Rhodes Center Podcast: Possibilities for a Post-Covid Economy
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- Опубликовано: 26 окт 2024
- Megan Greene is an economist who actually sticks her head out the window, and takes real world observations as seriously as the models. For that reason (and many others), she’s currently a Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a Fellow at the Rhodes Center. On this episode Mark talks with Megan about what a post-Covid economy might look like, whether we’re already in a global Depression, and how the American unemployment model is a little more European than many people think.
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i love mark's videos, but megan's way of dismissing the welfare of working people is the reason i've mostly ignored economists. would've loved some pushback on how great the US unemployment system is...
That struck me too :nods:. I did my first degree in Economics (long ago) so I can understand the tendency to think in ‘detached’ fashion when speaking of broad economic flows. But even so I thought her phrasing showed a lack of empathy for the very real human costs of such shifts. Ignore the people for too long and they may decide to flip the board over and see where the pieces fall.
economists are always employed because they are like sorcerers, they can find any theory to fit the data. kings and presidents love them
Kind of crazy how cavalier she is about asset price inflation... (23:00) Sure, nice when you're an old wealthy chick who's already got plenty of assets... Not so much for those of us who still need to buy. Either or wages will need to go up to catch the assets that have run away from us or I guess we're screwed?
No skin off her back though.
Sure, there are winners and losers. 99% of Americans are losers!
Darrell Malone >Yes I thought so too. Its a solution only to work for the rich living in a rich country that is able to print money.
The majority poor will struggle. And if they generate inflation on consumables rather than just the assets that compounds the problem even further.
A reverse J ?
And wages won't increase when demand has fallen off a cliff. Then they can't service their debts and that bubble implodes.
I thought the same thing. Controlled inflation is all well and good if I still have skin in the game, I still have a connection to my society's GDP, and my wages will inflate as well. In that scenario, my debts shrink. However, that sounds like pure fantasy to me. I can't remember the last time my wages have increased. It's been quite a spell.
America is in far more trouble than nearly anyone thinks.
@kl wies why do you think giving Trump an excuse to mobilise the military against American citizens is the way towards "winning"? Just trying to follow your logic here.
@@ttystikkrocks1042 not that I like either side of the protests but what about the 2nd Amandment. It was to protect against a totalitarian government and now you're about to have some. If they don't protest with the 2nd on their side then that whole Amandment becomes kind of obsolete....
@@webfreakz Let time I checked semi-automatic guns don't so well against tanks, armored vehicles, and highly militarized police force.
There's no "last time I checked" here. The situation in America is unprecedented.
@@astriddececco3005 that wasn't my point. I meant to say, the police is not going to escalate things when a whole crowd of people show up with guns. The power balance is off at the moment, that's why there's chaos at those protests. I didn't like those COVID/lockdown protests at the Missouri State Capitol (I think it was?) but there were no problems there.
What sectors will 40-60 year-olds retrain for when they lose their jobs? Tech is notorious for age discrimination and neatly avoid that by outsourcing. Governments also outsource their IT to US subsidiaries of international or re-domiciled firms like CMG, Infosys, or Accenture in order to avoid long-term pension obligations and these older IT workers end up training their replacements until their employment is terminated. What sectors will these older IT ("knowledge") workers retrain for?
Over 40's that survive the pandemic will be used for Soylent Green.
#CommunismNow
Bridges are going up due to a slowly dawning realization that offshoring exposes a company to political risk.
1-GOP or Democrats are loath to be seen as shipping jobs overseas.
2- Automation requires IT skill and a workforce that has a good track record to make it happen.
3- With uprisings and Covid the optics of discrimination no longer are ignored (Amazon is under icreasing pressure to be less of a Southern Plantation)
4- As Sanders failure to mobilize the young to actually vote, the over 40 do vote, dissing them would be political suicide.
Thanks to Mark and Megan for an interesting discussion. All major shocks should create power shifts and since the 2008 only strengthened the existing, by and large, it would be good to explore the relative power concentrations that will influence policy required to rebuild economies.
Mark is absolutely brilliant at explaining in plain english why you should listen to somebody.
The problem with betting on healthcare is people aren't going to the doctor right now-- doctors that aren't actively fighting Covid, are hurting right now, with no patients. I'm in a heathcare software company that just had a big layoff because docs aren't paying their software bills...
