The expression “Putin’s war” sounds like a political slogan and implies that this war is a pet personal project of Vladimir Putin (as the 2003 Iraq invasion for GWB) instead of an escalation in a conflict that starting in February 2014.
At what point is there a serious examination from within the field of economics of the recklessness, bordering on the insanity, of the world launching into a cycle of unproven, catastrophic lockdowns + stimulus in March 2020?
Should we not start to evaluate just how much of today’s polycrisis could have been avoided if the world had followed the pandemic plans in place in 2019 that were scrapped in the social and political panic of 2020?
We’re about to crash headfirst into the answer to the question that could not be asked in 2020 and 2021 - what are the costs of society reorienting itself entirely to the goal of preventing periods of an overwhelmed healthcare system due to a novel virus?
How many lives will be lost to famine, food riots and political instability in a developing world where schools were closed for 18 months and economic self-harm imposed to protect young populations at almost zero risk from the virus?
The time will soon come where we cannot simply hand wave away these phenomena as a product of “covid”, but start to understand how and where exactly panicked policymakers created the crisis we are in today. We simply cannot afford to go down that road again in 5, 10 or 20 years time when a new pandemic emerges.
"So far, a least, as far as the world economy is concerned, Russia’s war in Ukraine is secondary to other disruptive shocks." Might Ukraine not even be 'tertiary', behind COVID supply shocks and the US monetary stimulus?
"...what the BIS is telling us, is that central bankers have never attempted to stop an inflation as rapid as the one we have seen in the first half of 2022, with the level of debt build-up we have seen since the early 2000s." Soo, marked uncertainty and volatility in the direction things may take next. Got it. And apparently, BIS thinks that the supply-side solution is the way to go, which I imagine means cutting taxes. Thinking here... didn't the GOP slash corporate taxes by 40% a mere couple of years ago? And even with interest rates so low, does no one think there's SOME kind of effect of increasing the National Debt quite so precipitously at the same time? Trying to think what that $7 trillion might have bought for us
I was some species of central banker for about 30 years. The BIS was mostly regarded as a hotel and secretariat. It really wasn't much of a bank, and well … predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
True that. But there are many smart people who know more than we do who still don't agree with each other. It's the problem with the Cartesian wager--even if the True God is the only possible path to salvation, who is the True God? I'm not impressed by the BIS as an institution (it speaks and mostly thinks in central bank platitudes), but I acknowledge that it has some good economists on staff who sometimes have some freedom of expression. So yes, it's better than the beer light.
Some say The Nazz man, others, would have us believe the Spiders from Mars. When so many people smarter than our humble selfs disagree then it is probably just voodoo. For all practical purposes any 'solution' to this polykrisis may as well be voodoo since anyone/thing/god intelligent enough to solve the puzzle in time to serve up an actionable 'policy' would be stymied by the hopeless task of explaining it to the rest of us before the windows of opportunity had all closed, rotted away, and fallen out of their casements. But you and I don't need to know the economic Truth, we just need to guesstimate in what direction a sufficient number of the other sub-geniuses will stampede. There in lies our advantage. We can achieve adequate returns with vastly less energy expenditure than the smarter ones burning their candles on both ends. I've herd, in the long run, evolution is on our side! The numbers bear it out. It is The Rule that matters more than The Exception if one wants to anticipate The Flow. 🙂
The expression “Putin’s war” sounds like a political slogan and implies that this war is a pet personal project of Vladimir Putin (as the 2003 Iraq invasion for GWB) instead of an escalation in a conflict that starting in February 2014.
At what point is there a serious examination from within the field of economics of the recklessness, bordering on the insanity, of the world launching into a cycle of unproven, catastrophic lockdowns + stimulus in March 2020?
Should we not start to evaluate just how much of today’s polycrisis could have been avoided if the world had followed the pandemic plans in place in 2019 that were scrapped in the social and political panic of 2020?
We’re about to crash headfirst into the answer to the question that could not be asked in 2020 and 2021 - what are the costs of society reorienting itself entirely to the goal of preventing periods of an overwhelmed healthcare system due to a novel virus?
How many lives will be lost to famine, food riots and political instability in a developing world where schools were closed for 18 months and economic self-harm imposed to protect young populations at almost zero risk from the virus?
The time will soon come where we cannot simply hand wave away these phenomena as a product of “covid”, but start to understand how and where exactly panicked policymakers created the crisis we are in today. We simply cannot afford to go down that road again in 5, 10 or 20 years time when a new pandemic emerges.
My feelings as well a d far better articulated than I could ever hope for.
"So far, a least, as far as the world economy is concerned, Russia’s war in Ukraine is secondary to other disruptive shocks." Might Ukraine not even be 'tertiary', behind COVID supply shocks and the US monetary stimulus?
"...what the BIS is telling us, is that central bankers have never attempted to stop an inflation as rapid as the one we have seen in the first half of 2022, with the level of debt build-up we have seen since the early 2000s." Soo, marked uncertainty and volatility in the direction things may take next. Got it. And apparently, BIS thinks that the supply-side solution is the way to go, which I imagine means cutting taxes. Thinking here... didn't the GOP slash corporate taxes by 40% a mere couple of years ago? And even with interest rates so low, does no one think there's SOME kind of effect of increasing the National Debt quite so precipitously at the same time? Trying to think what that $7 trillion might have bought for us
I was some species of central banker for about 30 years. The BIS was mostly regarded as a hotel and secretariat. It really wasn't much of a bank, and well … predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
Well Ziggy, at least the BIS is probably better than relying on just the beer light to guide us.
True that. But there are many smart people who know more than we do who still don't agree with each other. It's the problem with the Cartesian wager--even if the True God is the only possible path to salvation, who is the True God? I'm not impressed by the BIS as an institution (it speaks and mostly thinks in central bank platitudes), but I acknowledge that it has some good economists on staff who sometimes have some freedom of expression. So yes, it's better than the beer light.
Some say The Nazz man, others, would have us believe the Spiders from Mars. When so many people smarter than our humble selfs disagree then it is probably just voodoo. For all practical purposes any 'solution' to this polykrisis may as well be voodoo since anyone/thing/god intelligent enough to solve the puzzle in time to serve up an actionable 'policy' would be stymied by the hopeless task of explaining it to the rest of us before the windows of opportunity had all closed, rotted away, and fallen out of their casements. But you and I don't need to know the economic Truth, we just need to guesstimate in what direction a sufficient number of the other sub-geniuses will stampede. There in lies our advantage. We can achieve adequate returns with vastly less energy expenditure than the smarter ones burning their candles on both ends. I've herd, in the long run, evolution is on our side! The numbers bear it out. It is The Rule that matters more than The Exception if one wants to anticipate The Flow. 🙂