Usual comment on Wren-Lewis

Simon Wren-Lewis argues that there is no good reason to believe that micro founded models are better for policy analysis.

update: Wren-Lewis kindly linked to this post (which is here not at AngryBearblog.com because I think it isn't worth your time). I couldn't resist writing a longggggggg comment on his blog. Then I came here to add this update and found a shrt cmmnt on this post. Brevity is the soul of wit. The patient reader can scroll past the long boring post to get to the long boring comment on the link to this long boring post.

He concedes that a case can be made because the Lucas critique.

Another response might be that we know for sure that the eclectic model will be wrong, because (for example) it will fail the Lucas critique. More generally, it will not be internally consistent. But we also know that the microfounded model will be wrong, because it will not have the right microfoundations. The eclectic model may be subject to the Lucas critique, but it may also - by taking more account of the data than the microfounded model - avoid some of the specification errors of the microfounded model. There is no way of knowing which errors matter more.

I throw the usual cow in comments.

I think you understate your case. I think that misspecified micro founded models are vulnerabile to the Lucas critique. I guess at first blush my claim seems strange, as the Lucas criitique is taken very seriously, everyone agrees that all existing models are misspecified, and yet many people think they have dealt with the Lucas critique. But I also think it is easy to prove my claim.

Let's consider consumption. It is claimed that we can avoid the Lucas critique by estimating deep parameters say a rate of time preference and an intertemporal elasticity of consumption. Then we can reliably forecast say the effect of a permanent shift in the real interest rate on the rate of growth of consumption. Since the deep parameter is structural, it won't change when the policy changes. So the forecast effect will be OK provided we have estimated the elasticity with enough data on oh say aggregate consumption or maybe consumption of non durables and services. Ooops that would give two quite different estimates which can't both be OK. The estimate made using available fluctuations in real interest rates don't give the right prediction about the effect of a permanent increase unless the model is correctly specified. If we incorrectly assume non durability we will systematically overestimate the effect of the new policy on the growth rate of consumption.

Another very similar (but opposite) example. What if in the real world there is habit formation ? Again fitting the available data with temporary fluctuations in r does not imply accurately forecasting the effect of a permanent shift in r (this time we will underestimate the effect on the growth rate of consumption).

To avoid the Lucas critique, it has to be that the parameters which we model as deep structural parameters of tastes or technology are, in fact, deep structural parameters in real world utility and production functions. We can be confident that our model is not vulnerable to the Lucas critique, if we can be confident that it is the truth. No problem is or can be resolved by the fact that we use mathematical optimization after making false assumptions to get behavioral implications such that we can estimate parameters and fit the data.

update: My commmmmmmmmmmmmennnnnnnnnnnnnnnt on his kind post.

Thanks for the link. Below, I will try to explain what my post clearly failed to explain. It is, at most, a semantic point (so not worth the bother to scroll down).

I have some possibly more relevant thought. The first is yes exactly "time": I recall 31 years ago reading an interesting appealingly modest argument made by Sargent for the then fairly new approach to macroeconomics. He said then in 1982 that the models they were working with were clearly not realistic, but there was hope that there would be models which were both internally consistent and realistic in thirty years.

Times up.

Now I'm pretty sure he had been saying "30 years" for several years before I read the phrase (it was in an interview in some magazine like Business Week or Fortune) so I'm pretty sure that time has been up for a while. I note also that researchers are not normally given 30 years to show results.

I have two disagreements with Yates which I think go beyond yours. First I do not see any basis for the claim that the best way to forecast is with a VAR. VARs are used a lot. Forecasting performance is miserable. It seems to me that Keynesian economists such as, say, P Krugman, S Wren-Lewis and C Romer outperform VARs. The evaluation of the ARRA (US stimulus) is based on deviations from forecasts based on a VAR. The deviations are significant and very similar to those predicted by C Romer. I think the paleo Keynesian approach provides better forecasts than pure time series analysis and better policy guidance than DSGE models in which (for example) liquidity constraints are assumed away.

Finally there is a possible aim in addition to forecasting and policy analysis. There is also the quest for truth for understanding for its own sake. A strawman might argue that ad hoc models are useful for forecasting and policy analysis, but there is also pure science which is a quest for knowledge for its own sake. The mildly interesting thing, is that no actual person makes that argument. The internally consistent micro founded models are very obviously not the truth. The field demands some sort of purity, but does not claim to be pure science, but rather the quest for useful approximations.

