Failure due to logrolling

If we've learned anything from the news of Aetna's retaliatory withdrawal from the healthcare markets, it's that allowing these firms to remain in business in 2010 was a huge mistake.

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/18/12520820/public-option-health-care-obamacare

Who holds (and has held) Federal Debt?

Via the outstanding FRED Blog, this is a graphic that shows how the composition of Federal debt-holders has evolved over time. The FRED Blog posted this data as a pie chart showing the current composition. I thought it would be more interesting to show the evolution. The left axis shows the percent (totaling 100).

The brown area shows the percentage of outstanding Federal debt held by foreign and international investors. The white area is the percentage held by domestic investors.* The green area is the percentage held by the Federal Reserve.





*The amount of Federal debt held by domestic investors is not calculated directly, so this series is determined by arithmetic.

Happy April!

Roundup of Arguments Contra-Piketty

Probably still too early for good, sound rebuttals to Capital in the Twenty-First Century, but, until we get one of those, have a look-see at this stuff:


Arnold Kling doesn't understand, because he thinks the premise is impossible because, well, he never quite says...

Will Wilkinson just doesn't want to talk about it.

Robin Hanson sees invisible taxes.

Tyler Cowen promises he'll have more to say later, and his readers say "THEFT! OMG!!"


Any more found will be added to this list. If you have one, leave it in the comments and I will add it on.

[Cross posted at the Newsfeed]

NY Fed Labor Conditions

The Federal Reserve bank of New York has published a cool interactive guide to labor conditions, using some familiar and some unfamiliar metrics. It looks like they are still working out the kinks, but, when fully operational, this will be a great resource. Now, if they only make these graphics embeddable, they will be approaching the same league as the St Louis Fed...

FedSim, by Evan Soltas

Blogger, college student, Wonkblog contributor, and all-around wunderkind Evan Soltas has created a monetary policy simulator called FedSim. The idea here is to do a better (more realistic) job of presenting a simulation of central banking action than those that are offered by the ECB and the San Francisco Fed.

In a followup post, Soltas outlined the gargantuan obstacles to the sort of modeling that underlies these sorts of simulators. I think he's all around done a great job overcoming them, however.

My first attempt was going along fine until Zimbabwe set in. I think I allowed the Funds rate to stay so low so long that my 'citizens' came to anticipate low rates forever. Thus my wild punches (2020 and onward) at inflation never landed. My next attempt, the results of which I will also post to CW, will hopefully be less Weimaresque.

I'd encourage readers to try the simulator out and see what you get.

First sad attempt

I am Emmanuel Saez.

I've been relatively neglectful of this blog over the last several weeks. I hope that is set to change, but I make no promises. In the meantime, enjoy this diversion.

In the interest of transparency, here are my answers.

Stereotyping in Europe

via Tyler Cowen.

Matching Dilemma

Via The Onion: No One In Limo Going To Prom With The One They Wanted

Perhaps these guys could've done it better.

Ryan Shrugged

Paul Ryan: 'We're not going to give up on destroying the health care system'

I am a Job Creator.

Hope, Updated

The Difference

That is all.

Song For 'Centrist' Democrats

Jump to start of lyrics.