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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

#161

Post by Fjolsvith »

nkozyra wrote: post #153
iso1631 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

> I don't think it's bad either, Of course, but it has a significant, fundamental impact on huge aspects of "the economy" as we know it. Large segments of commerce - particularly in the U.S. - pivot heavily on people spending time and money commuting, spending time in an office, eating and drinking at nearby establishments, etc. The effects will take some time to shake out.

It will be interesting to see if they invest that extra money, and add to the boom of the economy.

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

#162

Post by david927 »

dboreham wrote: post #13

We can soothe ourselves with the thought that Economists are usually wrong.

I'm a bit shocked that that seems to be the take here.

You don't need to have a background in Economics to see what has been happening even before the pandemic, and what is certainly to come. What is happening in the bond market? What has the Fed been doing for about a year now? What is the normal rate of zombie firms? What is it now? How many companies simply won't reopen? I could go on for hours.

This isn't tea-leaf reading. The signs are 100ft high and in neon.

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

#163

Post by heavenlyblue »

luckydata wrote: post #158
chrisco255 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Sweden never wore masks and never shut down schools and yet they achieved comparable results to draconian lockdowns. They already have herd immunity. It's likely we would get 2 economists from the year 2100 both giving opposite reasons for the next 80 years of events.

They don’t have yet herd immunity and their results are worse with respect to all comparable countries that had a lockdown. What you say is categorically false.

It’s not much worse as you would expect it to be, though.

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

#164

Post by eloff »

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’…

That's correct, but it's a far cry from the claim most economists were "unwilling to entertain the idea that the housing market could collapse."

Also 2008 surprised almost everyone, so saying economists couldn't predict it is not much of a slander. Neither could banks, governments, hedge funds, or multiple other groups whose business it was to watch out for events like that.

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

#165

Post by quintushoratius »

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…

It's also worth mentioning that older folks alive during the Great Depression had a perspective on it vs the panics during the 19th century. Many observed that the Great Depression, which was the worst in a generation, was tough but manageable compared to the Panic of 1983 where people literally could not buy food.

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

#166

Post by dwheeler »

rch wrote: post #117
dwheeler wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Economists are as effective as astrologists at predicting the future. That's unfair to astrologists, economists are not going to be that good. :-) To be fair, the better economists work by creating models based on reality. But we don't have a rich dataset about modern economies responding to pandemics. It's not that they are stupid, it's that economies are difficult to predict in general, and we don't have the data…

I don't think the term "economists" refers to an easily generalizable group. In my experience there is more world-view variation among economists than one might expect looking at the differences between bayesians vs. frequentists, etc. Some economists don't embrace modeling as a means of arriving at policy recommendations at all, for instance. Others do of course, but influence doesn't seem as tied to quantitative as…

It's true that some use quantitative models, and some don't. But all experts use past experience as a guide. As the present becomes more different from the past, it becomes more uncertain that past experience is relevant.

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

#168

Post by quintushoratius »

TheCowboy wrote: post #150
marcosdumay wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

Those are examples of politicians reacting to events that were already occurring or had occurred.

Counter-point, most respectable economists said that the 2017 Trump tax cut was a bad idea, it was too expensive and helping the wrong people. Fast forward to this year, and now the deficit is ballooning due to said tax cut, leaving the government very little wriggle-room.

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

#169

Post by twblalock »

luckydata wrote: post #158
chrisco255 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Sweden never wore masks and never shut down schools and yet they achieved comparable results to draconian lockdowns. They already have herd immunity. It's likely we would get 2 economists from the year 2100 both giving opposite reasons for the next 80 years of events.

They don’t have yet herd immunity and their results are worse with respect to all comparable countries that had a lockdown. What you say is categorically false.

There are definitely countries in Europe that locked down and yet have a higher per-capita death rate than Sweden.

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

#170

Post by AngrySkillzz »

quintushoratius wrote: post #165
AngrySkillzz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's also worth mentioning that older folks alive during the Great Depression had a perspective on it vs the panics during the 19th century. Many observed that the Great Depression, which was the worst in a generation, was tough but manageable compared to the Panic of 1983 where people literally could not buy food.

Yup, there is a lot of interesting perspective you get from reading journals and correspondence from the period. Sources from the late 1800s will include bits from the lives of every day people, almost always along the lines of: John opens a store, panic occurs, his business fails and he moves to a different town; becomes a partner in a canal shipping company, panic occurs, his business fails and he moves to a different town; etc.
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