Stable Genius Liberal

Conspicuous Consumption? Yes, but It’s Not Crazy

One common claim is that the wealthy routinely violate the economist’s law of demand. A bedrock principle of economic rationality, this law holds that as the price of a good rises, consumers buy less of it. Many analysts, however, portray the rich as people who lust after what are known as “Veblen goods” — commodities whose sales actually increase when their prices rise

The Business Tycoons of Airbnb

Getting ahead on Airbnb is much more simple: just sign multiple leases in desirable locations. Of course, that requires upfront investment and financial savvy. But once it’s up and running, an Airbnb rental network can become seriously lucrative. One operation of 272 listings booked $6.8 million in revenue from 2010 through June of this year, according to the attorney general. The economic forces at play are similar to what the French economist Thomas Piketty discusses in his recent blockbuster book, ‘’Capital in the Twenty-First Century,‘’ only in miniature. In a slow-growth economy, Piketty argues, wealth delivers better returns than labor, so those with wealth to invest in things (like, for example, rent-earning apartments) will tend to get wealthier; those without probably won’t. Listing a spare room on Airbnb might keep you current on your always-climbing Manhattan rent, but real entrepreneurship (as always) requires real dough.

AirBnB is literally a platform for wealthy people to engage in rent seeking.

The Benghazi Report Truthers: Even The GOP Cant Get To The Bottom Of It

When in late November the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee released a report finding that there was no direct wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, it seemed like the case might finally be closed. After all, this was a panel controlled by a Republicans.

But that’s not quite what happened.

Some of the loudest torch-and-pitchfork wielding Benghazi investigation enthusiasts weren’t satisfied.

Expect more Benghazi on FOX. They are going to waste untold time and money until they find something. It’s whitewater all over again.

And this is a shame. There are dozens of actual things they could be investigating.

Krugman on why he is misquoted

I guess you can’t expect people to be aware of what I was saying, seeing as how I only write for an obscure publication nobody has heard of.

In Front Of Your Macroeconomic Nose

at this point we’ve been at the zero lower bound for six years; we’ve seen a 400 percent rise in the monetary base without a takeoff in inflation; we’ve seen record peacetime deficits go along with record low long-term interest rates. Liquidity trap economics aren’t a speculative hypothesis at this point, they’re the world we’ve been living in for years. How can that go unnoticed?

It’s not unnoticed. There is plenty of people who noticed. But since the truth isn’t the right wing approved talking point, it isn’t being talked about.

Inequality Is Bad For Income Growth Of the Poor (But Not For That of the Rich)

The average state-level Gini coefficient in the US over the entire 50-year period is 0.43, with a standard deviation of 0.04. Now if a state’s level of inequality were reduced by four Gini points (about one standard deviation of the average) keeping everything else equal, the rate of growth of the very poor (people at the fifth or tenth percentile of income distribution) would increase by 0.9% per capita per annum (pc pa) on average. Since the incomes of the very poor on average grew by 0.8% pc pa, such a reduction in inequality wouldmore than double their growth rate on average. At the other end of the spectrum, the same decrease in inequality would reduce the growth rate of the rich (the top 5%) by 0.3% per capita annually. The rich’s average growth rate over the past half-century was 2% pc pa, so their growth would be cut by about one seventh.

Worth a read.

GOP staffer calls for more ‘class’ from Obama daughters

Am I the only one that remembers the Bush daughters falling down drunk and the outrage that anyone would mention it?

They are 13 and 16. They seem to be normal aloof teens.

Deadly Force, in Black and White

The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police.

Shocking statistics.

It’s Incredibly Rare For A Grand Jury To Do What Ferguson’s Just Did

Grand juries nearly always decide to indict. Or at least, they nearly always do so in cases that don’t involve police officers.

When someone asks about Black on Black crime, they aren’t looking for an answer.

Whenever a black kid is gunned down by police, the first thing I see pop up on my Facebook feeds is Why isn’t anyone speaking out about black on black crime? This is concern trolling at its worst. Virtually everyone agrees that in the case of black on black crime, that one party is the… Continue reading When someone asks about Black on Black crime, they aren’t looking for an answer.