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letsgetitdone wrote a new diary post: Pass “The Pay China First Act:” End Debt Ceiling Hostage-taking for Good!
On May 9, 2013, The Republican House passed H.R. 807 the Full Faith and Credit Act. The Bill says in part:
(a) In General- In the event that the debt of the United States Government, as defined in section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, reaches the statutory limit, the Secretary of the Treasury shall, in [...]
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Larry Summers: The Intellectual as Courtier by masaccio.
Very nice post, masaccio. I kept thinking of synonyms or near synonyms for “courtier.” Like “suckup,” “sell out,” “ass kisser,” others a bit more off color.
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Larry Summers: The Intellectual as Courtier by masaccio.
Well, bluedot, you do know that all intellectuals aren’t believers in either Plato’s “noble lie,” or Wittgenstein’s thorough-going relativism, don’t you? Some of us do believe that truth exists, and that it’s our obligation to tell it.
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Three, Reinhart – Rogoff Retrospective by letsgetitdone.
Yes, it works, but as I said the situation is even worse than indicated in the argument.
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Larry Summers Says that Reinhart-Rogoff Type Mistakes Are “Distressingly Common” Then Goes on to Prove His Point by Dean Baker.
Sorry, the image code wasn’t picked up by the comment interface. So, here’s the url.
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Larry Summers Says that Reinhart-Rogoff Type Mistakes Are “Distressingly Common” Then Goes on to Prove His Point by Dean Baker.
As far as his point that, “it is a grave mistake to suppose that debt can or should be accumulated with abandon,” it would be interesting to know who he thinks he is arguing with. The vast majority of the left have argued that we need not worry about deficits now. There are few, if any, [...]
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letsgetitdone commented on the blog post The Real Rogoff-Reinhart Problem Was Not the Mistakes, It Was the Lack of Basic Transparency
Of course, Jon is right about lack of transparency and about treating people who refuse to release their data as charlatans. Not releasing the data in 2010, reveals a motivation on the part of R-R to avoid subjecting it to a re-analysis that might have undermined their policy position. So they were using their work as a prop for their politics not treating it as a test of their policy position. Honest empirical investigators always view their work as testing something and only incidentally as supporting one or another position. So, if they had been honest they would have circulated the data and let the chips fall where they may. They are charlatans and should be treated that way from now on.
Btw, I have three recent pieces on the R-R affair at MyFDL here, here, and here.
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Why Austerity Inevitably Backfires by wigwam.
If you cross-post it at Kos, I’ll republish it to Money and Public Purpose, and Pushing Back At the Grand Bargain. Two blogging groups over there.
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Why Austerity Inevitably Backfires by wigwam.
I disagree with only one thing! The example wasn’t tedious for this reader, and I think it should be in the post, at least in an appendix. Facebooked, Tweeted, and recc’d.
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Three, Reinhart – Rogoff Retrospective by letsgetitdone.
Sure, but it’s too soft. In addition it increases the ratio, because the spending it cuts is usually high multiplier spending. So you get rid of that, and taking into account secondary multiplier effects you’re probably getting rid of two units of GDP for every dollar of Government spending you’re cutting. Anyway, we need to [...]
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Three, Reinhart – Rogoff Retrospective by letsgetitdone.
Yes, trying to cut it is counter-productive at best, disastrous at worst. The evidence is all there now based on Europe, the UK, and the US. I think it’s not really about lowering the ratio. That’s just being used as an excuse to decimate the welfare state and widen the gap between the .0001% and [...]
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Three, Reinhart – Rogoff Retrospective by letsgetitdone.
Keep pushing, keep disseminating, keep shouting that our Emperors have no clothes.
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Three, Reinhart – Rogoff Retrospective by letsgetitdone.
That’s OK, SC, I picked up on it pretty quickly.
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Two, the Fall and After by letsgetitdone.
Yes, I agree. On the term, perhaps it’s coinage, which here in the US is still done by the Treasury.
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Two, the Fall and After by letsgetitdone.
Actually, I didn’t publish much last week since I was assimilating the R-R affair. But now I’m good to go, which is why you’re seeing a bunch of stuff appear. When I began blogging I tried to something every day. But, more recently, I’ve been doing stuff that requires more research and thinking, so that’s [...]
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letsgetitdone wrote a new diary post: Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Three, Reinhart – Rogoff Retrospective
This post is a more complete statement of my conclusions based on the analysis in Parts One and Two of this series. As I’ve explained in Part Two, there’s no reason in the Reinhart-Rogoff (R-R) data to believe that the debt-to-GDP ratio has a negative impact on growth. Ironically, that’s because their data set is terribly biased [...]
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Two, the Fall and After by letsgetitdone.
All they have to do to expand their economy is to deficit spend more without issuing debt. It has nothing to do with the Central Bank. It has to do with the neoliberal government.
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Two, the Fall and After by letsgetitdone.
“How to explain these anomalies? Fully 95 percent of Japan’s national debt is held domestically by the Japanese themselves.” That doesn’t matter. The key point in Japan’s ability to have a very high debt-to-GDP ratio and nearly zero interest is that the Central Bank targets nearly zero interest rates, and there’s nothing the bond market [...]
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Two, the Fall and After by letsgetitdone.
Thanks you, stratocruiser. I’m glad you’re reading my posts and like them. Let’s is fine, and so is Joe, since my name is Joe Firestone. I’m a Ph.d. political scientist, who after a career mainly in research, training, and Federal program consulting in policy analysis, IT, and Knowledge Management, became engaged by politics and economics [...]
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letsgetitdone commented on the diary post Make ‘em Prove the Causality before They Cause Any More Suffering: Part Two, the Fall and After by letsgetitdone.
The ready comeback is “That theory about Japan was falsified by Berg and Hartley’s facts. Look it up!” and then give the link! And don’t say any more until they read it and come up with reasonable criticisms!
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