Around the Traps 17/5/13

It is time once again for Around the Traps.
Certainly the highlight of the week was the last episode of Castle. Who could have thought there were so many Caskett Shippers out there!

I have added a Japanese section this week. I might add an environment section next week.
updates this afternoon and on Saturday and now Sunday!  All updated


Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Harry Clarke on equity-prices-in-australia
• Mumble on schlocky_movie , trapped_in_a_small_place and making_history
• Brian Banisch on co2-hits-400-ppm ,carbon-price-tax-cuts-deferred and greenland-melt
• Matt Cowgill on what-is-the-typical-australians-income-in-2013
• The inimitable Ricardian Ambivalence says budget-2013-14-its-mostly-structural ,budget-2013-14-terms-of-trade-forecasts-are-imprudent,mind-the-gap-aud-fx-edition and au-and-nz-budgets-its-the-terms-of-trade
• Sinclair Davidson can't read his own graphs
• Ross Gittins on swans-last-budget-weird-in-good-way and worry-more-about-economy-than-budget
• The Kouk gives us a-few-fiscal-and-financial-facts-ahead-of-mr-abbotts-budget-reply and gross-government-debt-under-the-howard-government
• Andrew Elder on manufacturing-base and ( this is late but good) shadows-on-press-gallery-wall-2-where-the-action-isn't
• Mark the Graph back to life on budget-charts  Welcome back Mark!!
• Gummo Trostky on worth-a-look
• Kevin Bonham on julia-gillard-same-sex-marriage-enemy-1

US

• Calculated Risk on  labor-force-participation-rate-research ,cbo-update-deficit-shrinking-rapdily and key-measures-show-low-and-falling-inflation
• Angry Bear on medicare-claim-costs-growth-under-1-in-2013-why-
• James Hamilton on how_fannie_mae-made-its-profit
• Barkely Rosser on more-benghazi-myths and is-decline-in-us-budget-deficits-merely- interesting
• Dave Altig on labor-force-participation-and-the-unemployment-threshold
• Menzies Chin on crowding_out_watch
• Mark Thoma on bad-news-for-deficit-hawks-and-opponents-of-obamacare
• Mark Thoma gives us tim Duy who writes on  fed-watch-plosser-on-the-exit and fed-watch-lumping-everything-into-the-wealth-effect and fed-watch-dollar-up-and-confidence-boom
• Brad De Long on the-oregon-medicaid-lottery-new-england-journal-of-medicine-power-calculations
• The always laid back David Glasner on wherein-i-try-to-help-robert-waldmann-calm-down Not possible David!!
• Mark Thoma gives us the NY Fed how-are-american-workers-dealing-with-the-payroll-tax-hike
• Kruggers on about-that-debt-crisis-never-mind, too-much-talk-about-liquidity
• Jared Bernstein on cbos-new-budget-update-a-fire-hose-for-hair-on-fire-austerions-re-near-term-deficits
• Steve Roth says the-fed-is-not-printing-money-its-retiring-bonds-and-issuing-reserves
• Well Canada actually but Nick Rowe says if-you-dont-like-low-interest-rates-you-want-the-bank-of-canada-to-loosen-monetary-policy-nowl
• Nate Silver on new-audit-allegations-show-flawed-statistical-thinking. Katesy please read.

Japan

• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy who says fed-watch-what-does-japan-mean-for-the-rest-of-the-worldl
• Ricardian Ambivalence on japanese-flows-we-11-may

Europe

• Petra Gerlach on firm-and-household-credit-constraints
• Kruggers on that-hideous-strength

General

• Kruggers writes about nevillenomics , austerity-in-the-new-york-review-of-books and finally old-fashioned-austerity
• Livio De Matteo on three-short-notes-on-the-economics-of-waterways and the-interest-rate-time-bomb
• The ever thoughtful Noah Smith on why-do-people-support-austerity and then read Kruggers  the-smithkleinkalecki-theory-of-austerity and then krugman-vs-sandwichman
• Mark Thoma on cyclical-and-structural-factors
• Frances Woolley on why-bikes-are-cooler-than-cars does this mean when the hot Frances rides a cool bike it gets steamy?
• Scientific American on ice-melt-sea-level-rise-to-be-less
• Progrowth liberal on working-conditions-in-bangladesh
• The unique Philip Lane gives us the-investment-strategies-of-sovereign-wealth-funds ( really interesting) and also unconventional-monetary-policies
• FRB on history of cyclical macro prudential policy in the USA
• Lord Keynes on the-essence-of-post-keynesian-theory-of-unemployment if you are into that and is-there-english-subjectivist-school
• Diane Coyle on another-take-on-classics-for-economists
• Chris Dillow on sir-alex-a-dying-culture or why socialism works in football
• Econbrowser gives us george_akerlof
• Mark Thoma gives us Dan Little on what-about-marx
• Robert Waldeman on high-marginal-tax-rates-are-associated-with-high-gdp-growth

Andrew Gelman, Statistics of course

• a-structural-comparison-of-conspicuous-consumption-in-china-and-the-united-states
• gpstuff-bayesian-modeling-with-gaussian-processes
• reputations-changeable-situations-tolerable
• does-quantum-uncertainty-have-a-place-in-everyday-applied-statistics
• how-do-we-choose-our-default-methods
• how-can-statisticians-help-psychologists-do-their-research-better
• where-do-theories-come-from
• uuuuuuuuuuuuugly
• Good stats Bad stats on Drinking and driving
• Kaiser Fong asserts so-much-medical-research-is-pretend-science and i-dont-like-401k-either

David Giles and econometrics

• whats-your-favourite-estimator
• top-economics-blogs
• Green grains blogspot on spatial-econometric-peeves-wonkish Thanks Mark Thoma

