I wanted to leave a link to Paul Krugman’s post that references the cycle charts. Now to be fair he criticized the WSJ not the package itself so I may be stretching for a critic. The Eichengreen-O’Rourke work is very good and require some fairly heavy data lifting (I’ve trekked around to a couple libraries and haven’t been able to find a good set of League of Nations Monthly Statistic Bulletins) but they are doing draw down chart not cycle charts so by there nature the downturns will be more in-line. Each methodology is valid but they have different purposed, I prefer cycles for thinking about the economic relationship but draw-down are not a bad way to look at a collapse.
As an aside: For my select few diligent reader I’m sorry about the weak and infrequent posts of late. I’ve been given the honor of being a dear friends executor so I’ve been spending all free moments trying to school myself on some legal details. I’ll be back up and ranting soon enough.
August 4, 2009 at 12:54 pm |
Combining this posting with a previous one: is more criticism better? If more people criticize, are more people listening? If no one criticizes, it could be that they aren’t listening or don’t care. Or, it could be they are content with what you say but are not moved enough to comment. Silence is no argument and it can’t be interpreted or valued.
August 7, 2009 at 4:24 pm |
Admittedly, this was somewhat rhetorical in that it is clear that someone could listen in silence. But I would argue that the person that chooses to interpret silence as contentment or agreement is Pollyannaish; apathy or void seems more appropriate interpretations. That said silence is just a piece of information, like all information should be viewed with a critical eye.