OK so to boring semantics and "Lucas critique." I understand that the point of my post (if any) was hard to understand. In any case it is purely semantic, almost certainly a distinction without a difference. I think that "These misspecification errors" Are "errors due to the Lucas critique".

A model avoids the Lucas critique if the estimated parameters of the model correspond to slowly changing deep aspects of tastes and technology. The model does not avoid the Lucas critique if the modeller imagines a fictional world in which those parameters are taste and technology, Parameters which are, incorrectly, interpreted as measurements of some aspect of tastes and technology in fact incorporate agents beliefs about future policy. ( I am thinking of rho, sigma, the elasticity of labour supply, the elastictity of subsitution of capital and labour (always assumed to be one by macroeconomists) and the share of capital)). For different public policy, different parameters would be estimated. Internal consistency does not at all imply that paremeters are policy invariant. I assert that there is no connection between concern about the Lucas critique and a desire for internally consistent micro foundations.

I applaud your politeness. However, I can't amange it. My problem with the micro founders is that they also argue that models are false by definition so it makes no sense to test their assumptions. I think a case can be made to settle for nothing less than a hypothesis with testable implications which has not been rejected. But I thinkt there is a plain logical INconsistency* in arguing that it is vital for models to be internally consistent but no need for the assumptions to be true. To try to be brief, I think that the Lucas critique is the Lucas critique of Friedman's methodology. That in the one paper Lucas said nothing ore and nothing less than that Friedman was wrong (and that Friedman could have written the same after Lucas's "Econometric Policy ... " paper explaining why he found the argument unconvincing. If anyone is interested, I go on at length here

http://rjwaldmann.blogspot.it/2012/03/modern-macroeconomic-methodology-modern.html

I applaud your politeness, but have trouble being polite to fanatics for logical consistency whose arguments for what they call logical consistency are, as far as I can tell, obviously logically inconsistent.

*update: typo corrected thanks commenter

Rude Comment on Kilgore

I wrote this at Ed Kilgore's blog, but decided to bury it here, because I trust he doesn't read this blog. Kilgore wrote "First of all, this misstates the Cowan-Kessler argument, which is that Democratic defense of maximum entitlement spending makes “investments” like universal pre-K impossible—not that they are utopian in themselves." He is wrong. I commented (then dumped here) Cowan and Kessler denounced Di Blasio who has nothing to do with socialsecurityandmedicare but who advocates universal pre-K. Their concluding paragraph notes the pre-K referendum in Colorado. They use the typically Republican lie of equating increased taxes on the rich (proposed by di Blasio) and increased taxes in general (rejected by Coloradans). In contrast populist Clinton and Obama campaigned promising higher taxes on the rich and lower taxes for everyone else (and Obama actually delivered). You denounced them, before Tanden and Scheiber did. I admire you very much and agree with practically everything you write. But you have a problem with the word "centrist" and insist on grinding old axes. On what issues do you disagree with Warren ? You have a problem when you criticize Cowan and Kessler then, when others do, you deny that they wrote things that they plainly and explicitly wrote. You are too smart and too hard working to let knee-jerk tribalism continue to cause you to write nonsense whenever you get the impression that some people don't like the DLC which, notably, doesn't even exist anymore.

Dreadful Plumbing with Downward Nominal Rigidity

Dreadful plumbing with downward nominal rigidity Actually more or less readable version here. This is the pointless math post which accompaniesthis and especially this post at angrybearblog. Here I am assuming that transition out of the liquidity trap is predictable. This means that dynamics are interestingly forward looking and that makes for a lot of pointless math. The bottom line, such as it is, is that all sorts of things can happen in a very standard neoclassical growth model if there is downward nominal rigidity. The economy can be in a liquidity trap. It can shift from a normal state with a positive interest rate to a liquidity trap and back. No taste or technology shocks are required.

Like Rand Paul

Twitter parody account @JohnCornyn plagiarized @LOLGOP joke. @LOLGOP 3:14 AM @LOLGOP 3:14 Rome time Nov 24 2013 @JohnCorny 4:15 AM Rome time Nov 24 2013 Wait what do you mean when you say that's not a parody account ?!?!?? You say that's Texas's more nearly sane Senator ?!?!!!!?

New Keynesian Good Two Keynesian Better

New Keynesian Good Two Keynesian Better Oddly Paul Krugman seems to have perceived my observation that he is a two Keynesian rather than a new Keynesian as a criticism.

