Ethel the Blog
Observations (and occasional brash opining) on science, computers, books, music and other shiny things that catch my mind's eye. There's a home page with ostensibly more permanent stuff. This is intended to be more functional than decorative. I neither intend nor want to surf on the bleeding edge, keep it real, redefine journalism or attract nyphomaniacal groupies (well, maybe a wee bit of the latter). The occasional cheap laugh, raised eyebrow or provocation of interest are all I'll plead guilty to in the matter of intent. Bene qui latuit bene vixit.

The usual copyright stuff applies, but I probably won't get enraged until I find a clone site with absolutely no attribution (which, by the way, has happened twice with some of my other stuff). Finally, if anyone's offended by anything on this site then please do notify me immediately. I like to keep track of those times when I get something right.

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"When they say, 'Gee it's an information explosion!', no, it's not an explosion, it's a disgorgement of the bowels is what it is. Every idiotic thing that anybody could possibly write or say or think can get into the body politic now, where before things would have to have some merit to go through the publishing routine, now, ANYTHING." - Harlan Ellison JOLLY OLD PALS Other stuff of mild interest to some: unusual literature scientific software blog physical oceanography glossary computer-related tutorials and texts Wednesday, October 18, 2000 THE NATIONAL DEBT Nobel laureate Robert Solow's Should we pay the debt? in the New York Review of Books offers a tutorial on some basic facts concerning that $3.6 trillion beastie. His goal ... ... is to describe how the public debt arises and evolves, and how and why its size matters for the functioning of the national economy. That will not tell you the correct policy for here and now or for next year, but it's a start. How much of the budget does the debt consume? In 1999 the federal government paid $263 billion in interest, 15 percent of all federal spending, and just under 3 percent of GDP. Estimates of the loss in efficiency associated with taxation contain a healthy dose of conjecture; I have seen numbers as high as 50 cents for every dollar collected. Even $130 billion a year will not erode the foundations of the Republic but it is, in electionese, $500 each year for every man, woman, and child in the country. Where does it come from? Historically, most Treasury debt has arisen in the deficit financing of wars. World War II drove the debt from more than 40 percent of GDP to more than 110 percent of GDP in half a dozen years. The ratio of debt to GDP then fell more or less smoothly to just under 25 percent in the mid-1970s, climbed back to 50 percent as a result of the Reagan deficits, has been falling since the mid-1990s, and is projected to keep falling at least for a while. Are there any other sources? When recessions happen, deficits happen. Unemployment and excess capacity mean depressed production and sales, low earnings and weak profits, and therefore low tax revenues. On the other side of the federal budget, outlays for unemployment insurance, public assistance, and Social Security all tend to be higher in recessions. Attempts to eliminate the resulting deficit, by increasing tax rates and reducing spending, only make matters worse. Recessions reflect a shortfall in private and public spending; doing things that will only cause further contraction of total spending is short-sighted and worse. To whom is it owed? Most of the debt owed by the US Treasury is owed to American families, firms, foundations, and other institutions. It is "internal" debt. The rest-currently about 40 percent-is payable to foreigners, including foreign governments and financial institutions. It is "external" debt. By historical standards this is a very high proportion. Ten years ago, only 20 percent of the debt was external, and longer ago even less. Foreigners have been increasingly attracted to the combination of yield and security offered by Treasury bonds. In an obvious sense, internal debt is not a direct burden on US society. In a famous phrase, we owe it to ourselves. Current payments of interest, for example, can be regarded as transfers from taxpayers to bondholders. Those are different people, statistically speaking, but the transfer stays entirely within the US. Is it desirable to reduce the debt in the present economy? Paying down public debt is indeed constructive policy at this time, under these circumstances. It will help to provide a better standard of living in the future when there may otherwise be difficulties. It is a policy worth pursuing. But what about the CBO projections that show milk and honey times over the next decade? It is not always realized that the estimates of future budget surpluses put out by the Congressional Budget Office are, as the CBOmakes clear, not "forecasts" but mechanical projections. The CBO makes a genuine forecast of economic conditions only two years ahead. These are then extended out to ten years by a deliberately smooth mechanical procedure. The estimates of tax revenues and entitlement spending that are derived from this process are labeled "forecasts" for the first two years and "projections" thereafter. No one really expects those eight years to go by without large or small fluctuations. But wouldn't increased consumer spending via tax cuts help the economy as much or even more than reducing the debt? The contrast between private investment [debt reduction] and private consumption [spending a posited surplus via tax decreases] can be put even more sharply: a burst of consumer spending in today's prosperous economy would almost certainly threaten to create strong inflationary pressure. The Federal Reserve, which is already properly nervous, would surely raise interest rates; investment spending would then fall, and of course even more so if monetary tightening precipitated a recession. The entire article's well worth a read or two. Note Solow's repeating of what I've said probably a dozen times in this forum, i.e. even if a tax cut were to stimulate the economy (despite the lack of evidence for such a thing happening in a non-recessionary economy), the Fed would almost certainly raise interest rates to counter it due to reasons I haven't the time to go into here. posted by Steven Baum 10/18/2000 10:54:21 AM | link META-SCHTOFF Since I've either been too lazy or unable to regain inertia since my disk crash thingie, here's some fun schtoff from elsewhere and elsewhen: The New Science of Character Assassination (via Genehack) The Last Waltz, a new Bill Evans box set containing his final recordings (via dumbmonkey) Myths and Realities of Mineral Resources (via Kestrel's Nest) A good reason to change my last name (via Kestrel's Nest) The machinations of the Council of Nicaea (at Enjoy the Fall and via Virulent Memes) October Surprise Contest, although I still prefer my October Surprise Theory from March (via drat fink) "I Look Like My Dog" contest winners (via Bifurcated Rivets) A Critical Eye for Detail (via follow me here) 100 Recipes from Top Restaurants (via Looka!) posted by Steven Baum 10/18/2000 10:39:00 AM | link MAGICPOINT Those addicted to those nasty and bloated PPT files for presentations (and who won't use the LaTeX or Lout macros for such things due to their lack of shiny colors) can check out a Linux alternative called MagicPoint. Example slides in both English and Japanese show what can be done with the package, and the MagicPoint Gallery offers over 40 templates as starting points for the beginning user to perform all sorts of visual gimcrackery with which to wow the attendees at that next boring, useless presentation. Getting maximum mileage out of the package additionally requires the installation of the Freetype library and, if one wishes to create slides with Japanese text, the VFlib library. posted by Steven Baum 10/18/2000 09:23:50 AM | link

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