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Sports
St. John’s Adds Three Transfers
Chris Mullin, the coach at St. John’s for less than a month, signed three transfers, two of whom will be eligible right away.Arts
Review: Francesca DiMattio, ‘Domestic Sculpture,’ at Salon 94 Bowery
Her gnarly patchwork ceramic sculptures are very lively, perhaps to excess.World
Chile: Volcano Spews Dangerous Ash
Twin eruptions from the Calbuco volcano in southern Chile have sent vast clouds of ash into the sky, causing concern.N.Y. / Region
Advocates Sue a New York School District, Claiming Weak Programs for Refugees
The New York Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of six refugees in the Utica City district. Law enforcement agencies have pressed New York schools for months to ease enrollment for immigrants.Business Day
Millions of Hens in Iowa to Be Destroyed as Bird Flu Spreads
The deadly bird flu virus was confirmed at a farm in Osceola County that has about 10 percent of the state’s egg-laying hens.Education
Teachers Fight Standardized Testing, and Find Diverse Allies
Often painted as obstacles to improving schools, the unions now find common ground with conservative leaders and education reform advocates.World
Vivid Accounts of War’s Horror Stream From Yemen’s Capital
Civilians in Yemen’s capital, Sana, documented another day of terror in Twitter dispatches.Technology
Remotely Controlling the DVR
Tips for Time Warner Cable customers who want to use their iPhones to manage DVR recordings.Business Day
Jobless Claims Rise for 3rd Straight Week, but Labor Market Seems Stronger
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 295,000 for the week ended April 18, the Labor Department said.
"Simon Wren-Lewis continues his voice in the wilderness campaign against British economic myths, focusing on claims that Labour was fiscally profligate. Needless to say, I agree, and would like to enlarge on his points.
The simple fact is
that Britain was not running big deficits on the eve of the financial
crisis, and that public debt wasn’t high by historical standards. So how
does that record get turned into a claim of wildly irresponsible
budgeting? As Wren-Lewis says, there are really two levels to this
diversion. First, there’s the highly questionable reinterpretation of
past GDP data; second, there’s the implicit proposition that governments
in the past should have based fiscal policy on information (or actually
“information”) that didn’t exist at the time.
On the first point:
these days official estimates say that Britain, although it had a modest
actual deficit in 2006-2007, had a large “structural” deficit. How so?
Well, these estimates are now based on estimates of potential output,
which purport to show that the British economy in 2006-7 was hugely
overheated and operating far above sustainable levels.
But nothing one saw at
the time was consistent with this view. In particular, there was no
sign of inflationary overheating. So why do the usual suspects claim
that Britain had a large positive output gap?
The answer is that the
statistical techniques used by most of the players here automatically
reinterpret any prolonged slump as a slowdown in the growth of potential
output — and because they also smooth out potential output, the
supposed fall in current potential propagates back into the past, making
it seem as if the pre-crisis economy was wildly overheated.
As an extreme example, consider Greece. Here’s the IMF estimate of Greece’s output gap before the storm:
Does anyone really
believe that Greece was operating 10 percent — 10 percent! — above
capacity in 2007-8? This is just a smoothing algorithm producing
nonsense results in the face of economic catastrophe.
And this backward
propagation of economic disaster also leads, automatically, to the
appearance of past fiscal profligacy. Consider the case of Ireland. Back
in 2006 George Osborne praised the country
as a “shining example” of “wise economic policy-making”, and especially
praised the country’s fiscal prudence. Today, backward-looking
estimates say that Ireland was fiscally irresponsible all along:
Even if you believe
these estimates (which you shouldn’t), it’s unfair to criticize the
Irish government of the time for fiscal profligacy. They believed that
they were acting responsibly, and all the best people were praising them
for it.
So were Blair and
Brown irresponsible? No, not at all. True, if they had known the crisis
was coming they would probably have tried to pay down debt during the
good years. But they didn’t know that, and in any case it’s hard to
imagine that it would have made any significant difference. Claiming
that there was a major failure of fiscal prudence isn’t even 20-20
hindsight, it’s hindsight with a severe case of astigmatism."
World
Xi Jinping of China and Shinzo Abe of Japan Meet Amid Slight Thaw in Ties
The two leaders met for about half an hour, about half the customary time for such diplomatic sessions, on the sidelines of a summit meeting in Indonesia.Neither of them want to listen.
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World
As War Grinds On, Yemenis Share Their Anguish Online
Online dispatches from Yemeni bloggers and activists were filled on Wednesday with despair over the growing toll of the conflict.Business Day
Big Mac Test Shows Job Market Is Not Working to Distribute Wealth
If the job market cannot keep hardworking people out of poverty and spread prosperity more broadly, how will those tasks be done?Opinion
‘A Danger on Rails’
This short documentary warns about the dangers posed by trains that transport explosive oil across North America.N.Y. / Region
Only Alternative for Some Students Sitting Out Standardized Tests: Do Nothing
The anti-testing movement is targeting districts that require students not taking the exams to remain quietly in their classrooms and, as opt-out advocates have labeled it, “sit and stare.”Opinion
Beyond Education Wars
K-12 education is an exhausted, bloodsoaked battlefield. Let’s shift some of the reformist passions to early childhood.Money poisons programs.
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World
Sighs of Relief From Yemen, Mixed With Fears of More Conflict
Yemeni bloggers expressed relief that the Saudi-led air campaign had finally come to an end, tempered by concern that the conflict was far from over.Science
Marijuana and the Body
Leaving aside questions of addiction and brain effects, what is known about the effects of marijuana on things like the lungs and digestive tract?N.Y. / Region
Rivermarket Bar & Kitchen in Tarrytown, Quietly Sophisticated, Is on a Mission
The restaurant, with a kitchen headed by Peter Larsen, supports Hudson Valley farmers with its fresh market and menu offerings.Business Day
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