In fact I much prefer simplest new Keynesian models to standard obscure new Keynesian models. Oh hell, my damn comment was waaay too long. here it is

I understand that hoping to read my name two times on your blog in one day is too optimistic. But really, I much prefer two Keynesian models to new Keynesian models. As you mention from time to time some people think the main purpose of models is to clarify thought. I am another one of those people.

More to the point simple models make clear which assumptions are key. As you mentioned in the New Keynesian ... fiscal policy post there are two key things to say about new Keynesian model dynamics

1) it is assumed that the economy gets back to the steady state (you wrote "a steady state" but it in the work horse models there is only one steady state)

2) there is no reason to think this is realistic. In fact leading new Keynesian OJ Blanchard has written about hysteresis not so long after figuring out how to deal wtih anticipated shocks in a model with a saddle path equilibrium.

I was thinking of commenting on those two points. In (almost all of ?) contemporary macro, it is assumed that there is a unique steady state and saddle dynamics around it. This means it is assumed that, excpet for exogenous shocks, the economy is predictable. That seems to me to be a problem right there given how badly contemporary macroeconomists (including the oversigned) forecast. But it provides a key insight to policy makers (in scare quotes)

"In the long run, macro policy doesn't affect real variables. So the very serious statesman who focuses on the long run should target inflation and ignore unemployment and output. "

The problem is that this policy relevant conclusion is an arbitrary assumption. The fearful plumbing is all analysis of the short run. Since it is not assumed a priori it is complicated. Since there isn't a standard (plainly false) assumption there is a lot of controversy. Since it is fearflul plumbing it makes policy makers queesy.

I think the impact of the analysis on actual policy is all due to the assumption and not the fancy math, clever modelling innovation or well anything whcih wasn't shoved aside as something we don't have to worry about.

What's worse, while, the serious statesman ignores the Keynesian parts of new Keynesian economics, the political hack ignores all of it. The short term political effect of policy proposals is based entirely on economically illiterate conventional wisdom. The case that good policy is good politics is an argument that even politicians who care only about winning elections should consider the medium run impact of policy.

The NK case for Keynesian policy is that it will be politically costly in the short run and won't help the economy in the long run but in the in between run it would be good for the economy and the politicians who implemented it. I can't explain the failure of the not the short run, not the long run, but roughly somewhere in the middle run analysis to convince policy makers.

Two many links too Angry Bear

Brad DeLong linked to a post in which I translated his diplomatc comments on Cochrane into rbert rudeness. Now krugman linked there too. Many people who do not find Krugman an DeLong two diplomatic claim that DeLong is part of a Krugman claque which makes me part of a claquer's clague. If it quacks like a duck it's probably a claques. Question to Cochrane: would you rather debate one horse sized Krugman or a hundred duck sized Krugman's. I Tried to comment at Krugman's but ended up complaining that the soun written "tu" in French and Italian is written two too many ways in English. Fortunately I didn't say it has three too many meanings, because it has at least 6 meanings 1) two = 2 = due 2) too = excessively = troppo 3) too = in addition = anche 4) to X makes an infinitive from the verb stem X = Xare, Xere, Xire ore Xurre 5) to is the generic dative proposition so to Y is the dative of the noun Y 6) to is a preposition implying movement towards which is acusative As in I can't go to Rome because I am in Rome right now. Obligatory Monte Python reference

Usual Rude Comment on Wren-Lewis

Prof Wren-Lewis discusses being a New Keynesian and an old Keynesian at the same time. I note that NKs spend a lot of time being purely NK and analysing models which do not at all fit the basic comovements of GDP and consumption and which are clearly not at all useful approximations ( as they know as shown by their policy advice). Also I ask for any evidence that the NK-OK hybrid fits any data better than the OK models. It is a fact that there are many new Keynesian models in the literature which have Ricardian equivalence ( say Smetts-Wouters). I hope no one takes the policy implications of such grossly unrealistic models seriously. It may be rude to call the analysis of such models insincere lip service to applied math dressed up as economics. However I see no other way to describe the phenomenon. Also you and Cochrane know more about this than I do, but I know of no evidence of superiority of the hybrid model over a model of complete myopia and habit formation. It is certainly true that all of the classical (e.g. Noted ny Friedman) evidence for the PIH fits a model of myopia and habit formation just as well. Since NK DSGE models all include habit formation (to fit the otherwise excess smoothness) the question of what of any empirical vlue is added by forward looking expectations is to my limited knowledge open. The fact that no one uses adaptive expectations is an appeal to authority not evidence. It is simply a fact that the variation TIPs breakevens can be explained in part assuming adaptive expectations R squared of 0.5 is the crazy period 2008-9 is excluded. I contrast thre is no hint of any trace of any explanatory power of forward looking expectations for the very boring reason that achieved inflation rates to maturity of the bonds have hppened to be almost constant since the introduction of TIPs (about 2.5%). Your post suggests that the NK glass is half full with useful insights from both NK and OK models. I am honestly not aware of significant evidnce that the NK glass isn't almost exactly empty. Data here http://angrybearblog.com/2013/02/more-on-adaptive-inflation-expectations.html

