economics - Robert Maguire on Diigo

30 Nov 09

"The stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do—it is contributing to ending the recession. In my view, without the stimulus, G.D.P would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent,"
Mark Zandi, economics adviser to the McCain campaign. More on Zandi here.

29 Nov 09

The curious economic effects of religion - The Boston Globe

www.boston.com/...s_economic_effects_of_religion - Preview

hell religion politics economy economics statistics reference

They found that religion has a measurable effect on developing economies - and the most powerful influence relates to how strongly people believe in hell.

The Devil's Workshop - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/...the-devils-workshop.html - Preview

politics reference economy hell religion economics belief statistics

Their results show a strong correlation between economic growth and
certain shifts in beliefs, though only in developing countries.
Most
strikingly, if belief in hell jumps up sharply while actual church
attendance stays flat, it correlates with economic growth. Belief in
heaven also has a similar effect, though less pronounced. Mere belief
in God has no effect one way or the other. Meanwhile, if church
attendance actually rises, it slows growth in developing economies.

25 Nov 09

The Globe's Policeman - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/...the-globes-policeman.html - Preview

US dod defense military europe politics spending economy economics

We are
not colonists. We have little interest in actually conquering
territory. But we do have an overabundance of faith in the ability of
our military to insure our security and our economic interests across
the globe.
Our military foots the bill for the defense of Europe and
our Asian allies, allowing those countries to spend their own tax
revenues on lavish safety nets and top-notch education programs.
Meanwhile, Americans pay for Leviathan. Or at least the Leviathan with
the guns.
1 more annotations...
- One trillion dollars a year is a lot of money
  that could have gone to innovation in the markets. We can’t have it
  both ways, of course, even though everyone in Washington will tell you
  that we can. Indeed, it is the European governments which are freed
  from this military spending which are spending the most on butter,
  while Americans find themselves more and more mired in debt. You can
  have guns or you can have butter, but you can’t have both.

21 Nov 09

Matthew Yglesias » Change in Debt-to-GDP Ratio

yglesias.thinkprogress.org/...hange-in-debt-to-gdp-ratio.php - Preview

deficit gdp economy economics politics US reference statistics conservatives republicans liberals democrats government spending

18 Nov 09

China's middle class threatens US resource security by Tom Ricks | The Best Defense

ricks.foreignpolicy.com/...hina_s_middle_class_worries_me - Preview

resources conflict climatechange china US politics Gen. Casey miitary dod energy middleclass economy economics

The nugget of his speech that really struck
me though, being a "natural
security" nerd, was when Casey said that the "middle class in China is
larger than the entire population of the United States; this will increase
pressure on resources." A few sentences later he listed this as a source of
future conflict.

17 Nov 09

The Big Freak Out | Foreign Policy

www.foreignpolicy.com/...the_big_freak_out - Preview

US politics superfreakonomics freakonomics economics climatechange global cooling

What really addles their newfound detractors, though, is the
way Levitt and Dubner needlessly rely on the rhetorical tropes of the
climate-denial community. They begin with a classic rope-a-dope anecdote relating
scary climate change headlines -- only to reveal that said headlines refer to
the unfounded and overhyped global-cooling scare of the 1970s. "These days,"
they go on, "the threat is the opposite" -- inviting readers to adopt the same
sort of skepticism toward global warming (even though, unlike global cooling, it
is supported by an overwhelming scientific consensus).
Other tricks abound: They take the low risk of a worst-case
scenario -- a 5 percent chance that worldwide temperatures will rise 10 degrees
Celsius -- and use it to cast doubt on the prospects of the planet warming at
all. They even argue that carbon may not be the main cause of warming. The only
reason this "complex" reality isn't better publicized, they say, is because for
many, "global warming has taken on the feel of a religion."
8 more annotations...
- Needless to say, this doesn't sit well with the climate-change
  establishment. Climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, with NASA's Goddard Institute
  for Space Studies, told The Boston Globe,
  "At a minimum, they're guilty of
  extremely shoddy scholarship and overcredulity."
- Many point out, for
  instance, that the chapter's skeptical stance rests on the sleight-of-hand
  elision between the 5 percent chance of the worst-case climate scenario and the
  near certainty that something pretty bad will happen (even a two degree rise in
  temperatures would be catastrophic). The fury has even brought peace to
  otherwise warring scientific camps -- physicist Joseph Romm and climate modeler
  William Connelley, two bitter rivals over a whole range of global-warming
  arcana, have managed to find common ground in their mutual disgust for Chapter
  5.
- A bit melodramatically, Romm even dubbed them with
  the neologistic acronym "FAKERs -- Famous ‘Authorities' whose Knowledge (of
  climate) is Extremely Rudimentary."
- They're just doing
  the Lord's work, in other words, explaining the complexities of climate and
  batting down misperceptions.
  
