I'm with Marc - I'd like to see the screen at least every once in a while.
Having said that - very informative and not exactly the way I figured it would play out.
I loved Huizinga's points about this event *not* being unprecedented and certainly no reason to ignore economics. And I especially liked Mr. Murphy's calculus.
Me, I found I was a Lucas fan. I reckon he is about 90% right. The monetary effect of the stimulus is what we are mostly looking for. However, the stimulus also should have an effect in keeping prices higher than they otherwise would have been. Compared to a price deflation track, the stimulus therefore produces real benefits. (Lucas left that implict, but it follows from combining his early remarks with where he finished.)
Lucas also looked at how we get out of the stimulus. I think he is right ot concentrate on that as a monetary policy problem; but the implicit condition of a tight monetary policy with a continuing large public sector deficit is sharply higher private savings. That needs more and better modelling than I am capable of.
Perhaps it was because he was forced to go last, or perhaps he's just not a good public speaker - but either way Lucas came off very unpolished. He was an apologist forced to argue math with Murphy and statistics with Huizinga.
I loved the way he insisted on calling this a depression even though Huizinga had already called bullshit on that.
Basically, through all his hemming and hawing and nervous paper-shuffling, his argument boiled down to the stimulus plan making people "feel better" and later - when prompted by an audience member's question - to it relieving their fear - Even though as Murphy stated - the numbers don't add up unless you, for some reason, believe that government is going to become ten times more efficient overnight.
But you've piqued my interest, so I'm going to re-watch his segment and see what I may have missed.
Okay, I re-watched the Lucas segment and took notes on the highlights. Here's what he says:
Compares GDP to 1982 recession and says it *is* the worst event in Obama's lifetime but not his own.
Gets the cause of the depression wrong and mumbles about how the fed responded wrong then, but are responding rightly now.
Mumbles something about deflation - but doesn't really follow through.
Talks about the added money to the banks - up to 500 billion from 50 billion in Oct. Mumbles about M1 and M2 and theorizes that the money given to banks by the fed will "eventually show up" in the greater economy as spending.
Says they beleve that they've run to the end of the "money train" and now we have to have "fiscal stimulus" to end "this depression"
Laments the lack of a true plan to critique
Uses Friedman's "helicopter" analogy to try to explain fiscal/monetary stimulus then mumbles he's not sure how it works.
Paraphrases Keynes' example of printing money and paying people to dig holes and then fill them in again.
Tries to say that both Friedman and Keynes were asserting that these are not the times to be looking at cost/benefits - they knew the benefits were zero but that they were trying to offset the monetary "disequilibrium" by putting more money back into the system
Admits that so far, all that's come out about the alleged stimulus looks like moving resources from one place to another and also admits that it will have no effect on the overall economy.
He then questions the fact that no one is saying where they plan to get the money to finance the stimulus.
States that he's skeptical of the stimulus working - presumably because he doesn't see a plan for Friedman's helicopter flying around dumping money - He only sees a plan for digging and filling holes.
Questions thoeories and statements about how long the Obama plan will take implying that it will take too long - 2012 before relief is seen.
Criticizes the un-democratic nature of Bernanke handing out money to businesses and banks. Then mentions the fact that all that extra money will need to be removed from the system somehow. Claims it's easier to reverse the amount.
Questions one of the points of the plan - broadband extension to non-covered areas - he doesn't understand how this will help.
Claims that the only way to fix this is to print more money.
So basically, he mumbles a bunch about GDP, the money supply, Friedman and Keynes, and the "great" depression and "this" depression before finally admitting the Obama plan as rumored is junk and then says that the only way out of this is to print and distribute money ala Friedman.
I can't see how anyone could agree with anything the guy said - he was all over the place. Incoherent, mumbling, hemming and hawing...eccentric. The differences between him and the other two speakers was night and day. It was like watching the Nixon/Kennedy debate.
ah, boo hoo...some microsoft junk that will not play on my linux computer and the download is junk-filled. I was recently forced to use linux due to all the viruses slowing down my windows-based computer. Saving up for a Mac or getting better at linux is in my future.
Way to go, Megan. Another losing argument: Microsoft does it's best to crash the economy.
You and Tyler Cowen again fail. (And refuse to acknowledge your critics.)
go again and bury your head in the sand in the face of the 'depression' using fake arguments about employment (it's only minor Ha!) Wait a few months and tell about how Great Reagan was for giving us Alan Greenspan and Supply-side economics.
