Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression' • Hacker News Board

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#51

Post by Zach_the_Lizard » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

rm999 wrote: post #14

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #3

In the course of selling his New Deal to the impoverished American public, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt pitched his reforms by stating: "It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another, but above all try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach." The most frustrating par…

It's not common sense to freely experiment with policy unless you're trying to sell a controversial progressive agenda (like, FDR in 1933). And I say this as a progressive who supports much of what he did. Applying sweeping changes is difficult and costly, and undoing them is even harder. For example, farm subsidies, which are generally unpopular, were put into place by FDR and just can't seem to go away. Fundamental…

>farm subsidies

The phrase 'Farm subsidies' doesn't quite do justice to what was put into place. The phrase sounds like just giving farmers money to grow stuff, which people might think is inefficient but probably not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. After all, these sorts of subsidies should increase supply and lower prices.

The reality is there's a tangled web of price controls, subsidies, import quotas, government purchases, etc. that in many cases have resulted in higher food prices, not lower food prices as simple subsidies might imply.

Take sugar, for instance. We have import quotas and tariffs on sugar resulting in higher sugar prices in the US than in the rest of the world despite having sugar growing regions in Mexico or the Caribbean on our doorstep. This is one of the reasons that we use high fructose corn syrup in everything instead of sugar. If we didn't have these laws, we'd have cheaper, more abundant sugar and probably less HFCS infused food.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#52

Post by aswanson » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #35

jerf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more in the increasing centralization of power. The central power is bigger and thus harder to move by sheer inertia, more risk-averse, and also more able to simply implement whatever it likes regardless of what anybody else thinks because it is isolate from the trenches. I think one of the top-3 issues facing the US right now is we need a lot more power devolved back to the states... not out of a "state…

I doubt that shifting power to the states will solve many problems; after all it's the states that want to force Christianity on students, ban the teaching of science, deny healthcare to those most in need of it, lower standards for students so many HS grads are still illiterate, defund universities, and hand monopolies to oil, mineral, and telecom companies.

On top of that, the states horrifically manage what should be simple agencies such as the dmv.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#53

Post by mywittyname » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #48

This is a terrible article. It strikes me as too technical to do anything but anger the casual reader (see the article's comment section for examples) and too vague to say anything meaningful to the informed reader. The only new information presented here is the professor's (extremely late) admission that his strict adherence to a misguided school of theoretical economics that no longer applied in the face of structu…

Your response to this article is a million times more clear and informative than the article itself. Cunningham's Law in action.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#54

Post by davesque » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 7:22 PM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #19

davesque wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, it could be this very abundance of ideas which is so paralyzing. The more choices you have, the harder it is to choose. That being said, I agree that this problem has its roots in corrupt politics.

I think it is more that this time round, economics as a "school" is quite a bit more entrenched. Keep in mind that during the great depression you had fascists in Italy and Germany, and communists in Russia. Now the fascists have gone underground, and the communists have imploded. All this gives the current mainstream economic thinking an air of correctness that it didn't have back then, by "virtue" of being the last…

Maybe the answer is somewhere in between all these failed, xenophobic systems. It always frustrates me when I see good ideas shot down in the public discourse because they sound too much like Communism or Socialism. There is a middle ground that we can't ever get to as long as politics are so polarized.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#55

Post by gshubert17 » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 7:22 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #11

theseatoms wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't the federal government's legislative reforms move at a snail's pace? I agree that the ideas you've mentioned are worth exploring, but what makes you think that they'll try the good ideas? Also, why not start at the state or local level?

State and local levels are the only places where there can be any real experimental reform. Just look at Colorado and the other states that have legalized marijuana by referendum. Direct democracy isn't necessarily better than elected representation, but politicians are motivated by the necessity of power, and so whoever controls the politicians controls the political process. People shouldn't be left up to decide ev…

And businesses in the now legal marijuana business in Colorado are having problems getting into the federalized banking system because marijuana is illegal federally and banking powers have been centralized.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#56

Post by hwstar » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 7:28 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #27

davesque wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, it could be this very abundance of ideas which is so paralyzing. The more choices you have, the harder it is to choose. That being said, I agree that this problem has its roots in corrupt politics.

