... in Google Books, that is. The usage curves are far from identical, yet strikingly similar:
Another odd thing: Use of the word "resilience" increased persistently through the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, and the Second World War -- in other words, through good times and bad.
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About that last sentence...
Both the central bank and the government impact the economy...
That is true.
... the central bank and the government impact the economy...
That is equally true. Depending on the context, it may be better to include the word "both".
... the central bank and the government impact the economy through monetary policy and fiscal policy...
That would make a good sentence. Neither policy is explicitly assigned to either institution, so the sentence is true.
... the central bank and the government impact the economy through monetary and fiscal policy, respectively.
That one is the most informative would-be sentence of all these options, because the policies are correctly assigned to the institutions. And finally:
Both the central bank and the government impact the economy through monetary and fiscal policy, respectively.
That
is gibberish. Investopedia is saying that the central bank and the
government, both of them, use both monetary and fiscal policy. (That is not true; the central bank was created specifically to handle monetary policy, and is held to be "independent" and free from government interference.) And in the same sentence Investopedia is also saying
that the first of the two institutions uses the first policy noted, and
the second institution uses the second policy. This they are correct in saying, but it is contradicted by all the words that come before "respectively" because of that damn "both".
That is, because they open with the word "both" they are saying that both the central bank and the government use the two policies -- that each institution uses both policies. And because the word respectively is used, they are also saying that the
central bank uses only monetary policy and the government uses only fiscal policy. Because they have the word "respectively" there, the sentence is not only wrong but is also embarrassingly bad. I imagine, however, that Investopedia is not at all embarrassed, because they are unaware of the problem. That's how illiteracy works.
Frankly, I have similar problems with Investopedia's economics.
Nine inches of rain is one measurement, so I say Nine inches of rain has fallen, rather than Nine inches of rain have fallen (as CNN says).
I use paint.net often. Microsoft Paint is better at some things, so I switch off. But paint.net is good.
But I just installed the paint.net update, and an "Overview/Features" page came up in my browser. It says:
paint.net 5 is the best free image and photo editing application for Windows based PCs since paint.net 4.
So why would I want to use version 5? They compare version 5 to version 4, and they explicitly point out that version 5 is not better.
If they said 5 is better, and left it at that, I wouldn't question their sanity.
If they said 5 is the best version ever, I'd be all in.
But when they
Oh, drop it, Art!
At the US Census Bureau...
From the definition of "family household":
... The count of family household members differs from the count of family members, however, in that the family household members include all people living in the household, whereas family members include only the householder and his/her relatives.
From the definition of "family":
... The number of families is equal to the number of family households, however, the count of family members differs from the count of family household members because family household members include any non-relatives living in the household.
In their definition of "family" quoted above, I would change the first comma to a period, and use a capital "H" for "however". It is a simple fix.
The simplicity of the fix, unfortunately, may make it seem as if the error is not a significant one. However, the error is significant.
(The simple fix should NOT be made to their definition of "family household".)
For me it is a problem. I got distracted because they don't know how to punctuate the word "however". Because I got distracted I'm not going to remember the definitions. When I need them again, I'll have to look them up again.
"People are paid to create goods and/or services ..."
"People are paid to create goods andor services ..."
I'm ready for that word. I looked for it on the internet. Seems to be drowned out by Andor, the TV series.
John Maynard Keynes, from 1937:
"I fully agree with the important point he [Mr. Robertson] makes (pp. 180-183) that the increased demand for money resulting from an increase in activity has a backwash which tends to raise the rate of interest; and this is, indeed, a significant element in my theory of why booms carry within them the seeds of their own destruction."
For my purposes, the sentence has three parts
The first part matters because the point Robertson makes is important, because Keynes fully agrees with it, and because we can still read the original (at pp. 180-183) if we are willing to pay the access fee. None of that matters, though, unless one holds Keynes in high esteem.
The last part matters because an economic boom carrying the seeds of its own destruction would explain why business cycles exist. To me, given that studying the economy is my hobby, the last part is what makes the sentence important and me willing to dwell on it.
The middle part matters. This is where the interaction of economic forces is described. Nothing is more important, if one's goal is to understand the economy.
For me as a blogger, though, the important thing is to understand what makes the sentence so good. I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to talk about the economy in a way that makes sense to people and makes them want to read what I write. I'm not very good at that. That's why I'm looking at the sentence from Keynes.