"he was all over the place. Incoherent, mumbling, hemming and hawing...eccentric"
Ah, you bring up such fond memories of my grad school days. Lucas is similar to, and if anything more smooth than, pretty much all of my professors, since I went to a top-ranked, highly mathematical program. If I had gotten my PhD at a less highly ranked grad school, or gotten it in business rather than economics, the faculty would surely have had better speaking skills. Oddly, that wasn't my main priority at the time.
If you want to hear a top macro-economist, you've got a good chance of drawing someone who's not excessively coherent. Like many mathematicians and engineers, economists have a tendency towards autism-spectrum, obsessive compulsive, etc. - their brains are often structured a bit differently, which presumably helps them with logical thinking but not with social skills. Remember the movie about Nash (A Beautiful Mind)? I'm guessing that Einstein wasn't all that slick and verbal, either - where do you think the whole absent-minded professor cliche comes from? Note that I'm not saying anything about Lucas personally, only about the general range of successful econ. types, and of course it's not universally true.
If anyone is worth listening to despite a bit of mumbling, surely it's Lucas. My thesis advisor (who won his own Nobel Prize several years after Lucas's), was a great admirer of Bob Lucas who, as someone on the panel pointed out, was instrumental in pointing up the problems with Keynesian analysis. Lucas was arguably the most influential economist of his generation, and it was a generation very focused on the Great Depression - when you casually say that he got the cause of the depression wrong, I have to wonder where you got the nerve to stack your opinion against his without the slightest attempt at even justifying it.
What still surprises me is that Lucas got through the whole thing without chain-smoking. Times have changed.
I finally got around to watching this tonight. First of all, very worthwhile, and I would post it up again higher with a bigger post to emphasize that to your readers.
Secondly, I find it interesting, though not surprising as they are all economists and not political science people, that they approach the "Why are the Obama people convinced this will work?" question from a purely mathematical standpoint. It's good, in that they seem to be in agreement that the numbers just don't make sense, but then they seem dumbfounded as to the reason.
I suppose it behooves them to assume that the people in control are not bad actors in the system, and are looking to do the best to help people... but do they honestly not see a strong possibility that people in power want to take advantage of the fear and uncertainty to do something they deem to make them more politically powerful?
Why don't the focus on the screen and not speaker? What would one look at if they were in the room?
I'm with Marc - I'd like to see the screen at least every once in a while.
Having said that - very informative and not exactly the way I figured it would play out.
I loved Huizinga's points about this event *not* being unprecedented and certainly no reason to ignore economics. And I especially liked Mr. Murphy's calculus.
Me, I found I was a Lucas fan. I reckon he is about 90% right. The monetary effect of the stimulus is what we are mostly looking for. However, the stimulus also should have an effect in keeping prices higher than they otherwise would have been. Compared to a price deflation track, the stimulus therefore produces real benefits. (Lucas left that implict, but it follows from combining his early remarks with where he finished.)
Lucas also looked at how we get out of the stimulus. I think he is right ot concentrate on that as a monetary policy problem; but the implicit condition of a tight monetary policy with a continuing large public sector deficit is sharply higher private savings. That needs more and better modelling than I am capable of.
Lucas? You're kidding...
Perhaps it was because he was forced to go last, or perhaps he's just not a good public speaker - but either way Lucas came off very unpolished. He was an apologist forced to argue math with Murphy and statistics with Huizinga.
I loved the way he insisted on calling this a depression even though Huizinga had already called bullshit on that.
Basically, through all his hemming and hawing and nervous paper-shuffling, his argument boiled down to the stimulus plan making people "feel better" and later - when prompted by an audience member's question - to it relieving their fear - Even though as Murphy stated - the numbers don't add up unless you, for some reason, believe that government is going to become ten times more efficient overnight.
But you've piqued my interest, so I'm going to re-watch his segment and see what I may have missed.
Silverlight only. Wonderful. Guess I don't get to see it.
Okay, I re-watched the Lucas segment and took notes on the highlights. Here's what he says:
Compares GDP to 1982 recession and says it *is* the worst event in Obama's lifetime but not his own.
Gets the cause of the depression wrong and mumbles about how the fed responded wrong then, but are responding rightly now.
Mumbles something about deflation - but doesn't really follow through.
Talks about the added money to the banks - up to 500 billion from 50 billion in Oct. Mumbles about M1 and M2 and theorizes that the money given to banks by the fed will "eventually show up" in the greater economy as spending.