  But why then open with a tired bit about global cooling? Why
  call global warming a "religion"?
- It's one thing to be
  contrarian about relatively minor things like the economics of sumo wrestling.
  "Chapter 5," however, shows that Levitt and Dubner are more interested in
  entertainment than balance. "This is a serious issue," wrote Krugman. "We're
  talking, quite possibly, about the fate of civilization. It's not a place to play
  snarky, contrarian games."
- "The
  Freakonomists have a history of misrepresenting environmental science," wrote
  econ-blogger Felix Salmon, noting that in one section of their 2005 book they
  took the highest-cost estimate for an EPA regulation as the only option, then
  drew extensive conclusions from it. "Why would they pick a number which seems
  designed to shock," Salmon asked, "rather than a much more reliable number
  which is less shocking?"
- And still others
  have noted problems with even some of Freakonomics's
  most hallowed chapters, including a devastating critique of Levitt's argument
  that legalizing abortion led to lower crime rates in the 1990s by two Boston
  Federal Reserve economists, results that Levitt himself admitted were "personally quite embarrassing."
- "Imagine
  the best of Levitt put into readable form by an excellent journalist," wrote
  blogger and George Mason economist Tyler Cowen at the time. "When it comes to
  the popular exposition of contemporary economic research, this book is a
  milestone."

16 Nov 09

China's Empty City - Al Jazeera English Reports • VideoSift: Online Video *Quality Control

www.videosift.com/...ity-Al-Jazeera-English-Reports - Preview

china economy economics housing city politics financialcrisis gdp statistics reference

12 Nov 09

Who Brought Down the Berlin Wall? - By Christian Caryl | Foreign Policy

www.foreignpolicy.com/...o_brought_down_the_berlin_wall - Preview

economics george h. w. bush politics coldwar berlin wall reference cia history russia reagan gorbachev

No. 1: It was Ronald Reagan.
No. 2: It was inevitable.
3 more annotations...
- No. 3: It was the CIA.
- No. 4: It was the KGB.
- No. 5: It was all about
  economics.

11 Nov 09

Harvard Business Review: SuperFreakonomics Ignores the Business Case for Sustainability « Climate Progress

climateprogress.org/...onomicsharvard-business-review - Preview

climatechange US superfreakonomics freakonomics business economy economics resources oil fossilfuels statistics reference

Instead, let’s just think about the business benefits of changing our products and processes to reduce carbon emissions, regardless of the atmospheric benefits. How will changing to a lower-carbon economy help companies? Well, there’s real money involved here — energy and other resources are getting fundamentally more expensive over time as demand around the world rises and supply gets harder to find. Oddly, the SuperFreakonomics authors acknowledge this Econ 101 supply problem in passing with the statement: “In just a few centuries, we will have burned up most of the fossil fuel that took 300 million years…to make.” So why wouldn’t we want to move away from a declining resource?

Put really simply, it saves money to reduce greenhouse emissions. It makes businesses more competitive to use less energy and to help customers do the same. It also creates jobs in a wide range of industries that help build a low-carbon economy — from the obvious solar panel builders and installers to the less sexy home weatherizers, electric vehicle manufacturers and mechanics, and building efficiency consultants and experts.
2 more annotations...
- The countries and companies that decouple themselves from fossil fuels will slash their costs and increase profits mightily. In fact, as Robert Kennedy, Jr. pointed out in a speech recently, the countries that have already reduced their reliance on fossil fuels — such as Iceland, with its geothermal energy, and Sweden, with a carbon tax driving down energy use as the country grew — have made their economies richer and more stable. (Yes, Iceland then bet its wealth on bad investments at the heart of the financial crisis in 2008 and bankrupted itself, but that’s another story.)
- As many have repeatedly argued, we also place ourselves at great risk globally by continuing to pour money into oil markets.

Cost of extra year's climate inaction $500 billion: IEA | Green Business | Reuters

www.reuters.com/...idUSTRE5A91U420091110 - Preview

statistics costs climatechange economy economics environment reference

The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.

