The mess in the USA

What is it about the USA that makes the politicians over there so stupid.

'Obamacare' is law. It has passed both houses ans was signed into law by the President. It passed muster by the Supreme Court.
Now the Republicans want to deny it any money.They want to discuss changes to it with the President.

Fellas you do this BEFORE the bill is approved NOT after.

If you couldn't make any substantial changes to it before it became law then that is tough titties!

In the last election Republicans lost the vote for the President, in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

AND you think you have a mandate to change Obamacare?

I think you should be prosecuted for smoking illegal substances!

Update
I have been asked what Obamacare does to the budget. It helps reduce it!

John Lee Hooker

Here is the great man live his almost his signature song Boom Boom!

Around the Traps 4/10/13

It is time for Around The Traps again this week.
A chastened Dave Giles has been furious on his blog this week if you like econometrics!

It is a long weekend in Sydney so I will update until Monday night. Cricket on Saturday and dinner guests on Sunday so the updating could be a bit scratchy.


Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Harry Clarke on fiscally-conservative-labor-the-spendthrift-coalition, privatizing-australia-post
• Matt Cowgill on the-latest-attack-on-the-fair-work-act 
• The Piping Shrike on action
• Ricardian Ambivalence on rba-sees-policy-gaining-traction
• Peter Martin on there-wont-be-any-more-rate-cuts-this-year
• Mark Banisch on the-contradictions-of-direct-action
• Andrew Elder on before-fall
• Ken Parish on shock-horror-i-agree-with-greg-sheridan

USA ( with a sprinkling of the Maple Leaf)

• Josiah Neeley on how-to-avoid-defaultmageddon-randomize-obamacare
• Ricardian Ambivalence on yawning-pce-gaps-lead-to-low-inflation
• Menzie Chinn on policy_uncertainty_October1
• John Quiggin on the-ultimate-nightmare-american-default
• Mark Thoma on health-care-panic-again
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-on-communication 
• Barkley Rosser on public-health-externalities-argument-for-universal-health-coverage
• Menzie Chinn on estimated_macro-effects_of_the_shutdown
• Dave Altig on why-no-taper-one-mans-view
• John Robertson and Ellyn Terry on certain-about-uncertainty
• Ricardian Ambivalence on shutdown-crashes-us-confidence

Europe

• Brad De Long gives us wolfgang-munchau-do-not-kid-yourself-that-the-eurozone-is-recovering-noted
• Chris Dillow on help-to-work
• Simon Wren-Lewis on ken-rogoff-on-uk-austerity
• Jeremie Cohen-Setton on how-important-was-structural-balance-'screwup-in-driving-European-austerity

Asia

• Simon Wren-Lewis on japans-consumption-tax-test-of-modern-macro

Wonk

• Nick Rowe on if-banks-bought-houses, twin-debt-equilibria
• Edward Lambert on the-inflation-game-part-2-and-wonkish, is-there-a-natural-rate-of-inflation,is-low-inflation-bad
• David Glasner on hawtreys-good-and-bad-trade-part-iii-banking-and-interest-rates, hawtreys-good-and-bad-trade-part-iv-the-inherent-instability-of-credit
• Peter Dorman on modeling-policy-when-policy-is-inside-the-model
• Kruggers on the-gains-from-hyperglobalization-wonkish, phantom-crises-wonkish , the-virtues-of-adding-hoc-wonkis
• Josh Bivens on note-fiscal-policymakers-multipliers-large  Thanks Mark
• Mark Thoma gives us Arin Dube and  minimum-wages-and-job-growth-a-statistical-artifact really interesting
• Jim Devine on nber-recessions-vs-actual-recessions, nber-recessions-vs-actual-recessions_4

General

• Chris Dillow on are-jobs-a-cost, the-intelligence-curse, marxism-freedom-the-cold-war, mistaking-power-for-virtue
• John Quiggin on a-debate-resolved, the -productivity-zombie
• Michael Eisner on open-access-is-not-the-problem

Brian Banisch (Climate)

• commentary-on-ipcc-wg1-part-1
• Mark Thoma gives us world-leaders-must-act-faster-on-climate-change
• Peter Martin on cutting-emissions-hunts-has-twice-as-much-to-do
• John Quiggin on the-mail-on-sundays-own-goal-for-delusionism
• Harry Clarke on gloom-on-the-oceans 

Andrew Gelman (Statistics)

• the-difficulties-of-measuring-just-about-anything
• query-from-a-textbook-author-looking-for-stories-to-tell-to-undergrads-about-significance
• using-the-aggregate-of-the-outcome-variable-as-a-group-level-predictor-in-a-hierarchical-model
• ill-say-it-again
• a-comment-on-a-post-at-the-monkey-cage
• on-house-arrest-for-p-hacking
• scientific-communication-that-accords-you-the-basic-human-dignity-of-allowing-you-to-draw-your-own-conclusions
• lots-o-confusion
• ideas-that-spread-fast-and-slow
• Good Stats Bad Stats on income equality measures

