Interpellation

 See: Notes on Interpellation.

"Giving"

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.

PERIOD However COMMA

 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.

One sentence from a Comment

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.

If and when

 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.

Dashing!

Swear to god, the first time I saw this I thought they meant HOW to RUT them, and wondered What's a FREE TURN anyway? It sounds like something you'd get in a video game, not on a lawn mower:

That's why god invented the dash. RUT-FREE TURNS, DAMMIT. RUT-FREE, not RUT FREE.

Word order

From ABC News: Fauci fires back at White House aide who trashed him in op-ed
Subtitle: "Let's stop this nonsense," Fauci said.
by Ben Gittleson, July 15, 2020.

This sentence:

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.

Note: "a misleading list of comments"

I think they mean to say "a list of misleading comments", which would mean that Fauci's comments were misleading, or were thought to be misleading by the White House.

As written, the statement means ABC News finds the list of comments misleading.