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We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

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Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#141

Post by 37r7eyyeey »

save_ferris wrote: post #104
sfblah wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very reasonable comment. Social sciences are frustratingly imprecise. But, understanding the history of various scenarios is useful. And, it can result in useful policy changes which avoid the worst, as you mentioned.

The problem I have with economics after reading Debt: The 5000 years by David Graeber[0] (solid read, btw) is that the field was founded on some fundamentally flawed assumptions about its own history. The biggest one being that there's no evidence that a barter economy preceded a cash economy. We've all been taught that this was the case when there's no evidence it was true and there are a lot of unexplained problems…

Inequality is a weird goal post to choose for demonstrating the philosophical failure of economists. If everyone gets richer and the cost of goods remains the same or goes down then why do you care so much about the distance between the poles? Often it's the economists who criticize feel-good policies that make life harder for the poor (zoning regulations, regressive taxes, etc.)

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#142

Post by thisiszilff »

pm90 wrote: post #95
makomk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the American press has been pushing hard on the idea that the US is uniquely failing to deal with this and it's all Trump's fault because it's an election year and that's the most effective tool they have, but that doesn't make it true. In particular, things are heading in a really worrying direction throughout Europe right now, with countries that already saw overflowing hospitals and much bigger drops in GDP…

This is false and a garbage perspective. The US is objectively doing far worse than any other nation going by infection numbers and death tolls alone. I can’t imagine how a reasonable person can believe that this is anything but a disaster of epic proportions. Second waves were always a possibility and they will almost certainly happen without a significant testing and tracing infrastructure. Just because EU has not…

I was curious so I looked up some data: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality, sorting by the deaths/100k people, the US is below Belgium, UK, Spain, Italy and Sweden (in addition to some others). That data seems to support the situation in the US isn't exceptionally different than the situation in the EU.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#143

Post by lostmsu »

tsimionescu wrote: post #127
pm90 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false and a garbage perspective. The US is objectively doing far worse than any other nation going by infection numbers and death tolls alone. I can’t imagine how a reasonable person can believe that this is anything but a disaster of epic proportions. Second waves were always a possibility and they will almost certainly happen without a significant testing and tracing infrastructure. Just because EU has not…

Actually, the EU had about 130k deaths itself. If you add the UK to that, you get just as many as the US basically (172k vs 180k). So I don't think the EU really did much better than the US in this regard, overall. There are exceptions in specific countries, especially in some of the more Eastern countries, and Germany to some extent, but overall the EU countries did as badly as the US. Not to mention that the EU its…

You need to look at per capita numbers.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#144

Post by AngrySkillzz »

TheCowboy wrote: post #137
twblalock wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no credit given to economists for the recessions or depressions avoided. I don't think we have avoided any recessions, ever, based on the advice of economists. They just aren't that good at forecasting. They don't even agree on the policy that is appropriate to fight recessions when we know there is one. The "grandstanding" against economists in this thread is entirely justified.

Public policy, monetary policy, and fiscal policy all have empirical evidence in support of them, demonstrating the usefulness of the field. Your comment does not.

Backing you up here. There is a clearregime change in the data before and after the advent of central banking. Recessions and financial panics are less frequent, and less severe. Just looking at the US, there were ~15 recessions since the adoption of central banking in the 1910's. In the same time period during the 1800s there were >25 recessions, and that's not even comparing for severity. You can see the Wiki[1] for an overview.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit...

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#145

Post by 37r7eyyeey »

save_ferris wrote: post #134
eloff wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In our lifetimes, economists largely balked at the idea that the housing market could collapse, and then boom, 2008 happens. I don't buy that without citations. Everyone knows housing markets are like most other markets and go both up and down in cycles. Like most other markets, the bigger the boom, the bigger the bust that follows. To say that a majority of economists believed otherwise seems like pure hyperbole t…

From an analysis by the Wharton school[0]: “It’s not just that they missed it, they positively denied that it would happen,” says Wharton finance professor Franklin Allen, arguing that many economists used mathematical models that failed to account for the critical roles that banks and other financial institutions play in the economy. “Even a lot of the central banks in the world use these models,” Allen said. “That’…

> But it was the financial institutions that fomented the current crisis, by creating risky products, encouraging excessive borrowing among consumers and engaging in high-risk behavior themselves, like amassing huge positions in mortgage-backed securities, Allen says. Which is probably a big reason why many economists weren't watching harder. If the banks are reporting things are fine while incentivizing bad loans on the down low then it's not especially surprising that a data driven field was caught offguard by tainted information.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#146