Dave Giles ( Econometrics)

• solution-to-regression-trick
• more-on-distribution-of-r-squared
• can-economists-forecast-crashes
• in-what-sense-is-adjusted-r-squared
• the-true-title-of-bayess-essay
• peter-kennedy-on-getting-wrong-sign
• the-history-of-statistical-terms
• contemporary-econometrics-in-economic-education

Dianne Coyle & Frances Woolley ( Quirky with a dash of book review)

• Simon Wren-Lewis on tim-harfords-new-book-on-macroeconomics
• John Quiggin on how-to-argue-with-creationists 
• Dianne on top-economists-and-bob-dylan, walls-visible-and-invisible, the-enlightened-economist-prize-2013-winner
• Brad De Long on books-i-read-and-liked-in-the-second-half-of-september-2013
• Josiah Neeley on metaphysics-and-breaking-bad-finale
• Andrew Giles on give-me-a-ticket-for-an-aeroplane

Voxwonk

• where-unethical-corporate-culture-comes
• tax-evasion-and-incidence
• tax-policy-procyclicality
• independent-monetary-policies-synchronised-outcomes
• real-estate-driven-exports
• long-term-barriers-growth
• unconventional-monetary-policies-revisited-part-i
• unconventional-monetary-policies-revisited-part-ii
• return-migrants-economic-and-fertility-impacts
• ict-and-global-supply-chains
• great-recession-and-dutch-immigrant-unemployment

The budget

I'm a bit busy given it is school holidays but I will simply relate to the kouk's recent column on the budget.

He claims it is possibly the most contractionary budget we have seen since 1971. I agree.

Just a few things he did not mention.

Nominal GDP, is well below trend and hence the reason is the budget is not in the black. Thus there has been no cyclical boost to Revenue nor any reduction in outlays indeed it has been quite the opposite yet the deficit has fallen substantially. why is this?

It can be only because the structural part of the budget has been attacked. A contractionary budget when the terms of trade is falling means  only one thing.


Weak economic growth.

Wow If I called this budget expansionary I would be embarrassed. Now I forget just who did that?

Hound Dog Taylor

Hound Dog Taylor was one of the legends of slide guitar.

This isn't the best video of all time but you do get to see him strut his stuff.

Around The traps 27/9/13

It is time for Around the Traps.

updates on Sunday.


Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Peter Martin on the-truth-about-women-why-abbotts-cabinet-won't-last.get-set-be-careful-house-prices-are-taking-off
• Ross Gittins on no-need-to-exaggerate-labors-failings, is-reversing-labor-all-we-need-for-our-future
• Mumble on spinning_wheels, labor_preference_advantage_peaks
• Kevin Bonham on too-much-information-mixed-performance
• Ken Parish on stop-the-boats-westies
• Nicholas Gruen on memo-to-annabel-it-aint-gonna-happen
• Andrew Elder on shipping-news

Canada (where Messrs Giles and Rowe have annexed the USA)

• MarkThoma gives us Kevin Drum on  how-austerity-wrecked-the-american-economy
• Brad De Long on peter-orszag-economy-cant-be-all-thats-slowing-health-costs-noted
• Skeptikoi on the-commitment-phobic-fed
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy fed-watch-resetting-expectations, fed-watch-a-synopsis-of-fedspeak
• Livio Di Matteo on fiscal-clout-and-federation-redesign

Europe

• Kruggers on the-pain-in-spain-is-not-hard-to-explain-wonkish
• Stephen Gordon on trends
• Menzie Chinn on ironies_abound
• Philip Lane on new-report-on-the-financial-crisis, the-sovereign-debt-crisis-and-the-euro-area, imf-toward-a-fiscal-union-for-the-euro-area
• Simon Wren-Lewis on labours-obr-proposal, sound-bite-economics, what-shall-we-tell-our-students
• Richard Dorsett on helping-long-term-unemployed
• John McHale on the-government's-balance-sheet-after-the-crisis-a-comprehensive-perspective
• Dianne Coyle on low-investment-another-moan
• Brad De Long on martin-wolf-osborne-has-now-been-proved-wrong-on-austerity-noted

Asia
nutting again!