Wonk

• The very consistent Simon Wren-Lewis on sheedy-on-ngdp-targeting-and-debt
• Nick Rowe asks do-new-keynesians-need-much-labour-hoarding
• Lord Keynes on kaldor-on-irrelevance-of-equilibrium ( I remember this from University days)
• Mark Thoma directs us tonew-research-in-economics-robust-stability-of-monetary-policy-rules-under-adaptive-learning
• Philip Lane ( who else) on fixing-the-monetary-transmission-mechanism
• Sandwichman on the-odd-coupling-asking-wrong-questions

Vox wonk

• communication-european-central-bank-inconsistent-yet-effective
• do-patent-rights-impede-follow-innovation
• can-ftas-support-factory-asia
• are-germans-poorer-other-europeans-principal-eurozone-differences-wealth-and-income
• why-reforms-fail-political-economy-forces-and-agriculture-africa
• views-among-economists-are-economists-really-so-divided
• cuddly-or-not-design-worker-insurance-critically-important
• unleashing-growth-decline-innovation-blocking-institutions
• fiscal-prioritisation-lessons-three-wars

Austerity

I could write more on pursuing austerity at the wrong time is always bad for the economy.
 but why bother.

Paul Krugman has an excellent article in the the New York Review of Books  how-case-austerity-has-crumbled.

And then Noah Smith has a very thoughtful piece on why-do-people-support-austerity.

Both highly worth reading.

As for something different Steve Kates shows he is mad again.
Just to help out Steve's therapist:

• Getting the budget back into balance when the economy is quite healthy is a Keynesian notion and was sold by Treasury as such.
• Growth started in Australia well before there was a change of Government 
• Growth slowed a tad after the first budget but then went back to where it was going after that.
• Angel Merkel's prescription has really worked in Europe hasn't it!!

Finally perhaps Katesy can tell us why only one case of austerity succeeded in Ireland and why two failed dismally

Daddy Cool

in the early to Mid 70s Caddy Cool were as good as any overseas band live.

This is them at their best.

come back again . enjoy.

Castle's last episode of the season. Some Reactions

US
Paul Krugman said Their relationship was never a long term one. Castle was more interested in super models in the past than in simple ISLM models.

Brad De Long has his Department of Huh! If Beckett is not in a depression the multilpier for their relationship is near zero

David Glasner says Neither Castle nor Beckett paid enough attention to relationships during the 30s. Castle has an inflation problem and this can only be overcome by planting a Haw tree.

 David Giles stated he had done an equation on the last episode of Castle, the Mentalist, Jag and Bones and got a R2 of .98

Frances Woolley survey of university students found Captain Gates was the hottest female.

Andrew Gelman asserted both these studies suffered from poor P values as they were affected by Castle's prostate

Europe
Simon Wren-Lewis believed the reason for people only drinking red wine on Castle  was because the series suffered from a liquidity trap

Kevin o'Rourke said the series should be renamed Kevin Ryan Boyo

Australia
Ricardian Ambivalence said the reason for problems between Castle and Beckett was that the real and nominal partsof their relationship were diverging.

Andrew Bolt stated Beckett was no longer hot and this proved that AGW was a hoax!

Sinclair Davidson said Castle should dump Beckett and marry a female cop from the private sector.

Mark Banisch stated Beckett should dump Castle as he was attempting to impose a neo-liberal relationship upon her

Steve Kates said the problem was that  all the writers were Keynesians and were trying to stimulate Castle too much

Judith Sloan said Beckett should have used peroxide

and here is what all Caskett shippers have been waiting for

Steve Kates is Mad

Here is Steve Kates rabbiting on about Austerity in Europe.

Note this.
'Government budget deficits in Europe are still up to twice as large as they were before the GFC – when no one described them as austere – and are contributing to already vast public debt burdens. Far from the ‘savage cuts’ of Wayne Swan’s imagination, European governments have reduced only the rate of growth of public spending. Even in Greece, a country with little population or economic growth in recent years, spending is still greater than it was five years ago.'

Fact

Underlying Primary Budget Balance, OECD Economic Outlook  2013

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
France	-4.4	-3.6	-1.8	-0.7	1.1
Italy	0.2	1.3	1.5	3.9	4.9
Germany	1.0	-0.1	1.1	1.6	1.8
Greece	-10.3	-3.6	1.3	4.2	6.5
Ireland	-7.3	-4.5	-2.7	-0.5	1.5
Portugal	-5.6	-4.8	-1.6	1.1	3.5
Spain	-5.0	-3.6	-0.9	1.45	2.4

Note how all the 'problem' countries have adopted contractionary policies Kates advocates not the expansionary policies a Keynesian would have.

Europe has/is experiencing a recession. Even though structural deficits have improved overall deficits have not as yet because of the recession Kates's recommendations brought on.

The public sector has detracted from growth in Europe. Contractionary fiscal policies has brought on an economic contraction. This was totally expected given that interest rates couldn't be lowered much more and the exchange rate was never going to depreciate enough to make up growth elsewhere.

A person expecting austerity to promote growth under these conditions is mad. A person who believes European countries underwent fiscal expansion is mad.

Steve Kates is such a man.

He is several sandwiches short of a picnic!

Coldplay

It was only last week I listened to The Scientist by Coldplay because a Castle fan combined it with stuff from Castle.

It is now my favourite song. No it is the greatest song ever!

Here is one of the best  live versions

Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell was one of the GREAT singer/songwriters.

Her Live album Miles of Isles was one of the best live albums ever made.Fantastic backing band to boot!

Unfortunately I couldn't get this song from that album on youtube but this live performance isn't far off. Unfortunately no clarinet at the finish though

Her best ever song He played real good for free

enjoy