I comment on quite a few blogs, and seldom get any feedback. I deduce from this that my comments are allowed, but not appreciated. The NY Times, for example, doesn't print all of my comments, and has even edited them, at least once. That's fine. It's their blog.
Frankly, I've been waiting for bloggers or other commenters to call for my being banned from the site, as unnecessary and uninformative. Up until now I've been lucky on this, but, as in all things, I'm sure my luck will change.
I post because I enjoy writing, and it helps me puzzle out what I think about an issue. I tend to post on blogs I respect and enjoy. I keep a record of most comments here, because, well, a blog like this is done for one's own amusement and edification.
So, Casey Mulligan has listed a precis of his current predictions. Here they are:
- A Depressing Scenario: Mortgage Debt Becomes Unemployment Insurance (NBER wp, 11/19/08)
- Is the Treasury Impotent? (Economists’ Voice, 11/12/08)
- Market Responses to the Panic of 2008 (NBER wp with Luke Threinen, 10/23/08)
- An Economy You Can Bank On. (New York Times 10/10/08)
- Shorter blog entries on http://www.panic2008.net/
Based on these analyses, I have made a number of predictions including, but not limited to:
- Treasury purchases of banks’ preferred equity will crowd out private capital, for example, by facilitating acquisitions of one bank by another
- Funds will be available for starting new investment projects – if not from banks, from other institutions. Whether people want to borrow is another story
- Banks will begin to forgive collateralized loans. The amount of forgiveness will decline with borrower income.
Residential Sector - Housing prices will continue to fall after the summer of 2008, by 10s of percentage points
Nonresidential Nonfinancial Business - Nonresidential investment goods are cheap, and this increases nonresidential investment, especially in structures
- Cheap investment goods = cheap stock market
- U.S. GDP will not fall below $11 trillion (chained 2000 $)
Labor Market - U.S. employment will not fall below 134 million.
- Baby boomers will delay retirement
- Loan forgiveness programs, such as the FDIC's Loan Modification Program, will dramatically reduce the incentive of affected borrowers to earn income"
Banking Sector
Don said...
I'm keeping track, Mulligan. You and Justin Fox are keeping me sane. You'd better turn out to be right about all this Ricardian Mumbo Jumbo and Supply and Bl... Demand stuff.
I just bought a raft of tickets from an arcade fortune teller, so you'd better at least beat him.
Don the libertarian Democrat