount that can be purchased.
Treasuries are an option for institutional investors. I've yet to see the value in them for direct purchase in my personal accounts. What is bewilding is how little of the Federal Funds rate trickles down to investors. Vanguard's money market pays a pittance, a small fraction of what the central bank is paying institutions for reserves.
College is efficient at helping those who are intellectually comfortable with abstract thought to organize their thinking, and their critical faculties so as to better discern what is true.
Only about 25% of the people are of the MB Type abstract (N-iNtuitive) rather than concrete (S-Sensory). Except for signaling a work ethic and as a high IQ proxy, college has much less education value for the majority 75% who are not abstract iNtuitives.
It might well have lots of network effect benefits; but that's not the usual justification for huge gov't support of hedge funds attached to a non-profit/low taxed college - like Harvard.
IRB's are a pox. I've never seen any evidence they deliver better outcomes. Yet they are so burdensome that I know scientists that will pass on good research ideas to avoid them.
I'm excited about Chertman's idea for lawfare against IRB's. Who's working on that? I'd be happy to support them.
“Scientists should be neither faithful nor cynical. Scientists are skeptics. Scientists do not accept what authorities say simply because the authorities have said it…. etc.”
Except in public health, environmentalism, and climate (so-called) science, which are now a matter of ideology, not science.
As someone put it, no longer science based policy, but policy based science.
Scott Alexander has a maddening story about trying to do a benign study and being stymied by an IRB. It is well worth reading.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/
He collects some of the more interesting comments:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/31/highlights-from-the-comments-on-my-irb-nightmare/
Doing your own research is difficult, and even then you can only do so much. In practice, we always have to decide whom to trust.
Leaving aside Cochrane’s eliding of the role of the Fed in controlling inflation, what is the argument about Federal Debt being a good investment? Is he saying that there has been a change in people’s judgement of the riskiness of Federal debt? Or is this a backdoor way of saying that interest rates on Federal debt, and generally, have been too low so too much was “spent” rather than “held,” so the Fed gets back into the picture after all?
John has a good 12p pdf available on Fiscal Inflation:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e6033a4ea02d801f37e15bb/t/6262f2052771fb6d845fe170/1650651653127/PopulismFed_8_Cochrane.pdf
I'd be interested if you think it answers your questions - it's more complete than the WSJ article.
It's pretty critical of the Fed, and rightly so. After a few pages:
"It is telling that inflation was a complete surprise to the Federal
Reserve. The Federal Reserve’s job is supposed to be to monitor the
supply capacity of the economy and to make sure demand does not
outstrip it. The Fed failed twice."
He previously notes the Expectations of Inflation.
I'll note that expectations can be irrational, but lead to actions that become data which can then be more rationally analyzed.
Well, the Fed is also supposed to make sure that supply capacity does not outstrip demand. That's behind the dual mandate of stable prices and maximum employment. But what exactly do "stable" and "maximum" mean. I'd say that "stable" means taking into account that both too little and too much inflation reduce real incomes -- too little by producing unemployment of resources, and too much by producing an inefficient structure of resource employment -- "stable" means shooting for the middle. And "maximum" means the real income maximizing allocation of resources. Of course the hard part is knowing what settings of the policy instruments the Fed has -- how much of what it can buy and sell and persuade people to believe that it will buy and sell in the future -- will achieve its targets.
I took a look. It still seems completely wrong-headed to me. Yes, fiscal policy gave out billions of dollars in relief . The Fed's job did not change it was to make sure that relief of no relief, supply chain problems or not we have stable prices (stable inflation rate at whatever it thinks is optimal) and maximum employment. I think the Fed WAS trying to achieve that in 2021 but did not realized that (as everybody know in hindsight) it needed to start setting restrictive monetary policy instruments, dialing back QE and starting to raise ST interest rates sooner. Cochrane thinks that they abandoned their target or were at least culpably ignorant of the inflationary effects of the settings of their policy instruments.
I, too am critical of the Fed. So far it's failure to keep inflation and inflation expectations up during 2009-2020 is a lot worse than the failure to prevent the collapse of expectations in early 2020 and to prevent the actual and expected inflation since September 2021, but both are failures. One reason for judging the Fed more harshly for the earlier failure is that it was the result of a demand shock and the Fed has had plenty of experience with demand shocks. A supply shock like the public's reaction to COVID and then the massive switch from services to goods demands was novel and really did make it more difficult for the Fed to judge the impact of it's actions.
"the Fed is also supposed to make sure that supply capacity does not outstrip demand." Nope. Not part of stable prices, not part of max employment (in the USA).
AND, generally supply capacity outside of housing has outstripped demand since the 2006-2008 housing bubble/financial crisis, if not since the 2000 dot.com bubble burst. [my story, not John's, nor Arnold's]
It is precisely the supply constraints of the 70s (and of the post WW I 1920s) which combined with monetary expansion to beget the high inflation. The 70s supply constraint was also a Boomer surge in demand along with credit card consumer loan expansion, with huge competition for scarce investment capital to increase supply in the most profitable areas.
It was the "excess" supply available which, despite huge deficits and more money, resulted in continued low prices. (Few if any factories running at 100% capacity) "More money chasing fewer goods", or "Lots more money chasing the same or just a little more goods" are the two main inflation stories. Lots more money chasing flexibly more goods doesn't mean more inflation - and didn't for the 2010-2020 decade of big and increasing deficits.
Is the Fed " at least culpably ignorant" ?
Totally yes. Yellen should be fired - but no real accountability at the Treasury nor the Fed, not even from Reps who failed to vote against any Fed folk continuing. From the Dorn Cato note:
-- They fundamentally ignored the risk of inflation. Indeed, after President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan into law on March 11, 2021, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, when asked, “Is there a risk of inflation?,” responded: “I think there’s a small risk and I think it’s manageable.” She now admits her forecast error and thinks inflation will “remain high” and should be “our number one priority.” --
https://www.cato.org/blog/menace-fiscal-inflation
Better to be honest and say "we don't know" then to be wrong - but "experts" aren't supposed to "not know".
Economics is NOT a science with repeatable experiments - and no amount of math will make it so. Arnold was also surprised that huge deficits for years had not resulted in more inflation until combined with the reduced supply.
I was trying to be provocative. by "supply outstrip demand" I just mean inflation is not supposed to be too low, either. :)
I think Yelena was right to think that the Fed would be able to hit its targets. The risk of over target inflation was manageable. It did not manage it, but it could have.
Perhaps Yellen should have been fired, but while at the Fed for continuing Bernanke's policies of inadequate stimulation to achieve stable prices and maximum employment when we were clearly reaching neither. :)
I-Bonds are a good investment, currently yielding 9%, deferred to when the bonds are sold. Unfortunately individuals are capped in the amount that can be purchased.
Treasuries are an option for institutional investors. I've yet to see the value in them for direct purchase in my personal accounts. What is bewilding is how little of the Federal Funds rate trickles down to investors. Vanguard's money market pays a pittance, a small fraction of what the central bank is paying institutions for reserves.
I only recently discovered I-bonds. :)