09 Nov 09

Ryan Sager - Neuroworld – Neurovid: How to sell a dollar for more than a dollar - True/Slant

trueslant.com/...-dollar-for-more-than-a-dollar - Preview

US politics reference lobbying lobbyists money economics economy

05 Nov 09

Karl Rove Discovers Fiscal Conservatism, Ctd - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/...karl.html - Preview

statistics bush deficit conservatives republicans economy economics spending doublestandards

According to the treasury department's Bureau of Public Debt, the federal deficit went from $5,728,195,796,181.57 on January 22, 2001 to $10,626,877,048,913.08 on January
20, 2009. Bear in mind that the allegedly fiscally conservative
Republican Party ran this government for six of those eight years.
Roughly two trillion of that debt was added after Democrats took over
Congress in 2007.

30 Oct 09

Must-have PPTs: GOP witness details harsh impact Bush-Cheney policies had on U.S. manufacturing jobs « Climate Progress

climateprogress.org/...bush-and-conservative-congress - Preview

politics US economics economy bush conservatives republicans statistics reference jobs manufacturing

The US manufacturing sector has lost over 5.1 million jobs in the last 10 years. Output and investment per GDP has fallen consistently and imports have risen sharply. (See charts below) This is not the time to implement risky unproven climate policy. The US economy cannot afford to lose any more jobs or shutdown facilities. Approximately 40,000 manufacturing plants have closed during the seven years ending in 2008. We have lost eleven industries that we were once dominant since the late 1990s. By late 2008, the US trade deficit with China alone was running at close to $1 billion per day, amounting to more than $90 per month or more than $1100 per year for every American.
3 more annotations...
- He seemed to think that a strong argument against the clean energy bill was that the U.S. manufacturing sector has been devastated by eight years of conservative rule.

29 Oct 09

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/...chart-of-the-day-ii-2.html - Preview

politics us financialcrisis statistics reference greatdepression economy obama stimulus economics

28 Oct 09

Is a McDonalds-less Iceland now vulnerable to attack? | FP Passport

blog.foreignpolicy.com/...eland_now_vulnerable_to_attack - Preview

iceland mcdonald's US conflict war friedman commerce peace trade economy economics

27 Oct 09

Why the Economy Needs Spending, Not Tax Cuts | Capital Gains and Games

capitalgainsandgames.com/...my-needs-spending-not-tax-cuts - Preview

spending government statistics obama republicans conservatives bush economy economics politics

But he or whoever ghosted this op-ed for him neglected to check the facts.
According to the Congressional Budget Office's January 2009 estimate for fiscal year 2009, outlays were projected to be $3,543 billion and revenues were projected to be $2,357 billion, leaving a deficit of $1,186 billion.
9 more annotations...
- Keep in mind that these estimates were made before Obama took office, based on existing law and policy, and did not take into account any actions that Obama might implement
- unless one thinks that McCain would have somehow or other raised taxes and cut spending (with a Democratic Congress), rather than enacting a stimulus of his own, then a deficit of $1.2 trillion was baked in the cake the day Obama took office.
- According to CBO, it ended with spending at $3,515 billion and revenues of $2,106 billion for a deficit of $1,409 billion.
- To recap, the deficit came in $223 billion higher than projected, but spending was $28 billion and revenues were $251 billion less than expected. Thus we can conclude that more than 100 percent of the increase in the deficit since January is accounted for by lower revenues. Not one penny is due to higher spending.
- According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, these tax cuts reduced revenues in FY2009 by $98 billion over what would otherwise have been the case.
- As if we needed further evidence that transfers have virtually no stimulative effect, the Bureau of Labor Statistics just issued a report on the 2008 tax rebate showing that only 30 percent of the money was spent; the rest was saved
- On January 24, 2008, George W. Bush assured the country that a tax rebate was just the right medicine to prevent an economic downturn.
- It continues to amaze me that no one on the left or right seems to have noticed that the essential factor causing the economic downturn is a decline in velocity: the number of times that money turns over in the economy, which is measured as the ratio of the money supply to GDP. In 2006 and 2007 this ratio was 1.9. I take that as normal. In 2008, velocity fell to 1.76 and currently is 1.69. (I divided end of year M2 into 4^th quarter GDP; the latest figure is 2^nd quarter GDP divided by end of June money supply.)
  