I do IT work for primarily service sector clients. They just started bringing back workers in the expectation of demand which I don't think is going to materialize. We already had to take a pay cut because they couldn't pay their bills. They really don't seem to realize what's actually going on.
She clueless about the downstream effects. Most software companies profits come from b2b transactions not consumer.
The problem is a gain to health-care is a DEBT to people, all while the rich have stolen TRILLIONS!
@@matthoyt3240 if a business doesn't have consumers it fails therefore buys no software ergo no profit in selling software. maybe it isn't megan thats clueless
What I see coming is a vicious deflationary cycle if state and local governments are not bailed out!!! I preordered your book ,"Angryenomics", and you are one of my favorite economists
They were talking about restaurants. I went to Walmart to buy a new frying pan. All the pots and pans were sold out. People are cooking at home now. Even if restaurants open now and people are working people have learned they don’t have to go out to for food. They can cook for themselves.
I always prefer to cook at home. My wife on the other hand is chomping on her bit to go to a restaurant. Her friends as well.
this may finally cure America's obsession & compulsion with going out to eat.....
My MD friend of mine says that doctors who can't practice medicine go into public health policy. Explains the crap models being peddled.
There's no inflation because they don't actual measure places where costs are going up. Like housing. Education. Child care. And "health care". They only look at imported flatscreen TV prices and GMO-laden mass-produced food crap not to mention an endless stream of "hedonic" adjustments.
You hit an interesting point. Basically the question is how do we measure inflation? I've looked into that and over the years and decades it seems to have changed how we measure inflation. We are just measuring the wrong things it seems and thus giving us the wrong results and policies. If that was intentional.. Who knows. Let's get it fixed first.
The developed world with the remnants of social democracies that have things like pensions have chugged down the Neoliberal koolaid and abandoned measures of inflation that measure the costs of essentials like housing costs, food, transport and clothing for a basket of goods that a large percentage of people can't afford. They used to use RPI - Retail Price Index that indexed price movements far more accurately than the present measure, the CPI - Consumer Price Index. In fact, when CPI was introduced suddenly inflation fell, and anything that guaranteed inflation increases also fell, but costs stayed the same, but what you were getting fell. Supermarkets have done this. So, you could buy a litre of washing detergent for say 5 USD, but 6 months later, you can only get 750ml for the same 5 USD. So government inflation measures are prime BS.
Also "economic rent" is calculated into "productivity" _positively_ . In what world is interest and rent "productive" and not purely overhead?
Hello Mark, any chance you can get professor Steve Keen on the show? Would be awesome!
Economists just accept all the basic assumptions of capitalism as tho they are the immutable laws of nature, and then just study the chaos that ensues the same way a meteorologist studies the weather. Its pathetic and amoral, but I guess it pays well
liam314 ...Fool
Capitalism is a religion and they are the pastors. I do appreciate Mark's perspective. He tells it like it is but his guest was a little too CNBC. Wasn't that insightful.
@@lonniefarrare1297 He may tell it like it is, but the issue I have with Mark and every other economist, no matter how progressive they may purport to be, is that they don't have any real objection to how it is. 5% of the population basically owns everything, the bottom 80% owns nothing and have to survive by working for the 5% that owns everything on subsistence wages (i.e. as neo feudal serfs) and the poorest billion are disposable, essentially canon fodder. Not to mention how racist and sexist capitalism has always been. Yet Mark thinks this would all be fine if only corporations would pay taxes! If economists were alive during the times of slavery they wouldn't have had any objection to it. John Ralston Saul said a very interesting thing, "amorality is evil" which applies to the entire professional class ruclips.net/video/7BZtvkF-fZk/видео.html
@@liam314 I like you.
@@lonniefarrare1297 Thanks comrade😅✊
Mark. A suggestion to enhance OUR enjoyment: MEGAN'S AUDIO is Crisp and Tight. Yours is a tad heavy on the REVERB (a bit like your talking LOUDY, 15 feet from the MIC. Thankful for your insights on RUclips.
How about the govenment starts regulating how many jobs have to be kept in the USA and how much money had to be kept here too. Bringing back sanity to economics!
Don't even have to do that. Have the President tell his DoJ to start using the Sherman Act against various monopolists.