Post by Icedcool »

just-juan-post wrote: post #66
Guzba wrote: post #11

Economists are as effective as astrologists at predicting the future. For some reason otherwise smart people don't realize this? I think it's something about economists being associated with the university system. I see this assured economic doom repeated so much without being questioned as anything but guaranteed I wonder where this incredible confidence is coming from? We have literally no idea what 2021 holds for…

I would suggest you pay attention to the economic stories and not the human interest stories when it comes to this virus. Did you know that 50% of San Fransisco's stores have closed? Half. HALF. https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Half-of-all-San-Fran... Did you know 250,000 evictions are looming in Las Vegas alone? https://www.ktnv.com/news/coronavirus/las-vegas-could-face-e... These are very real threats - not…

Wow...

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#147

Post by twblalock »

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #144
TheCowboy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public policy, monetary policy, and fiscal policy all have empirical evidence in support of them, demonstrating the usefulness of the field. Your comment does not.

Backing you up here. There is a clearregime change in the data before and after the advent of central banking. Recessions and financial panics are less frequent, and less severe. Just looking at the US, there were ~15 recessions since the adoption of central banking in the 1910's. In the same time period during the 1800s there were >25 recessions, and that's not even comparing for severity. You can see the Wiki[1] fo…

Are you counting the recessions caused by central banking policies being mistaken or outright wrong? There have been at least two in the USA in the past century that can be directly linked to the Federal Reserve, and who knows how many in other countries.

In the USA the two are the Great Depression (which the former Fed chief Ben Bernanke has argued was largely the result of Fed policies) and the early 1980s recession caused by the Fed increasing rates in an attempt to combat inflation. (It worked, inflation dropped, but many people lost their jobs.)

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#148

Post by TheCowboy »

leftyted wrote: post #112
TheCowboy wrote: post #92

The grandstanding against economists is disappointing. Let's say you were driving at night with someone in the country, and because they either knew the road or could see farther ahead they said, "There's a boulder in a road ahead, we're likely going to hit it if you don't slow down and turn to avoid it." And you do slow down and it allows you to turn to avoid a crash. How do you respond? Mock them for always being w…

All economists can do is project current trends into the future. Economists do not have -- to use your analogy -- a good theory for predicting when there will be a rock in the road. When economists act like they have such a theory is when people start rolling their eyes.

Economics isn't about making some projection like "GDP number going down so will go down more!" Current behavior contradicts this outright. Economists are broadly warning against being too optimistic about interpreting the current upward trend as meaning that a speedy and full recovery, without any economic damage, is inevitable.

There are many ideas and models about economic shocks and recessions that had important predictive value in demonstrating how this recession unfolded. It's not like this is something beyond understanding when you can compare the actions other countries took compared to the US.

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#149

Post by iso1631 »

nkozyra wrote: post #129
toinetoine wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Las Vegas, a town where the majority people are employed in the hospitality/leisure industry (casinos, restaurants, convention prep, etc.) SF where a huge amount of the residents have left the city since a majority of the white collar employees are WFH for the foreseeable future. Not sure how you can take these places and extrapolate for the economic health of the entire country...

You can special case any city or town. I don't think WFH is endemic to SF, for example. And economic effects cascade down.

> I don't think WFH is endemic to SF, for example

Certainly not. I don't think it's bad either, but some people (owners of expensive offices) do.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53925917 -- Warnings of 'ghost towns' if staff do not return to the office

As to shareholders of chain coffee/lunch stores -- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53939526

Re: We'll be stuck in this recession for years, economists say

#150

Post by TheCowboy »

marcosdumay wrote: post #114
TheCowboy wrote: post #92

The grandstanding against economists is disappointing. Let's say you were driving at night with someone in the country, and because they either knew the road or could see farther ahead they said, "There's a boulder in a road ahead, we're likely going to hit it if you don't slow down and turn to avoid it." And you do slow down and it allows you to turn to avoid a crash. How do you respond? Mock them for always being w…

Well, they really don't have much onus of evidence this time, but... How often do governments follow economists predictions ? Govs mostly react to things after they happen, much more so in monetary matters. When they do follow predictions, it's some stupid, politically based one, not an economics consensus. Besides, we trust that guy on your scenario because he has a verifiable model of how accidents happen. For some…

> How often do governments follow economists predictions?

Central banking and monetary policy lowering interest rates? The relief package earlier this year? Seriously?

> the people that make macroeconomics theories really dislike verifiable stuff, with very few exceptions

What are you even talking about?

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