18 juli 2015

overpeinzingen

nog wat kleine dingen die ik afgelopen week las
-de onhoudbaarheid van de Griekse schuld
zeer lange looptijd, gefinancierd tegen een zo lage ente dat de lasten lager zijn dan die van Frankrijk of België in de komende jaren. Toch nog te zwaar.
en diverse mensen beginne te rekenen hoe lang een lening moet zijn om een 'haircut' te kunnen zijn: 40-50 jaar leidt tot minstens 40% (ik reken veel grotere discounts uit; als ze in drachmen gaan financieren, zullen ze vele malen hogere rentes moeten gaan betalen).

-volgens een poll van Atlantico http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-leads-scott-walker-jeb-bush-in-fox-national-poll-120267.html leidt Trump bij de republikeinen met 18% voor Walker (die denk ik gaat winnen) 15%, Bush 14% en Rubio/Paul 8%.
hierbij hoort ook Obama bashen http://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-next-revolution-1436918113
Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow James Piereson on his new book, “Shattered Consensus,” and the death of the welfare state. 
En dat net nu Obama zo succesvol is geworden, de enige president die van zijn tweede ambtstermijn meer maakt dan van zijn eerste
maar het boek heeft enige interessante denkbeelden
De bespreking in de Wall Street Journal: Mr. Piereson, a hero of philanthropy who faithfully spent the Olin Foundation out of business after supporting the work of think tanks, small magazines and groundbreaking scholars like Allan Bloom and Charles Murray, views the Obama presidency as the beginning of the collapse of an 80-year consensus, forged in the post-World War II years. That consensus “assigned the national government responsibility for maintaining full employment and for policing the world in the interests of democracy, trade, and national security.” Such a consensus, which “is required in order for a polity to meet its major challenges,” Mr. Piereson argues, “. . . no longer exists in the United States. That being so, the problems will mount to a point where either they will be addressed through a ‘fourth revolution’ or the polity will begin to disintegrate for lack of fundamental agreement.”

How, for example, will the contemporary left resolve the original progressive contradiction, which persists today: Affecting to be tribunes of “the people” and advocates for democracy, in practice so-called progressives demonstrate a dismissive impatience with democracy in favor of rule by the diktats of our benevolent betters, namely them.
At some point, what Democrat Erskine Bowles has aptly labeled “the most predictable crisis in American history” will be upon us, as the federal government defaults by one means or another on its unpayable promises. A revolt of the betrayed elderly, or of the plundered young, could be the catalyst for Mr. Piereson’s revolution. Perhaps even sooner, one state rendered destitute by reckless government spending and public pensions will attempt to dump its hopeless debt problem on the rest of the union. Which of these scenarios is most likely? Which most dangerous? Could the fourth revolution manifest itself in a separatist movement by states where majorities feel culturally estranged and disinclined to pick up the tab for the extravagance of less responsible states? Could the growing number of citizens professing economic conservatism coupled with libertarian social views be the front edge of a new consensus? No doubt this insightful author can help the rest of us think through these possibilities, but it appears that we will have to await his next book.


Hal Varian had nog een verhaal in de Wall Street Journal dat de productiviteitsgroei onderschat wordt, omdat een heleboel gratis is en daarom niet geteld wordt

Silicon Valley Doesn’t Believe U.S. Productivity Is Down

Contrarian economists at Google and Stanford say the U.S. doesn’t have a productivity problem, it has a measurement problem


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