A very good, long, DeLong opus on the economy and stuff.

Post #384,010 by Another Scott 12/4/13 8:27:58 PM Reply	A very good, long, DeLong opus on the economy and stuff. http://delong.typepa...-do-about-it.html THE HONEST BROKER: IS GROWTH GETTING HARDER? IF SO, WHY, AND WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT? Attention Conservation Notice: tl;dr. 9000 words trying to work my way through and in the process provide a reader's guide to the techno-growth stagnation arguments of Robert Gordon, Tyler Cowen, and Brink Lindsey. The arguments are powerful. The authors are very serious economists. I wind up skeptical, and optimistic--partly because I am a techno-optimist by nature, partly because I am a politico-optimist and I think the literature confuses the past generation's failures in distribution and demand-management due to political dysfunction with failures in accumulation and innovation, and partly because I have a different more micro-incremental conception of the process of economic growth than does Robert Gordon. [...] (7) There is a valid "great stagnation" worry, but it is overwhelmingly one of institution design rather than of innovation exhaustion.And here we reach what I regard as the big issue. In the future we are going to want to spend a greater share of our incomes and attention in areas where the market system works less well: information goods, public goods, increasing-returns goods, pensions, health care, education. The market works less well in these areas. But our alternative modes of collective organization, product take some bureaucracy, not exactly cover themselves with glory in these areas either. Thus I suspect that not innovation exhaustion but rather institution design will be our big problem in keeping the pace of true economic growth going into the long-run future. [...] (Emphasis in original). Exactly. We know how to solve many of our important problems, and know how to create new technologies and systems that we need. We simply need the strength and will to do so. <sigh> Cheers, Scott.
Post #384,011 by boxley 12/4/13 8:52:46 PM Reply	still digging but have a question Moreover, the issue is complicated by the secular decline in the relative price of capital goods. as opposed to what, religious decline of the sale price of idols and incense? Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #384,012 by jake123 12/4/13 8:57:18 PM Reply	Secular has a specific technical meaning in economics http://www.investope...rms/s/secular.asp
Post #384,013 by boxley 12/4/13 9:06:52 PM Reply	thanks, been reading econ for years and never saw it expressed that way. First time that it stood out. Cyclic works for me Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #384,014 by jake123 12/4/13 9:18:04 PM Reply	No problem I think a large part of the current situation is that the future of the only non-fungible good in the global economy as currently constituted (i.e. oil) is on a long term trend of increasing in real cost. Since oil is the foundation of pretty much everything else that we do, from food to fripperies, we're seeing a long term inflationary trend.
Post #384,015 by a6l6e6x 12/4/13 9:22:05 PM Reply	Re: "Secular" in this context means "long term" trends. Examples of secular economic trends might be related to population growth or the relative aging of the population. The cost of extracting a barrel of oil is another example. The low hanging fruit has been picked, so to speak. While new extraction technology extends the usefulness of oil fields and while new finds are made, the costs are ever higher. The contrasting trends are short term. For example trends tied to economic cycle like unemployment rates. Another is the gasoline price gyrations based on umpteen factors. Or, the price of "beanie babies" before Christmas when that was a fad. Alex
Post #384,546 by Ashton 12/23/13 1:13:42 AM 12/23/13 2:07:29 AM Reply	Belated comment.. It's probably as legible as Econ gets.. when addressed by one not Koolaid-addicted. Could extirpate a few quotes, etc. but couldn't come close to a better-grade Manifesto--it's all just too icky. Here's one respondent's take--which just may limn the Reasons why: the changes which Must Occur worldwide--IF there is to be any intelligent action-in-time to counter (say) The effects of mindless consumerism, extrapolated==Death. Simply Won't Be Allowed to Occur. Graydon said... Incumbents hate change. The US economy is in the control of a small number of large incumbents. When change is low, growth is low. (Very slightly more formally, you have success, or you can have control; an incumbent _has_ success, so they want control, to make sure they _keep_ the success. They shove risk on to everyone around them, prevent ostensible change, and make the system unstable.) The analysis suffers from relying on impersonal forces. There's not a lot to be said for impersonal forces in terms of economic direction, it's primarily a matter of consensus among the powerful. The 90s were a period of growth because the powerful got utterly, hopelessly, what-the-hell-is-this? blindsided by VLSI chips and the implications for human communication. The correct policy response is to de-financialize the economy in a way that crushes the incumbents. None of this mamby-pamby court-ordered breakup of monopolies, either, well and truly crushed. Because the potential, between what you can really do with ubiquitous computing and the increasingly capable wet-nanotech and additive machining, is vaster than coal and oil and steel and steam all together. We're just not going to get it. Our antediluvian concepts of Money/a price-tag on the entire "Worth!!" of the Planet? A stupid mere Concept: enabled the present oligarchy of financial manipulators to Pwn It All. (As they also pwn the instruments of War: That, even, can't occur!--even to cleanse the Madness.) Entropy, Our only totally-predictable 'net output' since the hunter-gatherers'? The 'chill' of the Solstice day is mere thermodynamics; this chill is existential. Invisible to most-all of the current billions. We might change that.. Awareness -vs- Capital, eh? Ed: forgot: Joh Yard said... We are getting the growth we want - growth in financial asset values. If we can't monetize it quickly , forget about it. This is what "unlocking shareholder value" is all about. Raising the production of goods and services is seen as 20th Century old school. It is seen at best as a necessary evil, hopefully avoided, in the game of asset value accumulation. Until there is a turnover in capitalist elites to a different ethos we wont see change. The most interesting aspect of the Great Recession was something that did not occur: the turnover of financial and industrial elites that happened after 1929 has not happened. Bold for the bold? Make that 2 votes then, for where to focus that er Energy in, 'People' -vs- Top of the Capital-Pyramid. Out of 7Bs.. not many heads would roll.. quite fewer than 1st day civilians in Iraq. Edited by Ashton Dec. 23, 2013, 02:07:29 AM EST Expand All History

Welcome to IWETHEY!