Not So Illusory

Chill Amusing, Annoying, Political Economy

The Grand Illusion: The U.S.-Europe Growth Gap.

So claim Ackerman and Baker.

But this contention is wrong. It is a bad paper and a flawed piece. First, since the GFC, a lot of people who got it right then seem to have gone absolutely nuts since. Ian Welsh, Dean Baker, Paul Krugman, to some extent Barry Ritholtz, and others. They just diverged from any sort of wisdom or probity. Not sure why but they have but it’s a real phenomenon.

This piece and the associated paper is a good example.

The primary mistake the Baker piece and the paper make is that it confuses level comparisons with growth comparisons and then frames that as an issue. However, current-PPP is for comparing countries in the same year, while constant/chained is for comparing real output across countries over time. You can’t just mix them up like that. I mean, you can I guess, if you want to look like a dumbass.

In other words, current-price series use each year’s prices, while constant-price series are used to measure true volume growth. That’s not any sort of contradiction, as the paper that Baker is discussing claims. That’s how they fucking work. FUCK.

There are numerous other bits of clownery like that, but the basic mistake dooms the paper from the get-go.

Now that I’ve toasted that POS paper, I’ll work on the not-quite-as-moronic Krugman claim.

So, Krugie, you mean to tell me that very large states with a high concentration of tech have higher productivity growth? OMG SO SHOCKING.

BLS says that California represents 14% of national output and ~20% of US productivity growth. Meanwhile, Washington state actually had the highest productivity growth 2007-2024, not California. It’s just a lot smaller.

The other problem with the Krugman boo-shit is conceptual. Composition effects are real economic effects, and are not artificial, nor are they a measurement issue. If the US has more highly productive digital clusters, that is part of US performance in toto and can’t just be broken off as some “fake area.” It’s all one country, baby, no matter if Dog Turd, Mississippi, isn’t benefiting much quite yet from what is happening in California (or Washington).

So much failure and clownery from people who should be smarter.

Paradox of Tolerance

Chill Evil, Politics

(1) Natasha Chart 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 🇺🇦 (@heterodoxan) / X

That’s right. At some point, you have to choose what you embrace and protect and what you disallow and defend against. “Progressive” ideals do not work when one side is intent on destroying you and will use any means to do so. Allowing prog suicidal empathy to metastasize where their own destruction seems a good outcome to them was a mistake. Now, we might be too late to prevent the worst; most of Western Europe has already fallen de facto.

Perhaps the US can be saved. Perhaps not. But recognizing the problem is a first step at trying.

Chill Links

Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft from Kratos for first flight with a European mission system.

How an unappetizing shrub became dozens of different vegetables.

Earth’s first major extinction was worse than we thought.

The moralization of artificial intelligence.

TESS discovers a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting nearby star.

Microsoft has lost the plot: 5 Windows "features" nobody asked for.

He was a perfect hire — until a U.S. company exposed him as a likely North Korean operative.

From Kyiv to Taipei: Three Theatres, Much to Learn. The Big Five, 15 March edition.

Luxury

Chill Evil

And the above is why most American women are undateable (though given her username, she might be from NZ). The vast majority think like this — and then wonder why they only end up with losers who abuse them. It’s no mystery, if you’re not a dumbass. But they’ll never see it nor understand it, of course.

Mat Pat

Chill Killin' It

One of the reasons my partner and I get along so well is that she has zero — absolutely no — maternal instinct and I likewise have zero paternal drive or instinct. Just nothing there at all.

There was never even any question of children or wanting them. Makes things just so much easier.

Never Squared

Chill Evil

(1) Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) / X

Alas for us all, suicidal empathy is real and it’s destroying a good number of places. A lot of women (mostly) are strangely enamored of men who would gladly rape and murder them if given the opportunity.

No, it doesn’t make sense. But human psychology rarely does.

Bata

Chill Evil

After the Bataclan terrorist attacks occurred in Paris, every Muslim and North African should’ve been rounded up and transported out of France.

That’s the only thing that would’ve made any sort of sense.

Outertainment

Chill Amusing

I now read Covidians for entertainment. It’s like watching a good old-school English farce. It’s all so ridiculous.

Also, why are Covidians all anti-AI? Weird how beliefs cluster like that.

Chill Links

You gotta think outside the hypercube.

Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock — SK hynix forced to diversify after 30% of global supply removed from the market.

New ‘negative light’ technology hides data transfers in plain sight.

Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It.

I traced $2 billion in nonprofit grants and 45 states of lobbying records to figure out who’s behind the age verification bills.

An old photo of a very large BBS.

The US slashed research for cancer, Alzheimer’s, mental health — and nearly everything else.

Timeline of the Online Culture War.

Forced from their homeland after Russia’s invasion, some Ukrainians fear they may never return.