Links of the Week - 2 October 2015

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


Why the presidential candidates need to answer tough questions about God
Paul Waldman

Reimagining electric utilities for the 21st century
David Roberts

It's time for the Fed to admit it doesn't have an inflation problem
Timothy B. Lee

Back to the Future…for lunch
Jared Bernstein

Scott Walker’s race to the bottom
Paul Waldman

Ta-Nehisi Coates: “For African Americans, unfreedom is the historical norm”
Ezra Klein

The Federal Reserve is trying to do what nobody else has been able to do
Matt O'Brien

Donald Trump is much more like Ronald Reagan than the GOP establishment would like to admit
Jonathan Allen

The Dynasty That Almost Wasn’t
Jules Witcover

Scott Walker's plan to crush American labor unions, explained
Matthew Yglesias

Links of the Week - 25 September 2015

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


17 Democrats Ran for President in 1976. Can Today’s GOP Learn Anything From What Happened?
Julian E. Zelizer

Kim Davis Is No Rosa Parks
John Culhane

The Last War
Matthew Duss

Unbuilt Highways of New York City and Robert Moses
Vanshnookenraggen

Power utilities are built for the 20th century. That’s why they’re flailing in the 21st.
David Roberts

The government is trying to make walking American again
Emily Badger

People like puppies, and it’s a big problem for the economy
Yian Q Mui

Larry Summers has become one of organized labor’s biggest advocates
Lydia DePillis

Will “decoherence” be the doom of American democracy?
Lee Drutman

Thoughts on Freeman’s Bargaining for the American Dream
Larry Summers

Links of the Week - 18 September 2015

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


Overcoming the Advantage of Run-Pass Option Offenses
Brophy Football

How so many of the world’s people live in so little of its space
Ana Swanson

Fascinating maps show where people move in the U.S. when they come from overseas
Kennedy Elliott & Emily Badger

There's only one political dynasty in America
Mark Schmitt

How Trump Exposed the Tea Party
Michael Lind

This is the worst argument for the Fed to raise rates
Matt O'Brien

Is It Time to Tax Harvard’s Endowment?
Jordan Weissman

Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee's support for Kim Davis gets religious liberty all wrong
German Lopez

Superman makes the case for welfare
Matthew Yglesias

Next time someone tells you "all lives matter," show them this cartoon
German Lopez

Labor Market Tightness

Just a quick update:

With the fall in headline unemployment to 5.1% and the robust gains in monthly jobs numbers, many commentators are looking for the Federal Reserve to raise the target Fed Funds rate. This flies in the face, of course, of the other half of the Fed's dual mandate (stable prices), as headline inflation is still well below their alleged 2% target.

It is instructive, then, to look at other metrics. Below is a measure of unemployed persons per job opening. This, of course, does not include the marginally attached or those employed part-time for economic reasons.

This is very encouraging in and of itself, but anemic wage growth still indicates the time for tightening is a ways off.

Links of the Week - 11 September 2015

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


A dangerously misleading idea threatens to derail the American economy
Matthew Yglesias

What Ails the American Startup?
Evan Soltas

Artificial Unintelligence
Paul Krugman

Tech nerds are smart. But they can't seem to get their heads around politics.
David Roberts

The macro/micro validity tradeoff
Noah Smith

“A small cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand…”
David Warsh

A Fact about China's Crash
Evan Soltas

Labor market tightness
The FRED Blog

President McKinley's policies were garbage, and he doesn't deserve an awesome mountain
Matthew Yglesias

Hard Knocks: Playing Defense With TCU’s Gary Patterson
Chris Brown

Links of the Week - 4 September 2015

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


This study tried to improve our ability to predict major geopolitical events. It worked.
Zack Beauchamp

Pregnancy is painful, difficult, and dangerous. No one should be forced into it.
Amanda Taub

Donald Trump says the 'real' unemployment rate is 42%. He's really, really wrong.
Dan Diamond

The Voluntarism Fantasy
Mike Konczal

How does the NFL’s Roger Goodell stay in power? By acting like a dictator.
Michael C. Horowitz

The diversity of U.S. state economies
The FRED Blog

The Reactionary Soul

Paul Krugman

The Future of Macro

Ray Fair

A good use of moving averages
The FRED Blog

In landmark case, labor board will let more workers bargain with their employer’s employer
Lydia DePillis

Links of the Week - 28 August 2015

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


Donald Trump is the perfect "moderate"
Ezra Klein

Donald Trump’s secret political weapon is his mastery of reality TV
Todd VanDerWerff