  If velocity were 1.9 instead of 1.69, 2^nd quarter GDP would have been $1.6 trillion higher. Therefore, no recession. The output gap would have simply disappeare
- I continue to believe that the Republican position is nonsensical. Final proof is that the previously cited CBO report shows total federal revenues coming in at 14.9 percent of the gross domestic product in FY2009. According to the Office of Management and Budget, one has to go back to 1950 to find a year when federal revenues were lower as a share of GDP. For reference, revenues averaged 18 percent of GDP during the Reagan administration and were never lower than 17.3 percent - 2.4 percent of GDP above where they are now.

26 Oct 09

Economics for Equity and the Environment

e3network.org - Preview

US economics statistics reference climatechange environment

25 Oct 09

BBC NEWS | Europe | Rich Germans demand higher taxes

news.bbc.co.uk/...8321967.stm - Preview

germany rich wealthy taxes politics financialcrisis europe economy economics responsibility

The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany's economic recovery.
The group say the financial crisis is leading to an increase in unemployment, poverty and social inequality.
Simply donating money to deal with the problems is not enough, they want a change in the whole approach.
2 more annotations...
- Those who had "made a fortune through inheritance, hard work, hard-working, successful entrepreneurship, or investment" should contribute by paying more to alleviate the crisis.
- there were 2.2 million people in Germany with a fortune of more than 500,000 euros.
  If they all paid the tax for two years, Germany could raise 100bn euros to fund ecological programmes, education and social projects,

21 Oct 09

Nathan Myhrvold jumps the shark — and jumps ship on Levitt and Dubner (on their blog!) asserting: “Geoengineering is proposed only as a last resort to try to reduce or cope with the even greater harms of global warming! … The point of the chapter in Super

climateprogress.org/...oengineering-superfreakonomics - Preview

US politics emissions caldiera superfreakonomics freakonomics economy economics climatechange geoengineering

Geoengineering is proposed only as a last resort to try to reduce or cope with the even greater harms of global warming!

… The point of the chapter in SuperFreakonomics is that geoengineering might be good insurance in case we don’t get global warming under control.
eoengineering is proposed only as a last resort to try to reduce or cope with the even greater harms of global warming!

… The point of the chapter in SuperFreakonomics is that geoengineering might be good insurance in case we don’t get global warmi
3 more annotations...
- That is exactly the opposite of what the book argues and represents a complete repudiation of the chapter from one of the main sources on which Levitt and Dubner relied.
- Caldeira, who is researching the idea [of aerosol geoengineering], argues that it can succeed only if we first reduce emissions.
- Levitt and Dubner ignore his view and champion his work as a permanent substitute for emissions cuts. When I told Dubner that Caldeira doesn’t believe geoengineering can work without cutting emissions, he was baffled. “I don’t understand how that could be,” he said. In other words, the Freakonomics guys just flunked climate science.

Robert Maguire's Library tagged economics → View Popular

Quote For The Day - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

The curious economic effects of religion - The Boston Globe

The Devil's Workshop - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

The Globe's Policeman - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Matthew Yglesias » Change in Debt-to-GDP Ratio

China's middle class threatens US resource security by Tom Ricks | The Best Defense

The Big Freak Out | Foreign Policy

China's Empty City - Al Jazeera English Reports • VideoSift: Online Video *Quality Control

Who Brought Down the Berlin Wall? - By Christian Caryl | Foreign Policy

Harvard Business Review: SuperFreakonomics Ignores the Business Case for Sustainability « Climate Progress

Cost of extra year's climate inaction $500 billion: IEA | Green Business | Reuters

Ryan Sager - Neuroworld – Neurovid: How to sell a dollar for more than a dollar - True/Slant

Karl Rove Discovers Fiscal Conservatism, Ctd - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Must-have PPTs: GOP witness details harsh impact Bush-Cheney policies had on U.S. manufacturing jobs « Climate Progress

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Is a McDonalds-less Iceland now vulnerable to attack? | FP Passport

Why the Economy Needs Spending, Not Tax Cuts | Capital Gains and Games

Economics for Equity and the Environment

BBC NEWS | Europe | Rich Germans demand higher taxes

Nathan Myhrvold jumps the shark — and jumps ship on Levitt and Dubner (on their blog!) asserting: “Geoengineering is proposed only as a last resort to try to reduce or cope with the even greater harms of global warming! … The point of the chapter in Super

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