Sometime's I feel like somebody's watching me

OK i can handle the fact that, on my birthday, google appears with letters made of cakes and cupcakes on my computer but not on my daughters (file under kinda cute but creepy) but now I am getting paranoid (almost wondering if the NSA is spying on me). A obvious twitter 'bot followed me with tweets consisting only of advertising for, among other thingsm wasabi flavored ice cream. Now, I think you will agree that wasabi flored ice cream is rather a niche product. Ou may not know that it exists (in Rome to which all roads lead). I hope with some (but rapidly declining) confidence that you don't know that I really like wasabi flavored ice cream HOW does a twitter 'bot know I like wasabi flavored ice cream ??? I feel we have skipped artificial intelligence and gotten straight to artificial ESP.

Rising to the Challenge

What with show props and alligators (h.t. @skennison), the US airline industry is facing challenges today. Fortunately Virgin America is up to the task of making me not bored in advance at the thought of boarding.

Chait Too

In a generally good post countering the Frum post which I denounce below, Jon Chait manages two impressive howlers. One is really for the ages (the middle ages) "You may pose a low actuarial risk today, but you cannot be certain your luck will continue for the rest of your life (or until you qualify for Medicare). Even people living the healthiest lifestyles suffer illnesses and accidents, or marry people who have a uterus." Some of the people living the healthiest lifestyles were born with uteruses. Chait accidentally proposes that being born with a uterus is like smoking or eating too much. Then the lesser howler which is the same as Frum's " That is what Obamacare advocate Jon Gruber is getting at when he concedes that 3 percent of Americans will be worse off under the new law. " Gruber conceded no such thing. In fact Chait explained very clearly why many of the people who will be forced to buy more complete coverage by the ACA will be better off starting in 2014 (even if they don't come anywhere near any risky uteruses) . I now feel bad that I calle Frum a liar. Chait is not lying (I think he is honest and in any case the error works against his argument). He is literate (at a level I can't even dream of).. But he just can't associate words with numbers. He concedes to Frum et al that Gruber wrote 3% but does not note that Gruber didn't concede those roughly 9 million would be financially harmed by the ACA. I link to an explaination plain English to help a second master of the language (who is a much better writer than Frum who is a much much much better writer than I) in the post below.

David Frum Lies & Sun Rises in East.

Quotes of the day Igor Bobic at Talking Points Memo ""POTENTIAL losers" (will have to buy a higher quality health plan with no annual cap)" I quote another passage "Gruber summarized his stats: ninety-seven per cent of Americans are either left alone or are clear winners, while three per cent are ARGUABLY losers. (caps mine) I quote Frum "Talking Points Memo today offers a chart suggesting that the losers under Obamacare will number about 3 percent of the population. Why, that’s only…9 million people." I comment. The number 9 million makes the false claim a plain simple lie. The number of losers is definitely not equal to the number of people who will be forced to buy a higher quality health plan, because many forced to buy such a plan will pay less themselves since they will get a subsidy. Also the 3% will get better insurance. Your insinuation that Gruber, Lizza, Wolfers and Bobik said that 3% of people will, like you, pay more for insurance which is no better (in your case worse) is plainly false. You go on to assert that the 3% have high income. There is no basis whatsoever for this assertion. Your description of the TPM post is plainly obviously false. You are not functionally illiterate. You are a shameless liar,

