CNBC has posted a 3-minute version of my 4.7-minute video from earlier this morning. It’s here.
CNBC has posted a 3-minute version of my 4.7-minute video from earlier this morning. It’s here.
Feb 13 2017
Protectionism is clearly a bad policy. But it's not bad for the reasons that many people assume. If you put barriers on the import of a specific good, it tends to raise the relative price of that good. But an across the board import tax does not raise the overall cost of living. Recall that the Fed determines the r...
Feb 13 2017
Here's one last reply to Ed Dolan on the UBI:...As for more recent evidence, the CBO working paper that I cited is the most comprehensive literature review I have been able to find. The CBO review reaches the following conclusions regarding labor supply elasticities: Among men and single women, substitution elastic...
Feb 10 2017
CNBC has posted a 3-minute version of my 4.7-minute video from earlier this morning. It's here.
READER COMMENTS
Richard O. Hammer
Feb 10 2017 at 1:04pm
Great! Thank you. If you get a regular TV pundit job I may have to get cable.
David R. Henderson
Feb 10 2017 at 2:23pm
@Richard O. Hammer,
Aw shucks. Thanks, Richard.
Thaomas
Feb 10 2017 at 2:51pm
Too bad you did not get to discuss either more instruments for the Fed or their failure to use even the ones they a have to prevent departures from a stable NGDP growth path.
David R. Henderson
Feb 10 2017 at 4:10pm
@Thaomas,
Too bad you did not get to discuss either more instruments for the Fed or their failure to use even the ones they a have to prevent departures from a stable NGDP growth path.
I don’t agree. In the talking points I gave them, I advocating ending the Fed and allowing competing money supplies, pointing out that centrally controlling the money supply makes about as much sense as centrally controlling the steel supply. So where I wanted to go was to talk about that. Which is where I should have gone with their opening question. But at 3:30 a.m., I’m not as bright a bulb.
Nick Ronalds
Feb 10 2017 at 8:31pm
You come across as amiable, sensible, and admirably succinct for a TV pundit. Congrats!
AntiSchiff
Feb 10 2017 at 11:01pm
Dr. Henderson,
That was a very good appearance. I think roughly half of Trump’s nominees are okay, if not better-than-expected, and the other half are, uh, deeply disturbing.
David R. Henderson
Feb 10 2017 at 11:57pm
@Nick Ronalds,
Thanks.
@AntiSchiff,
That was a very good appearance. I think roughly half of Trump’s nominees are okay, if not better-than-expected, and the other half are, uh, deeply disturbing.
Thanks. I came prepared to talk about Trump on trade but when he asked me about cabinet members in general rather than about trade specifically (as in my talking points), I didn’t think to go there. Trump’s trade 3, only one of whom will be a cabinet member, are bad, and I should have said so.
The Original CC
Feb 11 2017 at 3:30pm
Really great job. You really are at ease in front of the camera.
It’s very sad to think that we’ve only had 0.5% productivity growth in recent years. So it’ll take us 144 years to double our productivity at that rate?
AntiSchiff
Feb 11 2017 at 4:54pm
Dr. Henderson,
I find free banking to be very interesting, as Selgin discusses it, but I can’t think of a way to run a pilot program in the US. Is our only hope to test such ideas to try to convince some smaller, less risk-averse country to try it?
I love the idea of natural NGDPLT. I think it’s safe to say central banks have improved in monetary policy management overall, in that they now know how to avoid high inflation, but obviously many of them choose less than optimal policy when we need it most.
David R. Henderson
Feb 12 2017 at 9:34am
@The Original CC,
Really great job. You really are at ease in front of the camera.
Thanks.
It’s very sad to think that we’ve only had 0.5% productivity growth in recent years. So it’ll take us 144 years to double our productivity at that rate?
I see you’re going by the rule of 72. That number was chosen because it makes a lot of calculations easier. So many one-digit integers–2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9–divide nicely into 72. A more-accurate rule, though, would be called “the rule of 70.” Try it with a few numbers. So that would make it 140 years, rather than 144.
So, you can see that your point remains. As I said on the show, though, a number of reforms could improve productivity. I could imagine moving to, say, 1.5% increase per year, in which case productivity would double in 47 years.
Comments are closed.