I thought to myself "Hey! An article at the New York Times that might be worth reading!" See spoiler.
I thought to myself "Hey! An article at the New York Times that might be worth reading!" See spoiler.
Spoiler
It's not an article. It's a podcast episode. If it was ~15m - I might listen to it or I might read the transcript. But there's no way I'm listening to Ezra Klein interviewing his wife for 90 minutes.
Opinion | The Economic Theory That Explains Why Americans Are So Mad - The New York Times
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i'm reading the transcript, seems to be "but if the economy is actually great then why are americans big mad about it?" in the form of ezra klein interviewing his wife for 90 minutes, with notable insights like "actually things are pretty expensive, like healthcare and housing, so maybe people don't like that"
Back in September, the Economist put out this interesting model that pulled in a bunch of different bits of economic data, so things like the unemployment rate, inflation, gas prices, the S&P 500. And they used all that to predict how people would feel about the economy. And they showed that from 1980 to 2019. All these bits of data, they do predict how people feel about the economy.
And then the pandemic hits and the model completely falls apart.
By late 2023, the model is looking at low unemployment, it’s looking at falling inflation, it’s looking at a great stock market, and it predicts consumer sentiment. It’s going to be 98 out of 100, 98 out of 100. That is Joe Biden gets his face on a coin territory. Here, in reality, the actual consumer sentiment was 69. That is Joe Biden might lose re-election territory.
yeah turns out extrapolating weighted multivariable economic regressions isn't much more reliable than haruspicy
but it's funny, throughout the interview ezra klein keeps referring to "my theory"
And part of my theory of this, having been an economics reporter during that period, is we just weren’t paying much attention to prices. We were paying so much attention to unemployment. [etc] And then the pandemic hits and everything scrambles for a while. And then inflation comes. And inflation makes prices salient.
like the whole "theory" seems to be that people are simply noticing higher prices in a way that they (meaning himself, really) weren't before even though actually they're better off like the data shows
there's some fun quotes in here, though:
Sometimes, I think the problem with the greedflation thesis was simply the name. Greed made it sound like they were doing something evil, when what corporations do naturally is try to find the price at which they can balance market demand and the highest profits they can possibly make.
thanks, ezra!People think that what I do is evil, but the reality is I'm simply doing what crypt ghouls do naturally: developing the optimal hunting strategies to balance the local child population with the supply of succulent organ meat.
woke leftists like to ignore the incentives crypt ghouls actually have to maintain a robust, healthy local child population, not to mention the large financial donations they make to the children's hospital and organages. oops! i mean orphanages!
Sure everything has doubled in price, but your stock portfolio has also doubled in value, so you should be happy
here is the transcript: https://pastebin.com/dPp0npwM
tldr: there is an affordability crisis, ik, mind-blowing.
And so we just, as a country, don’t spend enough on this. U.S. devotes about 0.3 percent of G.D.P. to early childhood education, that’s less than other O.E.C.D. countries. Another way to think about this is that we have about a 20 to 1 ratio of children under the age of four to child care workers who are aimed at that set. Canada, for instance, it’s 6 to 1. So the issue is that we are not spending enough public money on this to make it affordable, and folks are just paying absolutely obscene amounts.
atleast she uses 'public money' instead of 'taxpayer money'. its not the worst, NYT had worse 'economists' on.
turns out we can't change it because the parliamentarian hates kids, or something
yea they dont much in the way of a solution because they are stuck in the liberal mindset. and whatever 'solutions' they present are super lame.
You can do more negotiating on prescription drug prices, which they’ve done. You can do some stuff on antitrust to make companies compete more and to lead to lower prices.
Ezra Klein's wife?
"My Wife," but for wonks.
:Portman: it’s Marxism, right?
The only reason this asshole has a job at the NYT is his support for the Iraq War.
