41–50 of 53 posts
I think what they're doing is long overdue. The abuse and corruption already exposed proves it. The net savings to taxpayers far outweighs any business losses from what I've gathered.
I have yet to see a significant amount of this exposed.
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The main argument for government employees is not that they generate more wealth spending than the private sector. If that were the case we'd just make everyone government employees. Generally the government is worse at generating wealth (in fact, they almost entirely rely on taking wealth others could otherwise spend and then spending it themselves) to spend than the private sector. Firing a government employee who…
That's if the govt employee finds same level of pay or better in the private sector to possibly even another job in a timely fashion. If and only then they can continue to pay their bills, mortgage and contribute to the economy. If you spend time one hacker news you will see many techies out of work not able to find another job for months or more as well the argument of the fake job listings. I'm doubtful of your arg…
Imagine you farm and create 200 apples, you go to the crossroads and offer them for sale, and earn $200. Someone comes along, and having themselves spent the day building a table, offers it to you for $200 and you take it. Youve both spent your earnings and even better, you now both feel better off than before. You use the table to better work on your implements for apples, generating more value and spending.
Now suppose, instead, you go to the crossroads, you sell your apples, make $200. Someone comes along, takes that $200, maybe with a badge that says 'taxman', and says "not to worry, we will give it to an employee that will spend it!."
Now maybe that employee will spend your $200 building a table for you or someone else, but he's under no economic pressure to do -- he already has your money. It's just as likely he uses it to create 30 rifle cartridges that get shot into a mountain in Afghanistan. That doesn't increase spending, it just takes what you were going to spend and spends it on something else. If you fire that person, and they're forced to now build tables, spending increases even if they are now paid less.
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That's if the govt employee finds same level of pay or better in the private sector to possibly even another job in a timely fashion. If and only then they can continue to pay their bills, mortgage and contribute to the economy. If you spend time one hacker news you will see many techies out of work not able to find another job for months or more as well the argument of the fake job listings. I'm doubtful of your arg…
I think the trouble you're having in understanding here is that the government workers paycheck came from violently taking it from someone else, not from market value of generating something that can be spent. Imagine you farm and create 200 apples, you go to the crossroads and offer them for sale, and earn $200. Someone comes along, and having themselves spent the day building a table, offers it to you for $200 and…
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I’d be curious to see a breakdown, aren’t a lot of federal jobs in red states? Besides I’m more interested in the second order impacts, what happens when those people stop spending in their communities?
Government employees draw their money from taxes, inflation, or debt that's paid by one of the two. Stop spending is a bit of a myth, it reverts the spending to whatever productive entity in the economy it was taken from.
It takes a while for this too happen though right, during which time there’s some “economic pain” as the euphemism goes.
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Government employees draw their money from taxes, inflation, or debt that's paid by one of the two. Stop spending is a bit of a myth, it reverts the spending to whatever productive entity in the economy it was taken from.
> Stop spending is a bit of a myth, it reverts the spending to whatever productive entity in the economy it was taken from. It takes a while for this too happen though right, during which time there’s some “economic pain” as the euphemism goes.
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The solution to a bad model is more models :). I'm joking but serious. "All models are wrong, but some are useful."
Although also responsive, the solution to incorrectly applying models _isn't_ to get more models, it's to understand the mistakes being made in applying them.
- Statistically, more models tends to be better (in the same sense that more information is better) under the assumption that people can tell better from worse.
- I like how you talk about _applying_ models instead of _using_ models. It is an easy one word change that (to me at least) emphasizes the choice points of: (a) selecting the model; (b) selecting parameters; (c) interpretation.
- All models (by definition) are unrealistic in some way. If a model operates at a useful level of abstraction, inaccuracies at lower levels may be acceptable. In fact, such inaccuracies may be the key to making the model tractable and efficient.
I'm looking for predictive economic models out in the open. I want to see the underlying assumptions and experiment. I'm not even picky about the kind of model: it could be a relatively simple linear regression model, a systems dynamics model, a complex simulation, or anything in-between. I just want models to a focal point of discussion rather than some poorly-explained textual interpretation. I know... I'm asking f…
I don't have any insights on specific models that are "out there", but I'll share one tidbit you might find of interest if you're not already familiar with it. Douglas Hubbard's "Applied Information Economics"[1] is a methodology that could probably be applied to doing what you're asking for. Is it the only such methodology? Almost certainly not. Is it the best? I really don't know, as I think the scope of what you'r…
Maybe they even allow clients to play around with the model directly, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I’m guessing they gate access to it via consulting fees. One wouldn’t want a client to “misinterpret” the model, would we? :P
Furthermore, the idea of open sourcing their base model isn’t probably something that they would consider; it is likely perceived as incompatible with their business model.
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I mean there’s some fed ones. Two are - GDPNow if you want shorter term: https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow - DSGE if you want longer term: https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/policy/dsge#/overview
GDP is such a deeply flawed metric of measuring human welfare. It’s an aggregate measure and doesn’t tell the distribution of wealth amongst nation. Also, it’s a metric that was sort of useful in the 1950s and during wartime when this country manufactured goods. Now it’s all unclear in this modern economy. It doesn’t take into proper account of services, quality of care, quality of life. It doesn’t even take into acc…
This touches on a key point: just because we can predict something doesn’t mean we should optimize for it. Still, being aware of consequences is useful: perhaps we want to satisfice under various constraints.
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I mean there’s some fed ones. Two are - GDPNow if you want shorter term: https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow - DSGE if you want longer term: https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/policy/dsge#/overview
GDP is such a deeply flawed metric of measuring human welfare. It’s an aggregate measure and doesn’t tell the distribution of wealth amongst nation. Also, it’s a metric that was sort of useful in the 1950s and during wartime when this country manufactured goods. Now it’s all unclear in this modern economy. It doesn’t take into proper account of services, quality of care, quality of life. It doesn’t even take into acc…
But a bigger problem is the lack of a variety of models to choose from and compare.
My suggestion? If we want to encourage more models to exist in the world, we should use a mixture of (1) criticizing models (like above); (2) pointing to existing alternative models; (3) building new models; (4) writing up specific comparisons of models; (5) showing how to make models; (6) writing up successful case studies. And lots more.