Frakt like the Marcellus Shale

I missunderstood a tweet by Austin Frakt I read "impossible to defend" as "indefensible" using its first dictionary definition when he wrote it thinking of the second. More embarrassingly, I persistently remembered it as "indefensible" not as "impossible to defend" until I just checked. The Xchange Austin Frakt ‏@afrakt 30 Oct I maintain, the admin's line on this is impossible to defend. http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/10/30/no-david-axelrod-the-vast-majority-of-people-in-this-country-are-not-keeping-their-plan/ … (note I red this as "is indefensible" and so on down a slippery slope to special pleading. robertwaldmann ‏@robertwaldmann 30 Oct @afrakt @delong In fact defensible. Obama used the present tense re plans which existed then & were grandfathered. robertwaldmann ‏@robertwaldmann 30 Oct @afrakt @delong "indefensible" does not mean that the defence will convince people who ignore rules of grammar Austin Frakt ‏@afrakt 30 Oct @robertwaldmann @delong Seems like a judgement call. I've made mine. Good luck! (I still support the law.) robertwaldmann ‏@robertwaldmann 30 Oct @afrakt @delong I too still support the law. Sorry for my tone.@robertwaldmann @delong Appreciated. Ending well is all it takes! Let's move on. There are better things to discuss. OK I call it a total victory for Frkt who gets extra cool points @robertwaldmann @delong Appreciated. Ending well is all it takes! Let's move on. There are better things to discuss. The questiona are 1) what administration position (it depends when Obama sait it which depends on what statement "if you like your plan you can keep it" is 100% true. Later similar statements were false as things had changed becaues post March 23 2010 plans were not grandfathered. I now know that Obama kept saying things whcih had ceaed to be true so he earmned at least 3 of his 4 pinocchios (the fourth is a soft inherently subjective Inochio made of scoffed pine). Time to admit he said something false and move on except for the part about admitting he said something wrong (re Roy Hattersley's rule about holes -- "When you ar in a hole stop digging". He seems to have, more or less, as well as could be hoped, pulled it off which is why he is President. Frakt meant c"can't be defended" as in "indefensible as the word is used as a term of art in military strategy" as in "time for a strategic withdrawal" as in "Quote Roy Hattersley who never got to numbr 10 Downing street but sure knew what not to do when in holes". I read it can't be deferended" as "indefensible" (reading comprehension problem) as in "not arguably true" or "no one can honestly and in good concience claim it might reasonably be interepreted so that it is true". Let's ask the Google which sends us to Merriam and Webster

in·de·fen·si·ble adjective \-ˈfen(t)-sə-bəl\ : not able to be thought of as good or acceptable : not able to be kept safe from damage or harm Full Definition of INDEFENSIBLE 1 a : incapable of being maintained as right or valid : untenable b : incapable of being justified or excused : inexcusable 2 : incapable of being protected against physical attack

The question is whterh it can't honestly be defended (ef 1) or if attempting to defend it is bad rhetorical strategy because people won't be convinced. He meant the second and I read the first. His "impossible to defend" meant "indefensible in the militray sense" not "unarguably false". Twitter restricts the text to 140 characters and the context to what shows up clicking "view converstation" and searching terms beginning with @ and #. SEcond engagement. I debate with Brad about the meaning of "you" J. Bradford DeLong ‏@delong 30 Oct .@robertwaldmann then Obama should have said: “If U and Ur insurance company wish to keep your current plan, you can” shouldn’t he? @afrakt What do you mean by "U" White man ? I go to join my coparties. robertwaldmann ‏@robertwaldmann 30 Oct @delong @afrakt It depends on what the definition of "you" is. In general when we say a contract is allowed by law = "if both parties agree" Expand robertwaldmann ‏@robertwaldmann 30 Oct @afrakt @delong The statement "no one will take thy plan from thee" would be false. Now THIS is a tortured defence To go on with my "enhanced" tweeting techniques. Is it true that you can marry whichever adult you please in California ? No you can only marry people who are willing to say "I do" (plus neither can be married at the time). It goes without saying that a fixed term contract can't be unilateraly extended by one party against the will of the other. President Obama, will I be able to play the piano after the operation ?

The Zero Lower Bound and the great Max

The Protestant Ethic and the Crisis of Capitalism: An alternative title for "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" Don't you hate it when you have a title and no post to go with it ?

Do your jobs CBS News staff

Dianne Barrette of Winter Haven Florida claims that instead of paying $54 a month for health insurance (no hospital coverage and a $ 50 deductible for office visits) she will have to pay $ 591 for ACA level health insurance. Www.healthcare.gov says that a single adult over 50 in Winter Haven which is in Polk County Florida can get Obamacare (catastrophic) for $235.08 a month (before subsidies and she sates an income which would make her eligible). http://1.usa.gov/1f0s1Ov I discovered this after the intense journalistic effort of googling Winter Haven Florida county and a few minutes at www.healthcare.gov (no log in required to check prices). This seems to hav been too much work for Fox (no surprise) or CBS (the irony is killian me).

