Around the Traps 13/12/13

It is time again for Around the Traps.
Most people should be able to read any article and understand them. I put 'hard' articles in the wonk section.
The Stats and Econometrics section is for people who have done some subjects on it not for majors in that area!
I do not agree with every article cited. I merely put on articles which are easy to read and say something!

updates on Sunday.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• The Kouk on the-rba-poised-to-hike-interest-rates-in-2014 Brave Call Kouk!
• Mumble on three_month_slump
• Kevin Bonham on federal-2pp-aggregate-methods-44th Parliament, abbott-fastest-ever-to-lose-poll-lead
• Simon Copland on the-coalition-are-losing-it-not-the-alp-winning-it
• Bill Mitchell on The PBO-Humiliation all round
• John Quiggin on the-end-of-gmh
• David Walker on losing-manufacturing-is-what-rich-countries-do
• Mr Denmore on analysts-say
• Andrew Elder on disguise-fair-nature
• Mark the Graph on jobs
• Brian Banisch on the-general-goes
• tony and the boys give you the Third Test in the Ashes

Northern America

• Noah Smith on america-is-separating-into-peasants-and-scholar gentry
• Stephen Gordon on How much revenue would be generated by a rise in corporate taxes
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy and fed-watch-bullard-offers-up-the-tiny-taper
• FRBSF on Why do measures of inflation differ? Thanks Mark
• Calculated Risk on public-and-private-sector-payroll-jobs-under-different-Presidents, update-looking-for-stronger-economic-growth-in-2014, update-when-will-payroll-employment-exceed-the-pre-recession-peak
• Menzie Chinn on the_everexpanding_Government_meme
• Kevin Drum on war-over-austerity-over-republicans-won  Thanks Mark
• Mark Thoma gives us Michael Froomkin on hoovernomics-explains-the-economy
• Dan Crawford on who are these missing workers
• Econoclast on persistently-high-long-term-unemployment-rates

Europe

• Chris Dillow on attracting-better-candidates
• Simon Wren-Lewis on the-uks-macroeconomic-battleground-to-come
• Chris Dillow on the-income-squeeze
• Jeremy Cohen-Setton on pres-vsps-and-the-ecb-a-response-to-paul-krugman Thanks Mark
• Anna Rosso on security-not-as-charity-but-as-a-right
• Jonathan Portes on not-even-wrong-misreading-statistics-benefit-cap

Asia
nuttin
Wonk

• Kruggers on helicopters-dont-help-wonkish
• Noah Smith on the-great-labor-dump , freshwater-vs-saltwater-divides-macro-not-finance
• Edward Lambert on krugman-is-honest-noah-smith-is-insightful, potential-insights, 
• Edward Lambert on can-we-get-inflation-or-real-gdp-growth, the-journey-of-the-fed-rate-through-a-false-natural-level-of-real-gdp
• Jeremie Cohen-Setton on blogs-review-updating-the-phillips-curve Thanks Mark
• Antonio Fatas on debt-and-secular-stagnation Thanks Mark
• Jared Bernstein on structural-stagnation-bubbles-and-the-volcker-rule
• Steve Roth on shiller-on-fama-maybe-he-has-a-cognitive-dissonance
• Mark Thoma on the-eitc-versus-the-minimum-wage
• Simon Wren-Lewis on new-versus-traditional-phillips-curves-and-the-great recession
• Lord Keynes on debunking-austrian-economics-101-updated

General

• Chris Dillow on growth-levels-frames, gift-vouchers-mispredicting-markets, gift-vouchers-mispredicting-markets
• Lord Keynes on murphy-on-us-and-canadian-unemployment, us-and-canadian-private-investment
• Nicholas Gruen on evidence-based-public-good-provision
• Nick Rowe on i-do-not-understand-recovery-from-recessions

Climate

• Real Climate on a-failure-in-communicating-the-impact-of-new-findings
• Rabette Run on lewandosky-helps-kahan-look-little-better
• Joanna Foster on australia-hottest-spring-recorded
• Gareth Renowden on tdb-today-tomorrow-is-being-written-in-new-zealands-mountains
• Brian Banisch on assessing-dangerous-climate-change

Andrew Gelman ( Statistics!)