An Altogether Different Angle
David Warsh

A New Magnifier
David Warsh

The Scotchman Returns To The Model, Acuity Greatly Enhanced
David Warsh

Government employment in context
The FRED Blog

The Machine that Changed the World
David Warsh

Why Jimmy Carter is a great American leader
Jonathan Allen

I worked for the governor of Louisiana during Katrina. Here are 5 things I learned.
Robert Mann

The composition effect in the labor force participation rate
The FRED Blog

Links of the Week - 21 August 2015

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


Discovering the Myth of the Lost Cause in Montgomery, Alabama
Mark Perry

When was the first traffic light installed? Today in 1914.
Joseph Stromberg

The case against voter ID laws, in one chart
German Lopez

The Tea Party finally has its very own presidential candidate: Donald Trump
Jonathan Allen

GDP Revisions
The FRED Blog

This California city just built the country's first protected intersection for bikes
Joseph Stromberg

This browser hack reveals the truth about “political correctness”
Amanda Taub

The real reason American public transportation is such a disaster
Joseph Stromberg

One image shows what cities would look like without cars

Ana Swanson

Rand Paul on what America’s been doing all wrong since 1835

Matt O'Brien

Links of the Week - 14 August 2015

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


A single image captures how the American house has changed over 400 years
Emily Badger

Freshwater’s Wrong Turn
Paul Krugman

Sarcasm and Science
Paul Krugman

Jamestown excavation unearths four bodies — and a mystery in a small box
Michael E. Ruane

The Problem with Some Subscription Services
Derek Guy

Donald Trump: Honesty Is for Chumps
Jack Shafer

Rewriting Turkish History to Fit the Ideology
Jonathan Wight

Is radical leftism a trap for minorities?
Noah Smith

We Don’t Really Care About Car Accidents
Kevin Klinkenberg

How to Fix Our Interstates
Reihan Salam

Heritage = Hate, at least some of the time

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the dichotomy between 'heritage' and 'hate' in these discussions. Why exactly are these two ideas supposed to be mutually exclusive? I guess it's mainly because we've never really tried to reckon with slavery since the mid 1870s, and the effects of our collective head-in-the-sand explain pretty much all of the so-called 'problems with race' in the US since.

We've got dozens of Holocaust memorials and museums in the United States, which I think is a reflection both of the long history of Jewish culture in the US and of the role the US played in ending the Holocaust. On the other hand, we've got very few memorials to slaves, and virtually no museums to teach this important, painful, and essential part of our nation's history.

Germany has also got some Holocaust memorials and museums to help them sort out what that period means in their history. Eric Foner pointed out that if Germany had built a big bunch of memorials and museums to American slavery before they built any for the Holocaust, it might look as if they were trying to hide something.

Links of the Week - 7 August 2015

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


The Old Man and the CPI
Paul Krugman

Uber and the New Liberal Consensus
Paul Krugman

How school district boundaries are gerrymandered to keep poor kids segregated
Libby Nelson

The F story about the Great Inflation
Simon Wren-Lewis

The Moderate Republican's Case for Donald Trump
Bruce Bartlett

How conservative media helped the far-right take over the Republican Party
David Roberts

Gross Domestic Output, Explained
Matthew Yglesias

Hillary Clinton wants to take on "quarterly capitalism" — here's what that means
Matthew Yglesias

Jeb Bush now says he wouldn’t ‘phase out’ Medicare. What he would do is just as wrong.
Paul Waldman

Gold is doomed
Matt O'Brien

Links of the Week - 31 July 2015

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


Here's Why the Huffington Post Is Wrong About Donald Trump
David Corn

If Guns Make Us Safer, Why Not Let Them Into the U.S. Capitol?
Josh Zeitz

There's a simple way to end gerrymandering. Too bad Congress made it illegal.
Matthew Yglesias

Free-market ideology and the burden of proof
Noah Smith

We don’t say “plane accident.” We shouldn’t say “car accident” either.
Joseph Stromberg

Dodd-Frank turns 5 today — it's Obama's most under-appreciated achievement
Mike Konczal

Pushing back on “quarterly capitalism” and incentivizing more investment
Jared Bernstein

Unlike Jeb Bush, John Kasich is trying something different
Paul Waldman

Finland is the poster child for why the euro doesn’t work
Matt O'Brien

Survey expectations - some more evidence

Noah Smith