reply on: China Loosing Against USA \ stacker news ~econ

64 sats \ 14 replies \ @Undisciplined 5 Jan \ on: China Loosing Against USA econ

As little credit as I like to give Krugman, he had an article back in the 90's about why Japan wasn't going to overtake the US economically and it was largely applicable to China today (at least according to my vague memory of it).

447 sats \ 13 replies \ @xz 5 Jan freebie

I sometimes wonder how much of the financial media is simply projection to telegraph a diversion of investment. Not to say that projections have no substantial effect. I'm sure there is substance.

I suppose it might be easy for The Krug to recline in his leather chair and proclaim that U.S dominance would go unchallenged over the next few decades. Amateur economists tend to make these very safe predictions, yet seldom stake reputation.

110 sats \ 12 replies \ @Undisciplined 5 Jan

There was actually a time when Krugman was a real economist, rather than the partisan shill he has become.

The incentives for the financial press and brokers can be pretty perverse. If they have assets they want to get out of, it benefits them to hype those up. Same for downplaying assets they want to buy. Some of that gets fixed with reputation costs, but not all of it.

447 sats \ 6 replies \ @TomK OP 5 Jan

I remember this guy (maybe I am wrong like my wife says it's the norm) as a Keynesian.... so he was a preacher (making some Friday fun here).

China to me has become totally ininvestible as of late. And it's going to get worse

447 sats \ 1 reply \ @xz 5 Jan

Just stumbled across this. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-krugman-battles-austerians/

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 5 Jan

I've long said that we're on the dumbest timeline.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined 5 Jan

He started out as a trade theorist, before becoming a partisan macro pundit. Modern trade theory isn't exactly Austrian, but it also generally avoids much of the mainstream macro stuff.

640 sats \ 2 replies \ @xz 5 Jan

MMT, as I recall, is along the lines of, you don't need supply and demand when you can pull levers to stimulate growth through credit expansion. Growth becomes the ultimate pursuit. Growth at all costs. I'm way out of my depth when entering into the econ arena, so it's probably a gross simplification.

Interesting what you said about the way brokers operate. I wonder whether the fintech brokers did anything more significant other than luring in a greater swathe of the public to lose their shorts. I remember there was the the Reddit subs causing problems for the more institutional broker class, but like everything that's not self-custodial, the rules get changed.

Seems the growth model is the dumbest of timelines. You get economies on steroids, undercutting, channel-stuffing and dumping low quality everything and pricing out local markets. Not that I'm against market efficiencies offered by technological innovation. Just in reality, I don't get Krugman's defense of MMT.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 5 Jan

I don't follow Krugman very closely, because I don't think he's worth listening to, but I don't think he is an MMT guy. There are fine distinctions between the various bogus schools of macro economists that they view as being quite important.

True economic growth is a noble pursuit. That would be equivalent to a rising standard of living. The problem is that they view a fictional aggregate called GDP, that has well-known uncontested flaws, as being an almost perfect proxy for the economy. That leads to trying to maximize the things that are in GDP, which can come at the even greater expense of what's not in GDP.

640 sats \ 0 replies \ @xz 5 Jan freebie

Perhaps the distinction is not often appreciated, as you say. Indeed GDP, or GDP per capita, seems skewed in it's ability to gauge the health of an economy or society.

I thought it interesting that economists obviously realized this, and so, cargo volume, and electricity consumption would become main indicators, verified accurately from satellite imaging. Then there's opaque reporting of data from a statistics bureau. I imagine ballooning bank loans and credit expansion are lagging indicators.

Interesting. I think we could probably go econ101 all Friday night.

447 sats \ 1 reply \ @xz 5 Jan

If they have assets they want to get out of

Interesting. For some reason, I tend to forget about that. Guess it's my lack of trading acumen.

Same for downplaying assets they want to buy

That line, when the tide goes out, you see who's not not wearing their shorts, or something similar, stays in my mind.

Fair enough for Krugman. I trust you know more about his origins than I.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 5 Jan

The first point is a problem middle class people often have with brokers. Brokers prioritize their wealthy clients, so when they advise them to sell off some stock, the easiest group to sell it to is their poorer clients.