Curt Doolittle

Category: Economics, Finance, and Political Economy

  • READING

    http://equitablegrowth.org/2014/05/22/honest-broker-mr-piketty-neoclassicists-suggested-interpretation-week-may-17-2014/WORTH READING

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-24 09:23:00 UTC

  • Asymmetry of Earnings. In Ukraine, a gardener/landscaper costs $200 month. A hou

    Asymmetry of Earnings.

    In Ukraine, a gardener/landscaper costs $200 month. A housekeeper / cook / maid $800. You probably own your car outright, and your home/apartment outright. And bribing your way out of a speeding or traffic ticket costs $10-$20. Food is cheap, fresh and good quality (other than beef which isn’t sweet here.) Violent crime is hard to find although like all of europe, the degree of petty crime is outrageous to americans. The internet is good, nearly free, and pretty much everywhere. Sure, the roads are tragic. the infrastructure is falling apart. The architecture is a mixture of bleak soviet era slum and The restaurant service is very slow. The government is corrupt as hell. But at least, unlike western countries, the bureaucrats are practical rather than self-righteous about their corruption.

    Oh. Did I mention the people are so beautiful they’re like watching a living art form?

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-24 02:32:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2014/05/is-technical-analysis-completely.html?m=1

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-23 06:01:00 UTC

  • Economic velocity achieved with high trust in a stable population, is very diffe

    Economic velocity achieved with high trust in a stable population, is very different from economic velocity achieved with expansionary credit, in an expanding population. The first requires invention. The second only application.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-21 01:45:00 UTC

  • THE RICH DON’T CONSUME RETURNS ON SAVINGS (worth repeating) –“Piketty’s rich-ge

    THE RICH DON’T CONSUME RETURNS ON SAVINGS

    (worth repeating)

    –“Piketty’s rich-get-ever-richer projection can happen only if the rich don’t live like rich people, that is, that they don’t spend their wealth or the income generated by their wealth. All those savings just sit there making the economy more productive and, in the process, raising wages for the proletariat while the top 1% don’t actually consume any of the returns on those savings. Piketty’s scenario is close to Charles Murray’s desire that the rich live a little less ostentatiously.”—Andrew Biggs.

    (Except for food -restaurants- I bet I ‘live poorer’ than the middle class today. Almost every cent I’ve made goes into investment in my next business. Furthermore, to build ascentium, I lived on zero to 50K a year for two years, and at half my income for most of the rest, and even at my highest salary, less than 60% of my market value. Everything else was reinvested in the business. This is pretty common. Being rich isn’t a matter of consumption. It’s a matter of using your money to make money, rather than using your time, arms and legs. But then there is the entire state-corporatist-financial-sector that vampires off all of us. But entrepreneurs and private investors are not in that category.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-18 06:31:00 UTC

  • PRIVILEGE: TAX THE HELL OUT OF WORKING CHILDLESS WOMEN They are experiencing the

    PRIVILEGE: TAX THE HELL OUT OF WORKING CHILDLESS WOMEN

    They are experiencing the greatest luxury, greatest conspicuous consumption, at the greatest social expense.

    —“Japan has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, with each woman bearing an average of 1.4 children. At that rate, demographers project a plunge from 127 million people today to 87 million by 2060, sapping the workforce of its vital young workers and putting an enormous strain on state finances. The shrinkage has already begun. In 2013, Japan’s population declined by a record-breaking 244,000 people. All of which has led to some rather creative policy proposals from the Chamber of Commerce, such as retaining 70-year-old’s in the workforce, doubling government expenditures on childcare and encouraging men to ask working women out on a date.”—

    Furthermore, keeping 70 year olds in the work force is an excellent idea. Adding 14 year olds to the work force is a better idea. Growth from demographic expansion is a bad idea. Collapse from demographic contraction is a very, very bad idea.

    No one gets a free ride.

    Tax the hell out of working single women.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-18 04:52:00 UTC

  • PICKETTY I don’t share Don very often. But here are two (OBVIOUS) criticisms of

    http://cafehayek.com/2014/05/two-piketty-links.htmlCONTRA PICKETTY

    I don’t share Don very often. But here are two (OBVIOUS) criticisms of Picketty’s work that reflect austrian understanding of economics and behavior.

    TWO QUOTES

    —“In other words, there are two ways to explain why the mean wealth of the x% has grown faster than the mean wealth of the whole population. According to Piketty, it means that the richer you are in the first place, the faster your capital grows over time (hence, the dynastic wealth world he foresees). But it might also be the opposite: this phenomenon is exactly what we should expect to see in a world of high wealth turnover, a world where fortune rewards skills, hard work and risk taking. Quite symptomatically, Piketty and its numerous followers have completely dismissed that possibility.”—Guillaume Nicoulaud.

    —“But what if people don’t spend down their savings? That seems to be Piketty’s assumption, at least for the very rich: they build more and more wealth which they don’t spend, and that wealth generates capital income, which they also don’t spend, and so on. If that happens, then the capital-output ratio does keep rising. But this also means that Piketty’s rich-get-ever-richer projection can happen only if the rich don’t live like rich people, that is, that they don’t spend their wealth or the income generated by their wealth. All those savings just sit there making the economy more productive and, in the process, raising wages for the proletariat while the top 1% don’t actually consume any of the returns on those savings. Piketty’s scenario is close to Charles Murray’s desire that the rich live a little less ostentatiously.”—Andrew Biggs.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-18 04:44:00 UTC

  • “I’M FOR PUNISHMENT” —“Summers told Taleb that he was for more capital, more l

    “I’M FOR PUNISHMENT”

    —“Summers told Taleb that he was for more capital, more liquidity, living wills for banks and procedures to wind them down. “What are you for?” he challenged. “I’m for punishment,” Taleb replied. Taleb outlined a system in which everyone would know which systemically important banks would be bailed out, but would presumably see strict oversight of bonuses and operations afterward. Other institutions would be left to fail, he said.”—

    I’m for punishment too. Without punishment it’s not cooperation, it’s not a market, and it’s not capitalism.

    I have a better punishment in mind and it’s a permanent one: if the government is going to produce liquidity (inflation) then give every citizen a debit card and distribute the money directly to consumers bypassing the banks.

    That will rapidly correct the abuses of our financial sector. Because they will have to satisfy consumers to get their hands on cash.

    Not that I’m in favor of government’s printing money. But if you’re going to print it, at least do it intelligently -without creating fragility, and without creating a moral hazard.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-17 09:52:00 UTC

  • Of course? I’m sorry. But guys who are that smart and can work that hard just ca

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/101679720Um. Of course?

    I’m sorry. But guys who are that smart and can work that hard just can out compete the rest of us. I might be pretty smart, and I can drill on something absurdly complicated forever; but I can’t grok stuff from that many different sources and contexts in one day without having a nervous breakdown. Some of these guys just amaze me. Their sheer ability to switch context on demand. All. Day. Long. Day after day. Year after year. With one person after another. And they don’t get tired. I am so jealous. lol. Sure some guys are lucky. But a lot of them are just smart.

    The market is not friendly to stupid. It’s only friendly to lucky once. Guys who do great stuff repeatedly – that’s not luck. That’s brains. And it’s freaking hard.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-16 16:28:00 UTC

  • SCARCITY OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION – WHY?

    http://www.aei-ideas.org/2014/05/is-there-too-little-creative-destruction-in-the-us-economy/A SCARCITY OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION – WHY?

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-13 04:29:00 UTC