Wonk

• Gavin Kennedy on mathematica-truths-do-not-make-untrue  Thanks Mark
• Philip Lane on estimating-structural-unemployment
• Lord Keynes on an-observation-on-deduction
• Nick Rowe on teaching-comparative-advantage-barter-vs-money, two-neo-wicksellian-indeterminacies
• David Glasner on hawtreys-good-and-bad-trade-part-ii
• Pro-Growth liberal on who-ends-up-losing-their-job-under-a-higher-minimum-wage
• Edward Lambert on inflation-is-a-game-of-cat-and-mouse

General

• Simon Wren-Lewis on the-scandal-of-austerity-deception, the-king-who-disliked-letter-g, austerity-growth-and-being-economical-with-the-truth
• Mark Thoma on whats-it-all-about-then-the-real-reason-for-the-fight-over-the-debt-limit
• Brad De Long on paul-krugman-whats-it-all-about-then-noted
• Antonio Fatas on ignorance-and-bias-in-economic-models  Thanks Mark
• Chris Dillow on neoliberalisms-unintended-consequences
• Paul Frtijzers on race-and-iq-how-can-we-dismiss-the-correlations
• John Robertson on the-dynamics-of-economic-dynamism

Brian Banisch (climate)

• arctic-sea-ice-extent-minimum-for-2013
• climate-clippings
• crisis-or-catastrophe-what-will-the-ippc-say
• Brad De Long on felipe-calder%C3%B3n-and-nicholas-stern-the-new-climate-economics-noted, but-we-must-do-the-wrong-thing-understanding-the-economic-arguments-against-dealing-with-global-warming, richard-muller-and-the-new-york-times-on-global-warming-department-of-whiskey-tango-foxtrot-bang-query-bang-query-weblogging, /likelihood-that-human-greenhouse-gas-emissions-responsible-for-more-than-half-of-warming-updated-from-very-to-extremely, joe-barsugli-on-enso-and-climate-change-noted
• Harry Clarke on summary-for-policy-makers-from-ipcc
• Sinclair Davidson on being still too gutless to say there has been a structural break in rising world temperatures
• Tim Harford on an-energy-price-cap-that-does-not-quite-fit

Andrew Gelman (Statistics)

• more-on-bayesian-methods-and-multilevel-modeling
• my-talk-tues-24-sept-at-12h30-at-universite-de-technologie-de-compiegne
• citations-for-using-stan
• instead-of-the-intended-message-that-being-poor-is-hard-the-takeaway-is-that-rich-people-arent-very-good-with-money
• harmonic-convergence
• classical-probability-does-not-apply-to-quantum-systems-causal-inference-edition
• difficulties-in-making-inferences-about-scientific-truth-from-distributions-of-published-p-values
• difficulties-of-using-statistical-significance-or-lack-thereof-to-sift-through-and-compare-research-hypotheses
• Good Stats Bad Stats on the probability of making the Baseball playoffs, parity in the NFL
• Kaiser Fung on know-your-data-14-they-may-know-things-about-you

Dave Giles (Econometrics)

• new-working-paper
• blogging-about-your-research
• more-interesting-papers-to-read

Dianne Coyle and Frances Woolley (Quirky with a dash of book reviews)

• Frances on academias-not-so-dirty-secret
• Dianne on economic-forecasts-fortune-telling-and-sunspots, how-to-be-a-successful-maverick, economic-lessons-from-asia, uncomfortable-lessons-of-history
• Tim Harford on ten e-mail commandments
• Guan Yuang on this-blog-post-cost-$0

Voxwonk

• do-european-fines-deter-price-fixing
• persuasive-communication-men-and-women-react-differently
• offshoring-and-innovation-emerging-economies
• next-greek-package-dangers-ez
• forecasting-oil-prices-using-product-spreads
• should-brazil-s-central-bank-be-selling-foreign-reserves
• capital-back
• dilemma-financial-trilemma
• body-fat-and-food-prices
• partial-horizontal-acquisitions-and-antitrust-policy

Castle: episode1 series 6

Well it could have been worse.

I wasn't expecting any of the important questions to be answered and they were not.

The episode was passable but that is all. Far too much Beckett and far too little Castle.

It seemed like another series and Dr Cuddy is still not likable at all.

I will find it interesting whether the emotional and psychological reasons why Beckett is such a good homicide detective are shown as negatives in this job. No-one at the interview recognised this at all. Neither Beckett nor the Deputy Director.
I am going out on a limb here but I am betting this will be where the seeds of watershed come in for Beckett.

I am still staggered some-one can say they love somebody and then tell them they have accepted a job which will be bad for the relationship. ( highly euphemistic!). And they accept a job without any input from the person they supposedly love! I am glad my wife doesn't love like that.

My problem now is I have to wait another few episodes until the 'old' Castle comes back with its 'magic'.

I suspect Marlowe may not be writing another series.

It wasn't an engrossing start. My boys will now wait until the episodes are on TV as Castle lacks that vital something and I guess I will too.

Just in case. the Lovely Lady from Writing on the Castle Walls on Watershed    (essential reading)

Update

My boys have just informed me they will not be watching Castle until it comes back to the 12th !