The West Is Red

Who said it ?  2013 edition
"that which the American people have been waiting for for the last 200 years, politicians listening to the people instead of the ruling class"

That would be far right tea-partier Raul Labrador (R-Idaho)
The mountain West is red.  Red Staters vs the capitalist class.

In the same post Dave Weigel quoted a Texas businessman in the 1930s

 “The capitalist system can be destroyed more effectively by having men of means defend it then by importing a million Reds from Moscow to attack it,”  

It is true that reds from Moscow Russia are not much of a threat to the capitalists system.  But red staters from places like Moscow Idaho practically destroyed it last week. 

And yes, of course I found the Republican against the ruling class contrarianism in Slate. What did you expect ?  The Daily Right To Worker ? 

Yglesias & K

I am going to put two comments on Matt Yglesias's blog here.  I am somewhat concerned.  My previous view on Yglesias is that I agree with him except on monetary policy (and the effect on asset price of Abe/Kuroda and of FOMC hints of possible tapering on asset prices partically convinces me that he was more nearly right about monetary policy than I thought).

Now he seems to have gone on a pessimist contrarian trip.  I note that I began reading him partly based on enthusiastic praise which compared him to a young Michael Kinsley.  I won't go there (yet) but you can guess my fear.

Post 1 "Obamacare sign ups way behind schedule" is a discussion of the results of the following solid quantitative empirical reporting " the Department of Health and Human Services was targeting 500,000 signups by the end of October which seems—shall we say—unlikely at this point."  Now I may be old fashioned but I expect a very definite and emphatic claim in the indicative in a title to be supported by evidence other than "seems".  Also note that not counting any www.healthcare.gov activity, there have been 185,000 applications for Obamacare just in the states with state set up exchanges.  Also it's not Halloween yet.  

I don't think it is ideal to report a hunch as a fact.  

Earlier Yglesias reported on the continuing resolution/debt ceiiling increase bill without, you know, reading the damn bill. 

He asserts that the bill includes the following provision 

• Income verification under the Affordable Care Act will be beefed up.

This is absolutely 100% false.  The new bill does describe income verification under the Affordable Care Act.  It says that to find out what that means -- read section 1411 of the Affordable Care act (AKA 42 U.S.C. 18081).  The bill could not assert that the law on verificiation is unchanged more be more firmly, spficically or undeniably.  The bill is at a more useful blog here.  It is exlained here at that blog.   I excerpt the relevant bits of the bill  and comment here.

The only changes relate to "certification" that the ACA is being faithfully executed, a Secretary's report on how it is being faithfully executed and an inspector generals report on how it was faithfullyexecuted.  All these provisions add nothing to Congress's oversight authority.  The majority of Issa's comittee could demand all that without any agreement form Democratic Senators or Obama.  

There is nothing there.

Now Yglesias does not consider the totally mythical beefing up of income verification to be a very bad thing except that  the precedent that the Democrats made a concession is very bad.  He falsely claims "And the reality will be that the strategy of sticking with the majority-of-the-majority principle until the eleventh hour and then passing bills with mostly Democratic votes is securing policy concessions from Democrats." 

The reality is and will be no such thing  But Yglesias correctly notes that the perception that Republicans secured a concession is bad for the country.  loppy boggers who claim that a non concession is a concession share the blame for that.  Harry Reid who inclued text which might appear to be a concession until you read it does not share the blame for that.

In politics perception is reality and journalists who don't bother to do their jobs vitiate the triumph of a Senator who worked himself to complete exhaustion and won.

Yglesias is very hard working.  The amount of effort he put into his blog is extreme.  The problem is the ratio of effort to topics he tries to cover.  Now bredth is part of his charm and part of what makes blogs interesting.  But today he went too far.  I have a rude guess as to what is going on.  I can't read his mind and inside baseball is dumb so here goes.  The word is that Yglesias and Klein are both interested in who is the number one alpha extremely young brilliant serious honest blogger.  I dismiss that on the grounds of who knows and who cares, except that it seems to me that Yglesias is trying to cointribute as much as the whole wonkblog team all by himself. 

He can't. He's not that smart.   The smartest person in the world isn't that smart.  But I repeat myself.

Ways to avoid US debt default.