• never-ending-productive-race-theory-practice
• model-distributions-outliers-one-direction
• cross-validation-bayesian-estimation-tuning-parameters
• multilevel-marketing-way-liquidating-participantss-social-networks
• my-talk-at-leuven-sat-14-dec
• Good Stats Bad Stats on Metro fare comparison- graphics that don't work
• Kaiser Fong on harvard-gives-new-meaning-to-meritocracy, why-is-math-boring-or-why-should-no-pain-bring-any-gain

Dave Giles ( Econometrics)

• random-variable  as Mr Spock would say fascinating!
• when-everything-old-is-new-again
• data-do-not-imply-science

Dianne Coyle (Quirky + Book Reviews)

• Dianne on hollow-economy, economics-public-policy, dancing-nimbly, myths-and-realities-of-decline
• Tim Harford on amazons-drones-arent-coming-soon-but-what-will-the-world-look-like-when-they-do 

Voxwonk

• libor-scandal-and-reform
• guns-and-votes
• fdi-africa
• sustainability-factor-spanish-pensions
• sovereign-default-and-state-contingent-debt
• wto-agreement-bali-ribbon

Hapless fiscal fools

read This.

Just note on what these fools believe.
The increase in the debt ceiling was due to 'irresponsible government, in other words over spending.
no word of nominal GDP growth being well under the trend . no explanation for this which was of course the terms of trade falling.
No mention that the budget concerned was quite contractionary.Indeed the most contractionary we have seen since 1971 but of course Sinclair Davidson wouldn't know this he thought it was expansionary!!

No explanation of how interest rates were falling not rising if spending was the problem.

Finally he doesn't even recognize he is advocating greater structural deficits under Costello thus the fiscal position would be much worse now!

Need I say one 'works' with Steve Kates and another heads up the IPA .

What is worse that they parade their own ignorance as a virtue or simply refuse to recognize reality?

Amazing

I can't work out Joe Hockey part 2

Yesterday in question time Joe hockey was asked an ( unusually ) good question by Adam Bandt of the Greens.
Paraphrasing the question it was whether this was the right time to cut spending and/or raising taxes  in an attempt to get the budget back into the black.

Unfortunately Joe Hockey did nit even attempt to answer the question.  He sought to try and show the ALP has deliberately left the cupboard bare.
Now if he actually believes that then he is an idiot. As we saw previously that would mean he doesn't understand the difference between figures in PEFO and then later in MYEFO.

Moreover it would be nice to hear from Joe if he thinks it is the right time to be into fiscal consolidation. The last National Accounts had nominal GDP growth at a mere 3.6%. The AVERAGE up to 2011 was 7%!

If Joe introduced austerity measures now he would find out what happened in Europe. You would have the negative of contracting the economy BUT also the negative of the deficit ballooning!!

The question no-one knows as yet is does he believe in austerity measures now or not.
We will find out when MYEFO is released!

Poll blues continue for the government

The Newspoll is out and it confirms the trend of previous polls  for the new Government. ( Update. The linked article shows the new Essential poll which is slowly following the other polls.)

I wish I had said this before. Gosh I did. 
Reasons? Try these.

People such as the innumerates at Catallaxy who said the Neilsen poll was an outlier simply do not understand basic statistics. We saw in the US Presidential election!
However it is very early days.Do not put to greater store on these figures as Mumbles explains 

 I should add all pollsters now have 2013 preferences. add this as well three_month_slump

Guitar perfection

Just savour this. Magnificent

Around The Traps 6/12/13

It is time for Around the Traps again.

Nick Rowe is in roaring form and there is a bit of a debate on QE and deflation.

Voxwonk is always interesting.

Updating on Sunday.



Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Mumble on dazzle_them_with_numbers, the_last_laugh
• David Walker on Graincorp and Joe Hockey
• Brian Banisch on hockeys-graincorp-decision
• Ken Parish on the-unbearable-automaticity-of-being
• Matt Cowgill on progressive-australia-presentation
• Mark the Graph on credit-aggregates, selected-charts-from-national-accounts,growth-in-unemployment-benefits-since-the-GFC
• The Kouk on bye-bye-debt-ceiling-joe-hockey-laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank
• Andrew Leigh on Honouring Steve Dowrick and Paul Miller
• Andrew Elder on the-teachable-moment
• Mr Denmore on drama-in-pyjamas
• The Piping Shrike on the-new-regionalism-an-update
• Tony and the boys give you the Second test in the ASHES

Northern America

• Angry Bear on was-the-nov-30-deadline-the-make-or-break-moment-for-obamacare-no
• Yichuan Wang on why-fed-should-do-more-look-at-monetary-offset
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy fed-watch-ahead-of-the-employment-report
• Menzie Chinn on the_output_gap
• James Hamilton on current_economic_conditions

Asia

• Menzie Chinn on observations_on_the-efficacy-of -fiscal-and -monetary-policy-Japanese Edition

Europe

• Simon Wren-Lewis on here-we-go-again, two-observations-on-autumn-statement
• Monique Ebelle on scottish-independence-and-uks-debt-burden
• Kruggers on pres-vsps-and-the-ecb
• Mark Thoma gives us John Cassidy who says by-george-britains-austerity-experiment-didnt-work