When I first read the sentence, I wrote:
In other words, as a boom continues, the increasing cost of interest subtracts increasingly from profits, from aggregate demand, and from economic growth, until the downward pressure is enough to turn boom into recession.
I'm satisfied with that as a technically correct interpretation of the meat of Keynes's sentence, at least as I interpret it. I'm okay with that.
But it lacks the lightness of "the increased demand for money resulting from an increase in activity has a backwash which tends to raise the rate of interest". Rather than light, mine is dreary. I think this must affect people's willingness to read me.
So I am looking at the Keynes sentence and looking for what makes it light and readable.
He doesn't list things in chronological sequence, the way I did and do. Keynes starts with "the increased demand for money" which is a result. But I think the phrase "the increased demand for money" is an attention-getter, even among people who are not interested in the economy. So putting that first is a good idea.
Also, the out-of-sequence technique seems to make the chain of causality shorter and easier to grasp. My paraphrase, above, lists one cause, three intermediate results, and the final, important part. That's a long chain to hold in the mind. Too long to be comfortable.
As Keynes has it, the attention-getting "demand for money" has one cause and one result. That's simple and easy to grasp. And the result isn't even a "result". It is a "backwash". A repercussion. His meaning is clear, and his wording is easy to take.
New rule: Make the wording easy to take.
The commercial says something about the importance of giving, and then:
"So AT&T is giving everyone their best deal on" something.
Is it giving, if it still costs you money to get it?
No.
It's a supply-side world. It's like going through the looking-glass, into a world where everything is not quite right.
The first thing I came to this morning, after my coffee:
"In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation... even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine." This is an often repeated saying, however, despite a common belief, it is not contained in the Constitution of the Iroquois Nation.
I had to read it three times before I figured out that they meant
"In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation... even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine." This is an often repeated saying. However, despite a common belief, it is not contained in the Constitution of the Iroquois Nation.
The quote is from Seven generation sustainability at Wikipedia. I like the idea, but not the punctuation. I do not believe that a person can punctuate a sentence that poorly, and still think clearly.
In Robert Waldmann: Policy-Relevant Macro Is All in Samuelson and Solow (1960), DeLong quotes Waldmann on the Samuelson and Solow paper and the fallout.
One of the comments on Brad Delong's post opens with this line:
There is nowadays a claim that even though S&S were careful to deny the PC as a stable LR (structural) relationship, policy makers believed otherwise.
Not the shortest sentence in the world, but short enough. Yet I have trouble making sense of it. Why?
"There is nowadays a claim that..."
The word "claim" warns me that the sentence contains a statement that the sentence-writer is about to reject. So I must put all my evaluation on hold until I have read the whole sentence, identified the reject-able statement and the writer's response, and understood and evaluated them.
This is difficult for me, as I don't have the greatest memory.
"... a claim that even though..."
The words "even though" indicate that a reversal is coming, a reversal of thought.
So
far, the sentence tells me that the writer is going to reject a
statement, and that a reversal of thought is coming. That's all I know
so far.
"... that even though S&S were careful to deny [something] ..."
Samuelson and Solow denied something. This denial is also a reversal. It is part of the same reversal that is introduced by the "even though". But on my first read (or, in my case, until I sit down to work through the sentence by writing these words) I think it is a second reversal. After all, I have put evaluation of the sentence on hold, while waiting for the complete message to arrive. And this is the second time the sentence tells me that a reversal is coming.
"... S&S were careful to deny the PC as a stable LR (structural) relationship ..."
This is the easy part.
"PC" is the "Phillips Curve". It is the main topic of the S&S paper from 1960.
"LR" is "long run", as opposed to the short run; these are common concepts in discussions of the Phillips Curve.
"(structural)"
confirms that "LR" = "long run". Come to think of it, so does "stable".
And Waldmann has already used the phrase "as
cyclical unemployment becomes structural" in his post, and was quoted
by DeLong, so in context the meaning of this fragment is clear.
"... LR (structural) relationship, policy makers believed otherwise."
And at last I have worked my way to the end of the sentence.
This "otherwise" is the reversal we have been expecting from the start: S&S said something, but policymakers believed otherwise.
The sentence would have been easier for me to grasp if the "otherwise" came earlier. I like to read sentences by building the meaning as I go, rather than collecting words until I get to the end and then assembling a meaning for them. I like to write sentences by arranging my words so that no word in a sentence makes you have to back up and revise your understanding of what the sentence means. These may not be the best rules, but I do try to abide by them.