Obiousely the main chance is that Beohner is bluffing and that he will bring a clean debt ceiling inrease bill to the floor of the House and it will pass mostly with the votes of Democrats.  He would then probably lose the gavel to some new Speaker which will make us cry thinking of Boehner.  The problem with hoping for this, other than hope not being a plan, is that Boehner won't cave till the last minute (he has made that clear) and may not correctly judge exactly when the last minute arrives.  I will assume that the Republicans won't just pass a clean debt limit increase -- that they will demand at least a fig leaf.

Now if it is something which amounts to nothing like the last time when it was that the Sente doesn't get paid till it passes a budget resolution, this might do the trick.  Obama might sign it.

I will assume that the rules are that Boehner muust have a case that Obama caved and Obama must have a case that he signed a clean debt limit increase.

If so, I think it would be a very bad idea to pass a clean continuing resolution.  This would make it very hard for any Republicans to vote for a clean debt limit increase and survive.  I think the third best hoe is bill which combines  continuing resolution, a debt limit increase an da fig leaf. Let's say the fig leaf is elimination of theACA tax on medical devices (no huge deal).

The Democrats in the Senate can declare victory -- the Senate buget resolution already calls for elimination of the divice tax.  Obama can say that he would have signed the bill if it consisted only of a continuing resolution (CR) and the tax repeal, since he doens't care all that much about the tax (and since he hasn't been as explicit about no bargaining on the continuing resolution).  Boehner will say that Obama signed an unclean debt limit after all so he won. No one will believe him, but the Republicans won't eel so disrespected that they have to inflict the gavel on someone else.

Maybe this is not acceptable to Obama (Kevin Drum thinks it isn't and shouldn't be) .  So I add the rule that the debt ceiling bill must be a stand alone clean debt ceiling bill with no other provisions at all.  Then the approach would be as follows.  The House passes a CR with a figleaf.  The House starts work on a clean debt limit increase.  The Senate passes the CR with a figleaf. It goes to Obama's deks and sits there -- he doens't have to sign or veto it immediately.  Boehner says they have to pass the debt limit incresae ot get Obama to sign the device tax repeal which is the best thing evarrr.  Obama refuses to say why he is still thinking about whether to veto and especially whether it has anything to do with the debt limit.
The debt limit passes the House.  Obama signs the CR with the dirty figleaf (and beleive me I have recently seen filthy fig leaves).  Then the Senate passes the clean debt limit increase and Obama as he promised signs a clean debt limit increase.

Maybe this is not acceptable tot he Republicans so let's go Rube Goldberg.  The figleaf is attached both the the CR and the debt limit increase.   The CR gets to Obma's desk first. When the debt limit increase get's to Obam's desk he notes that it just raises the debt limit and eliminates a tax which he eliminated the day before yesterday.  So one provision amounts to nothing at all an he consisders it a clean debt limit increase.

OK the device tax figleaf is unacceptble to someone with a veto.  New figleaf is a super committee.  The report of the committee can't be mended of filibustered.  This is what the Republicans got in 2011 in addition to legislated cuts and sequestration.  They declare complete victory and reporters manage not to laugh.  TheSenate passes and Obama signs the bill.  The super committee fails to issue a report (of course) and no harm is done.

OK maybe this outcome is not acceptable to Obama as the principal that caucuses get nothing nothing at all for threatening the full faith and credit of the US Treasury.  So the next day he gives a speach in which he notes that the report of teh committee can't be filibusterer or amended but it will be vetoed if it contains any provision he doesn't support on its own merits. Any provision at all. In particular if a dime is cut form Medicaid, Social Security or Medicare or if a dime is added to the taxes of any couple whcih makes under $250,000/yr or any individual who makes over $2000,000/yr he will veto the bill.  To the committee he says "my way or the highway.  And rather than waste your time why don't you take the highway and disolve.  Then I will be willing to negotiate just as if the whole sorry debt limit impasse never occurred.  I have nothing against super committees and I would even be willing to negotiate possibly setting up a new one untainted by debt limit extortion, but I will not compromise at all with a committee set up using debt limit extortion."

So the Republicans end up with exactly nothing.   Obama wins.  Boehner doesn't read this bog so he didn't see it coming.

There is no Hastert Rule

Dennis Hastert just said that there is not and never has been a Hastert rule.  He insists that he never had a rule that only bills supported by a majority of House Republicans would be brought to a vote.  Hastert is very hard on Boehner.  He also noted that he never brought a bill to the floor then had to withdraw it to prevent it from being voted down and that he never passed a continuing resolution, because he passed appropriation bills.