Wonk

• Kruggers on immaculate-stability-wonkish
• Noah Smith on does-qe-cause-deflation
• Nick Rowe on why-inflation-will-not-fall-off-a-bottomless-cliff , the-effects-of-nominal-interest-rates-on-inflation , a-simple-story-about-reversibility-of-causation, helicopter-money-does-not-cause-deflation, tability-and-counterfactual-conditionals
• Robert Waldeman on dreadful-plumbing-with-downward-nominal-rigidity 
• Antonio Fatas on where-did-saving-glut-go  Thanks Mark
• Edward Lambert on why-is-inflation-low-and-steady, by-faith-mr-krugman-seeing-the-light-more-evidence-labor-share-critical-to-trade-deficits, /relax-delong-krugman-productivity-advances-will-respond-to-demand-space
• David Glasner on stephen-williamson-gets-stuck-at-the-zero-lower-bound

General

• Simon Wren-Lewis on could-aggregate-fiscal-decisions-ever-be-delegated
• Chris Dillow on profits-and-tail-risk. debt-deficits-the-maths
• Steve Roth on wealth-concentration-and-secular-stagnation
• Noah Smith on when-teaching-econ-start-with-parts-that-work , wage-subsidies
• Nick Rowe on on-intro-micro-first-and-splitting-micro-and-macro, does-house-building-cause-house-price-inflation-the-sokal-hoax

Climate

• Real Climate on arctic-and-american-methane-in-context
• Deep Climate on 2012-arctic-sea-ice-minimum-part-3-arctic-sea-ice-death-spiral-continues
• Science of doom on ghosts-of-climates-past-part-seven-gcm-i, ghosts-of-climates-past-part-seven-and-a-half-mindmap
• Brian Banisch on climate-clippings
• Serendipity on what-does-the-new-ipcc-report-say-about-climate-change

Andrew Gelman ( The King of p Values)

• personal-genetic-testing-regulated-battle-blogroll
• professors-intervention-online-discussions-effect-prolonging-discussion-or-cutting-it-off
• objects-class-lawrence-summers-arne-duncan-edition
• tesla-fires
• What-predicts-whether-school-district-will-participate-large-scale-evaluation
• comments-on-improving-the-dependability-of-research-in-personality-and-social-psychology-recommendations-for-research-and-educational-practice-the-report-of-the-spsp-task-force-on-publication-and-research-practices  ( must be the longest title surely!)
• Kaiser Fong on more-confusing-statements-of-probability-due-to-no-controls,story-time-on-aspirin
• Good Stats Bad Stats on The Marine Corps Marathon-Cleaning the data

Dave Giles (The genial bespectacled Econometric Genius)

• the-international-association-for-applied-econometrics
• econometrics-and-big-data

Dianne Coyle ( Quirky)

• what-does-cleveland-ohio-have-that-london-doesnt, poverty-fear-and-loathing, globalisation-and-legitimacy
• Tim Harford on the-perils-of-public-speaking,the-death-of-nelson-mandela-has-prompted-several-lefties-to-point-out-that-on-apartheid-the-tories-were-on-the-wrong-side-of-politics
• Brian Banisch on is-the-pope-a-communist

Voxwonk

• first-look-structure-and-dynamics-uk-credit-default-swap-cds-market
• new-measure-us-gdp
• agglomeration-and-exports
• high-quality-exports-macro-implications
• ict-benefits-some-and-hurts-others
• scrapping-subsidies-during-crisis
• why-do-bans-increase-child-labour
• our-uneconomic-methods-measuring-economic-research
• dollar-s-international-status
• asset-price-booms-and-composition-capital-inflows
• trade-protectionism-since-crisis
• are-towns-stuck-in-wrong-places

I can't work out joe hockey

I cannot work out Joe Hockey.

Does he know his stuff but simply a very bad politician i.e. he couldn't sell a beer in a pub! A bit like Wayne Swan.
Most evidence would suggest this. He has the best department to advise him. He has chosen his personal staff quite well.
However his attempts to sell a larger gross debt figure, his decision on Graincorp and his attempts to talk about both the recent CPI and national accounts were nothing short of appalling.

It was like listening to Steve Kates ( example) and Sinclair Davidson ( example) talk about them. Yes it was that bad.

The problem is does he really believe the claptrap he is espousing on these subjects. If he does Australia has a real problem.
If he doesn't and he is merely a Liberal example of Wayne Swan then we can ignore his public utterances and simply concentrate on what he does.

I will wait for MYEFO to make a full decision. It will be interesting. After-all the only changes to PEFO and MYEFO are:

• Changes in Government policy
• Changes in economic parameters.

He has responsibility for the first one and the second one is influenced by nominal GDP ( which in itself is influenced by the terms of trade). He can hardly take the previous government to task when he has been advocating more austerity!