Part I of this blog summarized Steven Koonin’s criticism of the climate debate: he argues that key scientific findings are quite different from the climate reports headlines — for example, that there is almost no evidence that climate change is causing extreme weather events to occur with greater frequency.
This started as a book review, but turned into a three-part blog on climate change: What we know and don’t know, why action falls so much short of the apocalyptic rhetoric, and why we need a more honest debate on the uncertainty, risks, costs and benefits.
If you confess to…
An obsessive focus on the demand side of the economy has dominated the years following the 2009 global recession. Most economists embraced the Secular Stagnation hypothesis, which argued that structural forces had caused a permanent shortfall in demand. We agonized over “r-star”, the equilibrium real rate of interest, worrying it…
Ok, I’m cheating a bit because it’s a two-panel chart, but it’s the juxtaposition that makes it striking. This will be a short blog. I have no answers, but would love to know what you think.
In the gym the other day I saw a Bloomberg headline saying something like…
We have gotten stuck in a Catch-22. After a rapid initial rise, the share of the US population fully vaccinated against Covid-19 has stalled around 50% over the past two months (the chart below is in logs).
You’ve heard about “long Covid”: people who suffer for months from fatigue, headaches and “brain fog”. This blog talks about a similar phenomenon: the long-lived effects this pandemic will have on our economy and politics; they include a generalized “brain fog”, together with PTSD-induced risk aversion similar to the post-Great…
Fed Chairman Powell insists it would be premature to tighten monetary policy. But if not now, then when?
The consensus view argues that the Fed sits in a very comfortable position: the rise in inflation is most likely temporary; even if higher inflation persists, the Fed knows how to fight…
Governments are saving the world. Again.
Nearly everyone credits governments for saving the world from a new Great Depression. Rightly so, maybe. With factories shut down and people locked up, governments stepped in with a wide array of generous subsidies; then, as economies reopened, they launched the most ambitious public…
Marco Annunziata
Economics & innovation at www.AnnunziataDesai.com; Co-host, M4Edge Tech podcast; Former Chief Economist & head of business innovation strategy at GE.
