That's what it's like when I write.

That is the first time in this series that I've gone from correlation to causation. And even though I've known for thirty years that debt is the problem, the move still bothers me. Because while it's obvious to me that debt is the problem, it's apparently not obvious to most people.

That is the first time in this series that I've gone from correlation to causation. Even though I've known for thirty years that debt is the problem, the move still bothers me. Because while it's obvious to me that debt is the problem, it's apparently not obvious to most people.

That is the first time in this series that I've gone from correlation to causation. The move still bothers me, even though I've known for thirty years that debt is the problem. Because while it's obvious to me that debt is the problem, it's apparently not obvious to most people.

That is the first time in this series that I've gone from correlation to causation. The move still bothers me, even though I've known for thirty years that debt is the problem. Because, while it's obvious to me that debt is the problem, it's not obvious to everybody.

That is the first time in this series that I've gone from correlation to causation. The move still bothers me, even though I've known for thirty years that debt is the problem. Because it's obvious to me, but it's not obvious to everyone.

That is the first time in this series that I've gone from correlation to causation. The move still bothers me, even though I've known for thirty years that debt is the problem.

"Literally"

From On the Mechanics of Economic Development by Robert E. Lucas, Jr:

"The diversity across countries in measured per capita income levels is literally too great to be believed."

So Lucas is saying: Yeah, we measure per capita income levels, and we get results, but our results must be no good because we cannot believe -- we literally cannot believe -- those results are right.

I literally do not believe this is what Mr. Lucas meant to say.

Le mot juste

"Simulation" maybe?

So ... if the word comes from the late 20th century or the 1980s ... how come the "use over time" graph shows more use in the 19th century and less in the 20th?

Screw it. I'll just use "sim" to mean "simulation".

One extra keystroke

Without:

Readers of this blog will be familiar with this argument. For those who are not here is a brief recap of the evidence supporting our claims.

With:

Readers of this blog will be familiar with this argument. For those who are not, here is a brief recap of the evidence supporting our claims.

Go for it.

Too many thoughts

Maybe it's different if you're writing fiction. But writing about the economy, I often find myself deleting an interesting observation, simply because it's the second observation and it detracts from the first observation.

Separately, they might be interesting. Together, they create confusion. Or so I think.

Dealing with holes in a Swiss cheese brain

I sometimes have a thought pop into my head, a one-liner that suddenly makes sense to me. It seems to be a direct quote but it must be a distillation of something I read. Reading Keynes, for example. He doesn't usually write one-liners. So I wake up one morning and say "Oh, Keynes said you can only either spend money or save it." And in my mind, the you can only either spend money or save it part is what Keynes said -- his words, not mine. And that's how I think of it.

And I've had a couple times when I went looking thru The General Theory for the particular phrase. So I could document it in my writing. Looking till my head hurts, but not finding.

Doesn't mean that the exact phrase is not in the book. But by the time my head hurts, when I give up the search, I'm convinced that the exact phrase is not in the book. At that point, I have to think that those particular words are what Keynes said, but my version of it. I don't know if that's correct, but it's what I have to think in order to proceed.

After that, I might say something like Keynes said you can only either spend money or save it. No quotes, so it looks like I'm paraphrasing him. But attributed to Keynes, so I'm not stealing the words.

It's a compromise that lets me move on to the next sentence.

No, those are the same word

It started out as a joke. I said I'm retired now and I might be going senile. But then I googled senile because it's not a word I use often and, you know, because maybe I'm senile. I googled it. The first three results were good. Here is number four:

First, they "explain English by way of Greek" (I wish I knew where that phrase came from) ... or in this case, maybe by way of Latin.

And then they say "senile" is

in other words, someone showing signs of senility.

But that's not other words. It's the same word: Senile.