A rational Democrat who hoped to help the party would leave it at that.  If that's what you want, you are at the wrong blog. I assume almost no one reads this so I can look a gift horse in the mouth.  Hastert adds some Ballance here " “I didn’t have to deal with Barack Obama. I dealt with Bill Clinton, and he came to the table and negotiated.”  

He told a little anecdote

Clinton asked, “What can I do for you?” “A haircut across the board,” Hastert replied. “I would suggest a 1 percent cut.” Can’t take that, Clinton said, offering all the reasons why that wouldn’t work. “What do you suggest?” Hastert asked him. A quarter of 1 percent, Clinton replied. “We dickered back and forth and settled on .86 percent, not because it was a magic number,” said Hastert. “But the moral of the story is Clinton would come to the table. . I’m not going to go into the science of negotiating, but you can put one thing on the table and end up with something entirely different, but you’ve got to talk.”

He neglected to mention that Obama negotiated at length with Boehner in 2011 then Boehner suspended the discussion, because his caucus wouldn't support anything like the possible grand compromise under discussion. Nor does he mention that Boehner has promised not to negotiate privately with Obama.  Finally, he doesn't note that Reid negotiated with Boehner and they reached an agreement.  That agreement is the Senate continuing resolution on which Boehner won't allow a vote.  Democrats are refusing to offer further concessions after a deal was negotated and then the House Republicans decided to treat it as the Democrats opening offer.  I trust Reid on this, because the clean continuing resolution was proposed by Boehner to his conference and he argued for it at length.  Also it is the only explanation of why the Senate passed a sequestration level continuing resolution (that is they kept their word even though Boehner broke his).

So here is my updated modernized version of the story

Clinton asked, “What can I do for you?” “A haircut across the board,” Hastert replied. “I would suggest a 1 percent cut.” Can’t take that, Clinton said, offering all the reasons why that wouldn’t work. “What do you suggest?” Hastert asked him. A quarter of 1 percent, Clinton replied. “We dickered back and forth and settled on 1 percent.  Then I presented the agreement to my conference and they practically lynched me and passed a bill (with the votes of 2 Democrats) which cut spending across the board by 1% except for SCHIP which it cut by 100%.  Then I spent weeks saying that Clinton was totally unreasonable, wouldn't negotiate and demanded 100% of what he wanted, because he didn't agree to cut SCHIP by 50%

The claim that the Democrats won't negotiate is simply false. They negotiated, they basically caved, they made a deal and then then stuck with it.

I don't know much about the science of negotiation, but coming to the table with people whose promises are worthless is stupid.

Normalizing the Filibuster

Well it's happened.  The Senate Republican caucus has convinced journalists that filibusters are normal

In the New York times Jeremy W. Peters and Jonathan FBD Weisman write.

"All Mr. Reid needs are 51 Democrats to vote with him — not the usual 60-vote threshold required for most Senate business "

Evidently, filibusters are usual, part of normal order.  The strange fact that 51 senators count for more than 49 senatorls is not usual. It wasn't always this way.  I'm old enough to remember when filibusters were rare and the norm that Senators only filibustered bills related to  issues on which they cared passionately. The new normal is that anything but naming post offices requires 60 votes. 

The secret (aside from Jonathan FBD Weisman being hired by the New York Times) is that the House Republican Caucus is so extreme they make the Senate Republican caucus look like statesmen.


Also note that bloggers need to learn about civility from respectable journalists like Weisman.

Cruz is Vain

Cruz is a selfish publicity hound.  Also water is wet.  Cruz's 21 hour speech wasn't a serious effort to obstruct, because it did not delay final passage of the bill.  Yes we have reached the point of distinguishing serious policy relevant obstruction and showboating pseudo obstruction.

 Meredith Shiner and Niels Lesniewski at Roll Call explain that Cruz proposed faster approval of the bill, because he cares more about ratings than legislature.

Though it is unclear whether leaders will accept Cruz’s offers, the fact that Cruz moved at all from his original position that the Senate should take up full debate time to Sunday could mark progress toward avoiding a shutdown. Many, including most Senate Republicans, view government shutdown as an unavoidable outcome unless the GOP cedes debate time. On Wednesday morning, Cruz offered to open debate on the House-approved continuing resolution by unanimous consent as long as the majority agreed to hold the vote to cut off debate on Friday, so more people might pay attention to it.