Says they beleve that they've run to the end of the "money train" and now we have to have "fiscal stimulus" to end "this depression"
Laments the lack of a true plan to critique
Uses Friedman's "helicopter" analogy to try to explain fiscal/monetary stimulus then mumbles he's not sure how it works.
Paraphrases Keynes' example of printing money and paying people to dig holes and then fill them in again.
Tries to say that both Friedman and Keynes were asserting that these are not the times to be looking at cost/benefits - they knew the benefits were zero but that they were trying to offset the monetary "disequilibrium" by putting more money back into the system
Admits that so far, all that's come out about the alleged stimulus looks like moving resources from one place to another and also admits that it will have no effect on the overall economy.
He then questions the fact that no one is saying where they plan to get the money to finance the stimulus.
States that he's skeptical of the stimulus working - presumably because he doesn't see a plan for Friedman's helicopter flying around dumping money - He only sees a plan for digging and filling holes.
Questions thoeories and statements about how long the Obama plan will take implying that it will take too long - 2012 before relief is seen.
Criticizes the un-democratic nature of Bernanke handing out money to businesses and banks. Then mentions the fact that all that extra money will need to be removed from the system somehow. Claims it's easier to reverse the amount.
Questions one of the points of the plan - broadband extension to non-covered areas - he doesn't understand how this will help.
Claims that the only way to fix this is to print more money.
So basically, he mumbles a bunch about GDP, the money supply, Friedman and Keynes, and the "great" depression and "this" depression before finally admitting the Obama plan as rumored is junk and then says that the only way out of this is to print and distribute money ala Friedman.
I can't see how anyone could agree with anything the guy said - he was all over the place. Incoherent, mumbling, hemming and hawing...eccentric. The differences between him and the other two speakers was night and day. It was like watching the Nixon/Kennedy debate.
ah, boo hoo...some microsoft junk that will not play on my linux computer and the download is junk-filled. I was recently forced to use linux due to all the viruses slowing down my windows-based computer. Saving up for a Mac or getting better at linux is in my future.
Way to go, Megan. Another losing argument: Microsoft does it's best to crash the economy.
You and Tyler Cowen again fail. (And refuse to acknowledge your critics.)
go again and bury your head in the sand in the face of the 'depression' using fake arguments about employment (it's only minor Ha!) Wait a few months and tell about how Great Reagan was for giving us Alan Greenspan and Supply-side economics.
"he was all over the place. Incoherent, mumbling, hemming and hawing...eccentric"
Ah, you bring up such fond memories of my grad school days. Lucas is similar to, and if anything more smooth than, pretty much all of my professors, since I went to a top-ranked, highly mathematical program. If I had gotten my PhD at a less highly ranked grad school, or gotten it in business rather than economics, the faculty would surely have had better speaking skills. Oddly, that wasn't my main priority at the time.
If you want to hear a top macro-economist, you've got a good chance of drawing someone who's not excessively coherent. Like many mathematicians and engineers, economists have a tendency towards autism-spectrum, obsessive compulsive, etc. - their brains are often structured a bit differently, which presumably helps them with logical thinking but not with social skills. Remember the movie about Nash (A Beautiful Mind)? I'm guessing that Einstein wasn't all that slick and verbal, either - where do you think the whole absent-minded professor cliche comes from? Note that I'm not saying anything about Lucas personally, only about the general range of successful econ. types, and of course it's not universally true.
If anyone is worth listening to despite a bit of mumbling, surely it's Lucas. My thesis advisor (who won his own Nobel Prize several years after Lucas's), was a great admirer of Bob Lucas who, as someone on the panel pointed out, was instrumental in pointing up the problems with Keynesian analysis. Lucas was arguably the most influential economist of his generation, and it was a generation very focused on the Great Depression - when you casually say that he got the cause of the depression wrong, I have to wonder where you got the nerve to stack your opinion against his without the slightest attempt at even justifying it.
What still surprises me is that Lucas got through the whole thing without chain-smoking. Times have changed.
I finally got around to watching this tonight. First of all, very worthwhile, and I would post it up again higher with a bigger post to emphasize that to your readers.
Secondly, I find it interesting, though not surprising as they are all economists and not political science people, that they approach the "Why are the Obama people convinced this will work?" question from a purely mathematical standpoint. It's good, in that they seem to be in agreement that the numbers just don't make sense, but then they seem dumbfounded as to the reason.
I suppose it behooves them to assume that the people in control are not bad actors in the system, and are looking to do the best to help people... but do they honestly not see a strong possibility that people in power want to take advantage of the fear and uncertainty to do something they deem to make them more politically powerful?