First Moon Party

This is uncomfortable and funny.

And yet another reason that I thank merciful God in heaven that we were blessed with boys.

The product is "Hello Flo."  Yes, it is.  And it's a real product.  "Special delivery for your crimson tide."  Gott im Himmel.

Those Wacky French Folks

Some French are very upset about people choosing to marry a person of the same sex.

But they are quite OK, in the know-it-all sophisticated Euro way, with a woman marrying a giant block of concrete.  You can see for yourself...

Excerpt:  "An Australian woman has taken her desire for the ‘strong and silent’-type to a new extreme when she married a bridge. Jodi Rose married Le Pont du Diable Bridge in Céret, southern France after falling head over heels for the ‘sensual’ 14th century stone structure."

Conservatives can presumably be appeased by the fact that she at least took the bridge's name.

(Adapted from an email from the indispensable M.K.)

Financial Journalism 101

Financial journalists are like NFL cornerbacks. They have a very short memory.

No matter what happens, they always have a facile explanation, and little to no concern if the explanation is logically consistent with the explanation for yesterday's events.

I read that the stock market decline yesterday was due to "preliminary bad jobs news" and "bracing for Friday's jobs report".

If the market had surged, it would have no doubt been because the bad news meant the Fed would not be ending its various asset buying programs (the "bad news is actually good news" gambit).

And people, if the market hadn't budged........??

That's right, investors had already "priced in" the news.

Nice work if you can get it and don't mind the smell.

Shout it from the rooftops! The Myth of the Falling Bridge

All hail to Evan Soltas for this piece, and may the Lord protect him from the wrath of his erstwhile pals.

By all means read the piece, but let me break down the highlights for you:

For the last 40 years, our infrastructure spending has tracked the rich country average, and it has not been falling recently. The quality of the roads we drive on has gone up and the  percentage of "deficient" bridges has gone down (to 21.9% in 2009 from 37.8 in 1989).

In other words, we don't have an infrastructure crisis, we don't need a politically run national infrastructure bank, and, whatever the intrinsic merits of more stimulus may be, we don't have trillions of "no-brainer" investments in infrastructure that are desperately needed.

Maybe, just maybe, we can now stop piously repeating the calls of a special interest group (the American Society of Civil Engineers) for more money to be funneled their way.

Deer Crossing Performance Art

I refuse to believe that this is serious.  It is the most brilliant performance art hoax in human history.

Step 1:  Woman suggests that "Deer Crossing" sign be moved somewhere with less traffic.  She thought that the sign was to tell the deer where to cross.  I mean, that's what she SAID.  "We can use the signs to direct the deer elsewhere."  Please, please listen to this....

Step 2:  Woman "admits" that she was confused.  The "Deer Crossing" sign is actually information for HUMANs, not for DEER.  She totally stays in character.

She says she grew up in a rural area.  Because apparently people in rural areas think that deer can read.  They aren't like those smart city folks, who know a lot about deer.

Peter Orzag wants to sell you a bridge

Over at Bloomberg, Orzag assures us that stimulate now, cut later is a realistic strategy because it has worked well in the past.

The piece is titled, "History Shows the US can Stimulate Now, Cut Later"!

His examples? Well there's really only 1 given:

"From 2017 to 2022, Social Security’s normal retirement age is scheduled to gradually increase to 67. And I’ll bet that not only happens as planned, but does so with little fanfare -- which is pretty much what happened several years ago when the age rose from 65 to 66."

Oh, man. I stand corrected. A phased in over 5 years one year increase in the normal retirement age is going to happen? Well of course we can run a big stimulus now and pay for it with cuts later!

People, this is just so wrong in so many ways. First, this is a tiny "cut". Second, it wasn't part of a deal that included increased spending in the present. Third, as Krugman and others have pointed out recently, the US Congress is the most polarized it's been in recent history. Fourth, that example is a pretty thin reed on which to base "History Shows".

Orzag goes on to cite a 2009 study showing Medicare cuts were largely implemented. But they weren't implemented as part of a deal to allow increased current spending nor was there a long time delay between the legislation and the enactment.

Current Congresses cannot bind future ones. Sure the filibuster or veto threat can create some status quo bias, but a law saying let's spend a bunch more right now but don't worry, we'll cut in 10 years in basically just a con game.

I am not aware of any examples in peacetime (sorry I know we have "wars" going on vs. drugs and terror) US history where the Federal government rationalized an immediate spending increase of 500 billion to 1 trillion dollars in a time where the deficit was already over 1 trillion dollars by promising to cut spending 5 to 10 years in the future and actually did it.

I am pretty sure if Peter Orzag actually knew of such a case, he'd have mentioned it in his piece.

Unicorns & Rainbows

Ezra Klein has identified why the government didn't "fix" the great recession; Politics:

The compromise was clean and obvious: Investments and tax cuts now, coupled with a much-larger deficit reduction package that would kick in once unemployment fell below, say, 7 percent. 


 What doomed this package wasn’t a theoretical divide. I spoke with many freshwater economists who thought a package like this would be sensible. Rather, it was politics wot (sic) done it. 

 This type of storyline refuses to recognize the simple brutal fact that current politicians cannot commit future politicians to a specific course of action. The proposed "package" was simply not credible because the back loaded pain is unenforceable.

Advocates of deficit reduction (I'm not saying that it's the right policy) could clearly see that the only policy that would actually happen for sure was a big increase in the deficit and were completely rational in opposing such a plan.

Absent a credible commitment mechanism, promises of future actions are basically worthless. This is an example of the "asynchronous exchange" issue Oliver Williamson has elucidated. Some call it the "St. Augustine problem" ("Lord grant me chastity, but not just yet")

The phenomenon doesn't rely on there being different politicians in place when the deficit reduction is supposed to kick in. The exact same politicians can simply decline to enforce their previous agreement.

Let's see what happens to the "automatic" sequestration.

If you really want deficit reduction (again, I'm not saying that it's the right policy), all you can do is try to get it done NOW.