CV-19, as they say if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it. Pandemics come and go and no one knows when the next one will break out. We don’t even know for sure where/how/what originated CV-19. This Black Swan was an « unknown unknown », the next one will be a « known unknown », globalisation as we know it can’t work at this level of uncertainty. Recovery will be long and cautious, rebuilding collapsed logistics will be the big issue.
mostly unknown as the government either won't OR can't tell us any facts. Liars almost all. Especially if every covid 19 claim yields $39,000 for the hospital - think they won't lie for that money??
We must have a debt Jubilee for the people to avoid a deflationary depression.
I agree! It's good there is this stimulus program but the amount given to people is too low.
Bingo. A debt that _can't_ be paid, _won't_ be paid.
Loved that Mark did a take from a Richard C. Koo "balance sheet recession" perspective.
I think it's not a matter of whether or not retail stores will come back, more a matter of reducing over-extended building. There are more U.S. retail stores per capita than in any other country in the world. Shrinking total square-footage is something that needs to happen, regardless. Of course it would be nice, also if private-equity firms were made illegal, since they've wreaked havoc on the sector for years now.
Pandemic is the best time to bet on health care: how utterly chilling
Can we please crowd fund proper audio equipment for these podcasts?
The academic discussions are great, but I feel like they are being hampered by poor technical equipment.
Oh boy! You should go try to listen to Noam Chomsky videos. The sonoric horror!
I don't think the strategy of bribing rich stock owners to create jobs is going to work very well if demand dips. What are they going to do: distribute that money to their customers so they can get back at giving people jobs? Those jobs, high turn-over or not, are not coming back until the very same workers get paid wages again.
Thought provoking and thank you. I think I would/should pay a premium for a restaurant experience (for example) that keeps my risk low. Is it time to rethink how we value many low wage low skills roles?
Low skill? We hear it all the time. Many (most?) jobs would probably be classified thusly. Can you imagine the quiet festering rage that description might instil in millions of people? Everything takes some skill, even if it's the skill of not freaking out with mindless repetition, or refraining from throttling abusive customers.
ΨψΨψΨ That is a very fair point and well made. I presume you’re implying that better valuing roles and enterprises that are currently low wage should include both better wages and high levels of respect, in which case I would strongly agree.
I love you guys and I hope you know that we really appreciate the service you are providing to us regular people
MMT is not something that you do. MMT is rather a framework how FIAT currency system works.
In a post virus world with huge automation and little employment and low demand. Could the government fund a primary industry to suck up workers? Could agriculture using regenerative methodology be the industry? Supporting workers on low productive and unproductive land to increase the productivity of the land.
Excellent !
We don't see much consumer price inflation (but we do see health care, education etc go up) because real wages did not go up. It's that simple.
wages are going down even
I've been trying to get a stable job so I can just excist. i live in California, I'm willing to go anywhere that gets a stable job so I can afford to live. barely making for four-five years, it's was nearly impossible to get any extra money. unless I do non legal means to get bye. I worked at Sheraton hotel why is this b.s. keep happening, i just want a job six days a week and I'll do the rest. but no everybody greed gets in my way
Wait you think we don't get unemployment benefits in europe?
Hard for the lower classes but not a bad deal from the national debt standpoint. Then on to the next thing. No real acknowledgement that the lower class suffering might be a problem or anything. Just taken for granted as an “Oh well” type situation. I think her co-host has ceased to worry about pitchforks like he used to at least claim to. I wonder why.
Is covid more deadly than a seasonal flu? The economic chaos will be alot worse than covid. Poverty leads to more deaths. I am getting sick and tired of journalists who are working telling us that it is not safe to go to work. Every business can function in some capacity even if covid is rampant.
I agree. I believe this is just the new norm. Let's get on with it. Friendly tip... "a lot" is two words.
Brilliant show
23:23 well if the inflation is steady year on year ... say 10 % and you legislate to make wages keep up with it then in 10 years ....
Unemployment punishes retraining. If I were to start taking classes right now I would no longer be eligible for unemployment.
retrain? I would like to see Megan "learning to code"....
Does anyone seriously consider US addicted capitalism is in any way sustainable ?