I think it's more in the increasing centralization of power. The central power is bigger and thus harder to move by sheer inertia, more risk-averse, and also more able to simply implement whatever it likes regardless of what anybody else thinks because it is isolate from the trenches. I think one of the top-3 issues facing the US right now is we need a lot more power devolved back to the states... not out of a "state…

The things that are broken can't be solved by the states. The patchwork of state laws would become a great hinderance.

The federal government is corrupt and needs to be reformed. We need campaign finance reform, and the ability to recall federally elected officials.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#57

Post by someguydave » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 7:28 PM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #48

This is a terrible article. It strikes me as too technical to do anything but anger the casual reader (see the article's comment section for examples) and too vague to say anything meaningful to the informed reader. The only new information presented here is the professor's (extremely late) admission that his strict adherence to a misguided school of theoretical economics that no longer applied in the face of structu…

> Older voters would destroy any candidate who would even suggest such a thing, as they very well should. They contributed what the gov said was their fair share, they expect to be paid back in their old age.

So people have a moral ('fair' is a moral judgement word) right to unbounded medical services because some politician told them in the past that they could have things without paying for them? Would it be 'fair' for the youth of today to pay 50% of their earnings (plus all existing taxes) to the government to provide those services?

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#58

Post by JBReefer » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 7:30 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #50

xlm1717 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, the most frustrating part is that despite our hyperconnectedness, people still believe the propaganda that we're not in a depression or that our leaders got us out of the recession. Future economists will call the decade the "longest depression" not out of 20/20 hindsight, but simply because there will no longer be a need to make things seem rosy.

The propaganda is the statement that we are in a depression. We are NOT in a depression, nor a recession and have not been for several years. So, in fact, historians will not at all call this period a depression. More likely, they will look back and wonder why so many people thought things were bad when, by all objective measurements, things were actually quite good. Low inflation, low commodities prices, decent wage…

Does no one remember how negative everyone was at the height of the boom in 2007? We look back on that period as a time of incredible prosperity, but I remember it was basically the same as today: everyone complaining about everything.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#59

Post by bmm6o » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 7:39 PM UTC

CaptSpify wrote: post #26

xlm1717 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, the most frustrating part is that despite our hyperconnectedness, people still believe the propaganda that we're not in a depression or that our leaders got us out of the recession. Future economists will call the decade the "longest depression" not out of 20/20 hindsight, but simply because there will no longer be a need to make things seem rosy.

> people still believe the propaganda that we're not in a depression Is there a source for this? Everyone I know believes that we still are in a depression, so it's probably just my social circles. I'd be interested to see the stats behind that.

What is the basis for everyone you know believing this? "Depression" has an objective definition that objectively doesn't currently hold. Do they not believe the reported numbers of the GDP, or are they using their own incorrect definition of the term?

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#60

Post by jerf » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #35

jerf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more in the increasing centralization of power. The central power is bigger and thus harder to move by sheer inertia, more risk-averse, and also more able to simply implement whatever it likes regardless of what anybody else thinks because it is isolate from the trenches. I think one of the top-3 issues facing the US right now is we need a lot more power devolved back to the states... not out of a "state…

I doubt that shifting power to the states will solve many problems; after all it's the states that want to force Christianity on students, ban the teaching of science, deny healthcare to those most in need of it, lower standards for students so many HS grads are still illiterate, defund universities, and hand monopolies to oil, mineral, and telecom companies.

What on Earth do you think the Federal government is, exactly? By what magic is a government over ten million people to be distrusted, but by aggregating 325 million people's government all of which are also ruled over by these presumably nontrustworthy states, are magically transformed into bastions of sense and sensibility? Where's the line, exactly? It's all the same people!

Personally, I think it's just you can sort of imagine a state-sized government, but the Federal government is just inconceivably large so you end up modeling it by what you imagine it could conceivably be, rather than a model that resembles what it is. Other than the fact our Federal government is more interested in fighting Christianity than enforcing it, I could substantiate everything else you said for our Federal government, too. In fact, some of them are clearly more the responsibility of the Federal government right now.