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Open thread Feb. 19, 2016

Dan Crawford | February 19, 2016 11:31 am

Tags: open thread Comments (7) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
7 Comments
  • Denis Drew says:
    February 19, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    GUILTY: NYPD Officer Peter Liang Convicted in Trial for Killing Akai Gurley
    https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160211/downtown-brooklyn/guilty-nypd-officer-peter-liang-convicted-trial-for-killing-akai-gurley

    Up until 1968 in New York State the rule was (believe-it-or-not) to fire a warning shot and then shoot to kill EVERY fleeing suspect. We used to kill a lot of shoplifters. The new law (Ripley’s believe-it-or-not!) forbade police officers from removing their guns from their holsters, even entering a crime scene, even if the bad guys had their guns out, unless the bad guy pointed his gun at the cop. This quickly got a cop killed in Queens, after which whatever sensible rule that exists now was put into place. (I’m sure I remember this right — there’s too much detail.)

    Now we have a cop who had his gun out (supposedly out of policy) which went off accidentally and the ricochet bounced around a corner and hit somebody he couldn’t even see convicted of manslaughter. Back to early 1968? Meantime, during his very trial two cops were shot in the same kind of vertical patrol by a robber who shot them when he saw them coming without their guns out. Likely would not have if guns were out — they could have returned fire instantly even if hit.

    I am a huge critic of what I call Lilliputian law enforcement — a.k.a., known as broken windows policing: zombies with ticket books chasing citizens around for harmless actions like walking between subway cars or riding a bicycle the wrong way on a one way street: accomplishing nothing but making people hate the police.

    But if ever there was a phony manslaughter case this is it. Hope an appeals court recognizes that there was no case at all there.

  • amateur socialist says:
    February 19, 2016 at 2:31 pm

    James Galbraith, credit to UT-Austin: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-fight_us_56c74dade4b0ec6725e25f49

    Economist fight!

  • Denis Drew says:
    February 19, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    Keeping in mind the difference between restoring equality in distribution and economic growth, the high growth of 1983, 1984 and 1985 was trough-to-peak growth. A return to equitable incomes could temporarily cause a trough-to-peak surge by relieving the demand slack caused by 20% (instead of the earlier 10%) of income going to people who don’t know how to spend it all.

    5% steady growth would perhaps in a few years surpass China! Only possible path: work a lot more hours and invest (not just save; not the same thing). We already have the highest per capita income because we work too many hours (trying to make as much money as we should make working European hours [lacking labor unions]).

  • Warren says:
    February 20, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    “A return to equitable incomes could temporarily cause a trough-to-peak surge by relieving the demand slack caused by 20% (instead of the earlier 10%) of income going to people who don’t know how to spend it all.”

    That’s a rather curious statement. What does that 20% DO with their money, if they are not spending it?

  • Marko says:
    February 20, 2016 at 6:31 pm

    Nice graphic of the circular-flow economy :

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbpXBDkWwAAF5_z.jpg

  • Marko says:
    February 20, 2016 at 7:23 pm

    The Next Financial Crisis Could Be Predicted By A Smarter Economic Model, Experts Say

    http://www.ibtimes.com/next-financial-crisis-could-be-predicted-smarter-economic-model-experts-say-2313345

    “….“Truth be told, the workhorse model in economics and finance, God bless it, does come with some strong simplifying assumptions, some of which mean it’s not often well equipped to deal with situations of stress,” Andy Haldane, chief economist at the Bank of England who co-authored the proposal in Science, said.

    …..Farmer says the sting of the 2008 financial crisis has created fresh interest in applying complexity theory to the economy. When the global financial system collapsed, none of the traditional economic models saw it coming. “It’s made central banks very aware because they felt like they were left without any useful quantitative tools,” he said. “The models weren’t even good enough to be wrong.”

    http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6275/818.full

    “The models weren’t even good enough to be wrong.”

    Beautiful.

  • Warren says:
    February 21, 2016 at 6:28 am

    Brings up the old joke…

    Q: Why did God make economists?

    A: To make the weather forecasters look good.

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