Excellent podcast as always, Megan Greene is sharp as a tack. Joe Sixpack might not realize that his money is being used to subsidize buddies of the admin, donors, tinder dates of the Republican Party like agribiz, fossil fuels, pharma, etc. And where's Joe's universal medical care? THERE. thx. D.A., J.D., NYC
Sweden isn't in the Euro, and the Swedish government is against European solidarity, they don't want to pay for the countries in trouble, probably because they don't want to be criticized by the right for not prioritizing their own people. Also, the government has said that any EU help should be in form of loans, not donations. The EU is in trouble if every time there is a crisis, no matter how big it small, all the states turn inward and forget about solidarity, especially the economically stronger states. Why is it that the economically stronger states are most against European solidarity and equality?
Because they have spent two decades telling the lie that their prosperity is due to their own hard work and the southern states are lazy, rather than the truth of the matter that they have benefited from an undervalued currency relative to their economy whilst the southern states cant compete with their relative to their economy overvalued currency. The Euro needs to die and fast if you want to stop the politics of hate that will come marching over that hill.
21:44 or .. forgo the loans and just print it ...
Greece's former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis)
Time to interview again
What do you mean not sure which one is right?? If you value any life the choice is easy!!!!!
NO inflation ?? housing, rent, cars, health insurance. utilities - and you don't see inflation ?? WHAT ??
wage inflation? none for the lower 60% of wage earners, right? we do get 6 year car loans What about credit card interest charges - are they lower? student debt interest rates EVER go down on original loan?
Just how the hell is inflation measured now days? have you economists gone insane??
I... Think I hate this women. Her flippant manner of dismissing the concerns of working class people and the poor is disgusting. She's about to get a baaaad wake up call if she thinks recovery will again happen at the cost of workers health and wealth.
inequality was issue before the shutdown, now the problem is getting compounded?
DEBATE SAM SEDER
The US economy is like a cappuccino where the chocolate sprinkled on the top is financial engineering, hedge funds etc. These guys don't produce anything. The next layer (the white froth) comprises Facebook, Instagram, WalMart, Google, Amazon etc, and when you think about it, all this wealth creation comes down to retailing. These guys don't produce anything either.
The final layer, the real coffee of the economy, is now (broadly speaking) in Mexico and China.
The result is that experts discussing the recovery of such an "economy" often find themselves talking about massage therapists, restaurants and all those other "low productivity", deplorable, underclass segments.
All of which goes directly to the root of the post-pandemic problem for US elites. Can they continue extracting wealth from the rest of the world if the domestic house of cards is fallen? Evidently, they feel that they can pull it off because otherwise they wouldn't be doing their level best to crush the US working class at this moment of crisis.
Where does the buck stop with THIS economic crisis? Lets say the jobs stay lost (because of recurrence of the virus, new strains, loss of interest in certain products), then surely consumption will doubly be hit, and then do the manufacturing countries get hit too? Then what?! This seems like an orouboros crash until at least the covid virus is no longer a major threat. what is the way out? is there a way out? I'm very much happy with gvt borrowing at negative rates, but would that fix the situation? even if you did that and put the money in our pockets and told us to spend - I'm not going to sit on a commercial airliner any time soon, and i'm not interested in disneyworld. How do we stimulate consumption when people value their health higher than a shopping trip...?
ya know, when you can predict 100% what opinions you're going to hear... maybe its time to turn them off
Which comments are those?
What a complete lack of reality. No dignity either. It shocks me that he would have anything at all to do with her.
Much of it was pure bs, not even a straight answer, not one, has a very clear consistent answer. It's all of a "Talkin' out her ass" tenor.
Again, a shock. Our guy is typically a realist.
She looks nice but not very intelligent. I can understand if you get something else from her but not something relevant and sensible or smart. She is talking and talking and i don't think she has s clue. Economic free fall was before lockdown.
How to continue selling fear.
these talks are very borning when it become preaching to the choir, can you guys get some decent opposition to talk to? Its just you guys patting each other on the back. How can two smart people not have any information to give. Its a depression, people laid off, open up and new infections makes economy bad ... yada yada yada.
*edit*
second half much better, you guys should have a 2hr talk maybe a third panelist with Mark as the moderator role
Sick burn on Hamilton Mark! It’s the most cringe garbage I’ve heard / seen from pop culture in a while.