A very handy go-to reference. It goes all the way to point 12.
“1. Helicopter money is a form of fiscal stimulus. The original Friedman thought experiment involved the central bank distributing money by helicopter, but the real world counterpart to that is a tax cut of some form.”
“2. What makes helicopter money different from a conventional tax cut is that helicopter money is paid for by the central bank printing money, rather than the government issuing debt.”
A letter worth keeping for possible future reference.
Steven Piker on why academics stink at writing. Together with “The Elements of Style“, this should be required reading for everyone who writes academic texts.
“The curse of knowledge, in combination with chunking and functional fixity, helps make sense of the paradox that classic style is difficult to master. What could be so hard about pretending to open your eyes and hold up your end of a conversation? The reason it’s harder than it sounds is that if you are enough of an expert in a topic to have something to say about it, you have probably come to think about it in abstract chunks and functional labels that are now second nature to you but are still unfamiliar to your readers—and you are the last one to realize it.”
“Enough already. Our indifference to how we share the fruits of our intellectual labors is a betrayal of our calling to enhance the spread of knowledge. In writing badly, we are wasting each other’s time, sowing confusion and error, and turning our profession into a laughingstock.”
From his blog:
“I guess the problem is that too many economists have the wrong attitude toward models. They’re not Truth; they’re intuition pumps, gadgets you use to clarify your story. You go badly wrong when you take them too seriously, and either forget that they’re just models or reject them because the world isn’t that simple.”
Barry Eichengreen in the FT:
“Making monetary policy has always been a complicated craft. Whenever there was an effort to reduce the art of central banking to a simple formula, be it an exchange rate target under the gold standard or an inflation target more recently, other problems – such as threats to financial stability – have had an awkward tendency to intrude. They will undoubtedly do so again.”
A very delightful essay by Paul Ford. Below some nice passages from it.
“What I found most appealing was the way that the practice of etiquette let you draw a protective circle around yourself and your emotions. By following the strictures in the book, you could drag yourself through a terrible situation and when it was all over, you could throw your white gloves in the dirty laundry hamper and move on with your life. I figured there was a big world out there and etiquette was going to come in handy along the way.”
“… nearly everyone in the world believes their job to be difficult. I once went to a party and met a very beautiful woman whose job was to help celebrities wear Harry Winston jewelry. I could tell that she was disappointed to be introduced to this rumpled giant in an off-brand shirt, but when I told her that her job sounded difficult to me she brightened and spoke for 30 straight minutes about sapphires and Jessica Simpson. She kept touching me as she talked. I forgave her for that.”
“People silently struggle from all kinds of terrible things. They suffer from depression, ambition, substance abuse, and pretension. They suffer from family tragedy, Ivy-League educations, and self-loathing. They suffer from failing marriages, physical pain, and publishing. The good thing about politeness is that you can treat these people exactly the same. And then wait to see what happens. You don’t have to have an opinion. You don’t need to make a judgment. I know that doesn’t sound like liberation, because we live and work in an opinion-based economy. But it is. Not having an opinion means not having an obligation. And not being obligated is one of the sweetest of life’s riches.”
“This is not a world where you can simply express love for other people, where you can praise them. Perhaps it should be. But it’s not. I’ve found that people will fear your enthusiasm and warmth, and wait to hear the price. Which is fair. We’ve all been drawn into someone’s love only to find out that we couldn’t afford it. A little distance buys everyone time.”
From Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness. Routledge.
“I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by the believe in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organised diminution of work.” (page 3)
“The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.” (page 5)
“Leisure is essential to civilisation and in former times leisure for the few was only rendered possible by the labours of the many. But their labours were valuable, not because work is good, but because leisure is good. And with modern technique it would be possible to distribute leisure justly withouth injury to civilisation.” (page 5)
“The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilisation and education. A man who has worked long hours all his life will be bored if he becomes suddenly idle. But without a considerable amount of leisure a man is cut off from many of the best things. There is no longer any reason why the bulk of the population should suffer this deprivation; only a foolish asceticism, usually vicarious, makes us continue to insist on work in excessive quantities now that the need no longer exists.” (page 8)
“It will be said that, while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours of work out of twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world, it is a condemnation of our civilisation; it would not have been true at any earlier period. There was formerly a capacity for light-heartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiecy. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake. … The butcher who provides you with meat and the baker who provides you with bread are praiseworthy, because they are making money; but when you enjoy the food they have provided, you are merely frivolous, unless you eat only to get strenght for your work.” (page 12)
Fabian Gunzinger 