1
Education
Two States Repeal Education Standards
The governors of Oklahoma and South Carolina signed bills within the past week repealing the Common Core state standards, guidelines for children’s achievement in reading and math between kindergarten and high school graduation.
2
Technology
Internet Giants Erect Barriers to Spy Agencies
Internet companies like Google and Facebook are working to keep governments and especially their spy agencies out of their servers after revelations from Edward J. Snowden that they had been invaded.
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Health
Losing Weight May Require Some Serious Fun
Volunteers who were told to exercise by walking a mile consumed more calories afterward than those who were told to have fun while completing the same workout, a provocative new study found.
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Opinion
Israeli-Palestinian Collision Course
With the recent collapse of peace talks and the reconciliation of the feuding Palestinian factions, it is time for all sides to think hard about where they are headed.
5
Opinion
Family-Friendly Tax Reform and The Poor
Does reform conservatism’s proposed child tax credit leave the poor out in the cold?
6
Fashion & Style
Shoe Companies Show a Red Card to Black Soccer Cleats
For the tournament in Brazil, major shoe companies have planned a veritable parade of pigments for cleats.
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Fashion & Style
In a Small Bag, She Packed All Our Hopes
Love doesn’t afford us the luxury of caring, or not caring, only about ourselves.
8
Opinion
Shared Fight Against Terror
A reader writes that the United States is but one of Al Qaeda’s targets.
9
Opinion
Day of Reckoning for N.C.A.A.
An antitrust trial begins Monday that could upend big-time college sports.
10
The Upshot
More Fathers Who Stay at Home by Choice
A shift reveals a structural change in gender roles in family and at work underway in the United States.
11
World
Video: Aquino on China’s Move in Disputed Seas
President Benigno S. Aquino III of the Philippines criticized China for moving ships capable of reclaiming land around the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
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The Upshot
The Supreme Court Blunder That Liberals Tend to Make
Democrats and Republicans have split the last 14 presidential elections, but Republicans have appointed 12 of the last 20 Supreme Court justices
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Automobiles
Wheelies: The Z06 Power Edition
Chevrolet announces specifications for the 2015 Corvette Z06; Mercedes-Benz says it will double its urban sales locations.
14
World
International Criminal Court to Focus on Sex Crimes
For the first time, the court’s statute included rape, sexual slavery, and other forms of sexual violence as crimes against humanity and war crimes.
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The Upshot
Europe’s Central Bank Gets Serious About Fighting Deflation
The bank’s president signaled on Thursday that he was throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the Continent’s economic malaise.Timid Analysis (Wonkish)
I referred to this briefly in today’s column, but here’s more.
I just left the Brookings Panel meeting (yes, I’m finally back in the US), which included a paper on Abenomics;
the two discussants were me and some guy named Ben Bernanke. Part of my
discussion involved an issue I’ve worried about for a long time, which I
think I’ve been able to formulate a bit better. Here goes:
If you look at the extensive theoretical literature on the zero lower bound since my 1998 paper,
you find that just about all of it treats liquidity-trap conditions as
the result of a temporary shock. Something – most obviously, a burst
bubble and/or deleveraging after a credit boom – leads to a period of
very low demand, so low that even zero interest rates aren’t enough to
restore full employment. Eventually, however, the shock will end. So the
way out is to convince the public that there has been a regime change,
that the central bank will maintain expansionary monetary policy even
after the economy recovers, so as to generate high demand and some
inflation.
But if we’re talking about Japan, when
exactly do we imagine that this period of high demand, when the ZLB is
no longer binding, is going to happen? Even in the US, we’re talking
seriously about secular stagnation, which means that it could be a very
long time before “normal” monetary policy resumes.
Now, even in this case you can get traction
if you can credibly promise higher inflation, which reduces real
interest rates. But what does it take to credibly promise inflation?
Well, it has to involve a strong element of self-fulfilling prophecy:
people have to believe in higher inflation, which produces an economic
boom, which yields the promised inflation.
But a necessary (not sufficient) condition
for this to work is that the promised inflation be high enough that it
will indeed produce an economic boom if people believe the promise will
be kept. If it isn’t, then the actual rate of inflation will fall short
of the promise even if people believe in the promise – which means that
they will stop believing after a while, and the whole effort will fail.
Here’s the picture I put up this morning:
On one side we have a hypothetical but I
think realistic Phillips curve, in which the rate of inflation depends
on output and the relationship gets steep at high levels of utilization.
On the other we have an aggregate demand curve that depends positively
on expected inflation, because this reduces real interest rates at the
zero lower bound. I’ve drawn the picture so that if the central bank
announces a 2 percent inflation target, the actual rate of inflation
will fall short of 2 percent, even if everyone believes the bank’s
promise – which they won’t do for very long.
So you see my problem. Suppose that the
economy really needs a 4 percent inflation target, but the central bank
says, “That seems kind of radical, so let’s be more cautious and only do
2 percent.” This sounds prudent – but may actually guarantee failure.
The War on Coal Already Happened
I’m
trying to pull together some thoughts about interests and ideology in
the fight over climate policies, and found myself wondering what exactly
is at stake in the supposed “war on coal”. And the answer is,
surprisingly little — at least as far as jobs are concerned. Here’s
total employment in coal mining (the earlier numbers are from Historical
Statistics of the United States, Millennial Edition; the later from the
FRED database):
There used to be a lot of coal miners, but
not any more — strip mines and machinery in general have allowed us to
produce more coal with very few miners. Basically, it’s a job that was
destroyed by technology long ago, with only a relative handful of
workers — 0.06 percent of the US work force — still engaged in mining.
So what is this fight about? There’s capital
invested in coal and coal-related stuff, hiding behind the pretense of
caring about the workers. And there’s also ideology, of which more soon.
But the war on coal already happened, it had nothing to do with
liberals and environmentalists, and coal lost.
16
Opinion
Book Fight: Amazon vs. Publishers
Readers discuss Amazon’s hardball actions and the publishing marketplace.
17
N.Y. / Region
Watching the World’s Game, in the World’s City
Passion for soccer runs deep in New York. There are 32 teams, in eight groups; we have chosen one nation from each group and provided a local prism to view the games through.
18
World
Saudi Arabia and Iran Reach Out Tentatively
With the Persian Gulf region still in tumult, there have been surprising signs that Tehran and Riyadh are looking to temper their destructive rivalry.
19
Business Day
Germany Leans Toward Allowing Fracking
Pressure has increased to end the country's reliance on Russia for natural gas and to find new fuel sources.
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