Okay. Let me take the whole sentence and shorten it to something I can grasp:
"Even though S&S were careful to deny the PC was
a stable relationship, policy makers believed
otherwise."
"S&S believed one thing; policymakers believed another."
That is the claim, the nowadays claim.
There is
nowadays a claim that even though S&S were careful to deny the PC as
a stable LR (structural) relationship, policy makers believed
otherwise.
"There is
nowadays a claim that S&S believed one thing, but policy makers believed another."
Now I can read the sentence. The claim is that
S&S denied the PC was stable, but that policymakers believed
otherwise. Policymakers believed the PC was stable -- or so the nowadays
claim says. But I don't yet know where the sentence is going or what
the conclusion is going to be. That's because the sentence is about the claim, the discussion of which has not yet begun.
Okay.
In the comment that is the source of the sentence under discussion, the commenter offers (and provides a reference for) a quote from one of those policymakers:
... the notion that there was a *stable* Phillips curve tradeoff did not capture the support of the economists most closely associated with formulating monetary and fiscal policies, at least in the United States.
The policymaker rejects the idea of a stable PC, rejects it for himself and for other policymakers.
It is an excellent quote, particularly relevant to the commenter's opening sentence. And it turns out that, based on the policymaker's view, the nowadays claim is false.
Whose claim is it -- Friedman or Forder?
Forder's
claim, I think. Forder says S&S denied that the PC was stable. And
Forder says ... well, Forder says nobody in the 1960s thought the PC was
stable until Friedman said it in his presidential address. So, not
James Forder. I dunno.
//
The
commenter's original sentence is one that makes very good sense *IF*
you already know what he is trying to say. That's a trap, probably a
very common trap, for people who write. For me in particular, anyway.
Something to watch out for in my writing.
Proofreading. Tweaking words, really. I come to this sentence:
In the United States, and elsewhere that finance has grown, long-term economic decline develops along with finance if finance creates cost-push pressure and policy reduces the resulting inflation.
Difficult to read. Difficult topic, economics, because you can't just say "foot": you have to say "the foot that's connected at the ankle to the leg". All the concepts have to be laid out tediously.
No problem. Look at simpler concepts:
In the United States and elsewhere, B happens if A happens.
No. Shorter:
B happens if A happens.Usually, the order is different, in causal sequence, like this:
If A then B
But this is not what I'm trying to say. I want to say
When A then B
or
B happens when A happens.//
Logically, it seems to me, they are the same, "If A then B" and "When A then B". But when I go back to my tedious phrases instead of capital letters, "when" is the word I want to use.
Why? (And this is the reason for today's post, to consider why "when" is better for me here.)
To understand "B happens if A happens" I have to grab B and keep it in mind, grab A and keep it in mind, and then compare the two, looking for the relationship between A and B that makes the sentence make sense.
But to understand "B happens when A happens" I have to grab them both, but the relationship between them is only pointed out.
When I use "if" I'm saying there is some relation between A and B, but I don't say what that relation is. When I use "when" I simply acknowledge that the relation exists. That satisfies the reader in me. I can still ask "why" B happens when A happens, but that's a separate thought that develops the idea.
Using "B happens if A happens" I can't get out of that thought without wondering "why", and the absence of an answer in that same sentence makes the sentence unsatisfying. I don't want to put the answer in the same sentence because there is enough tedium in that sentence already. And because the purpose of the essay is to emphasize that the relation between A and B exists, not to explain it.
So, I change the word "if" to "when" and that solves my problem.
In the United States, and elsewhere that finance has grown, long-term economic decline develops along with finance when finance creates cost-push pressure and policy reduces the resulting inflation.
//
Good grief! That's a lot of struggle over one word in one sentence.
But yes, if I say this happens if that happens, the sentence feels unfinished. It wants a "because" and an explanation: This happens if that happens because yadda yadda.
"When" it is, then.
Over the weekend, the White House provided several media outlets with a misleading list of comments made by Fauci, in an effort to undercut him.
'A good quantitative writing assignment engages students with an open-ended, ambiguous, data-rich problem requiring the thinker to understand principles and concepts rather than simply applying formulae. Assignments ask students to produce a claim with supporting reasons and evidence rather than "the answer" ...'
"Having failed to be fiscally responsible when it would have been relatively easier, our elected officials now face an impossible choice..."Dipshit.
