Semi-Daily Journal

When I read it I laughed out loud but suspect that it is a sly way of needling Zoellick for something so false as to be ridiculous.Quite frankly,I cannot understand what it is that is making so many persons trash their professional reputations working for this Prez.Hopefully Mankiw stays true to his principles.A friend of mine,someone I truly admire, got into a "debate" with me about Clinton.She is a Republican and a apparently a strong critic of Clinton's.I pointed out to her that NAFTA was a pretty good indication that Clinton had issues for which he was willing to risk political capital.After all the labour movement and a good chunk of the House Dems were ill-advisedly against it.All I can say is that I am marvelling--from my perch here in Britain---at just how much dishonesty this admin is getting away with in the economic realm.
By the way,you are too soft on Greenspan.He is revealed himself to be ,quite plainly, a political hack.I have lost all respect for the man.Can you imagine what he would have said had a democratic admin been this reckless?The U.S. press is overpopulated with pretty faces who are quite lazy and hence the Bushies ability to get away with their myriad deceptions.

When I read it I laughed out loud but suspect that it is a sly way of needling Zoellick for something so false as to be ridiculous.Quite frankly,I cannot understand what it is that is making so many persons trash their professional reputations working for this Prez.Hopefully Mankiw stays true to his principles.A friend of mine,someone I truly admire, got into a "debate" with me about Clinton.She is a Republican and a apparently a strong critic of Clinton's.I pointed out to her that NAFTA was a pretty good indication that Clinton had issues for which he was willing to risk political capital.After all the labour movement and a good chunk of the House Dems were ill-advisedly against it.All I can say is that I am marvelling--from my perch here in Britain---at just how much dishonesty this admin is getting away with in the economic realm.
By the way,you are too soft on Greenspan.He is revealed himself to be ,quite plainly, a political hack.I have lost all respect for the man.Can you imagine what he would have said had a democratic admin been this reckless?The U.S. press is overpopulated with pretty faces who are quite lazy and hence the Bushies ability to get away with their myriad deceptions.

They have a great deal of doubt and a lot of hope.

Those at the Economist do seem to be optimists: the enviroment, trade producing democracy, et cetera.

"One of the big problems with reading British periodicals is that you can never tell whether they are being sarcastic or not."

This is because, as the saying has it, "Americans are just Germans who speak English" - or, I suppose, Dutchmen. Along with the wider culture, the sense of humour in the USA is now materially different from that in the rest of the English speaking world, which is still somewhat like that of the 19th century USA. (Yes, I know the culture is diverse. New York Jewish humour seems the only part that stands out and reaches us easily - a trick definition, since what I don't know ipso facto isn't reaching me easily.)

Anyhow, "YOU can never tell" is false, in general. We in the rest of the English speaking world certainly have less trouble. Can you, for instance, detect a note of irony in this post any earlier than this sentence?

As previous posts attest, I agree that Americans tend to be irony-challenged; it's bound up with some of their broader good (openness and optimism) and bad (gullibility) national qualities.

But I don't think this was sarcasm by the Economist - they've become such strong supporters of Bush recently that it's seriously damaged their bullshit detector.

As previous posts attest, I agree that Americans tend to be irony-challenged; it's bound up with some of their broader good (openness and optimism) and bad (gullibility) national qualities.

But I don't think this was sarcasm by the Economist - they've become such strong supporters of Bush recently that it's seriously damaged their bullshit detector.

I'd second derrida derider's point. Something has gone horribly wrong at _The Economist_, and they are now pathologically unable to recognize malfeasance in the Bush administration.
One gets the impression of the sort of smart people who were defending Stalin in the 30's --- plenty of excuses for why things aren't nearly as bad as they plainly appear to be, and a bizarre unwillingness to put all the pieces together to see the whole.

I think that it's true that the US would like to see a reduction in farm subsidies to 5% of the value of farm production in other countries and to slash tariffs against US agricultural products to no more than 25%.

It's possible that the US government would even be in favour of applying the same reductions to its own policies, so long as the US is the arbiter of what is considered a subsidy or tariff. For example, with production largely due to the operation of large corporate agricultural entities, it's also possible that some other means of subsidy (e.g. corporate tax credits) could be used for profitability support of US agriculture on the back end, so that the US could claim compliance while accusing other countries of noncompliance (viz the Canadian softwood industry).

An interesting thing about the German sense of humor: in a global study of humor, it turned out that Germans found more jokes funny than any other people.

The U.S.A., on the other hand, is near the bottom (Canada comes in last place). It's odd how these things work out.

I don't see the need for conspiracy theories - "they are now pathologically unable to recognize malfeasance in the Bush administration" - Egad! Since when has a failure to endorse your own rabidly partisan viewpoint become a mark of pathology?

It seems rather simpler to me than all that - the writer intended the reader to draw the necessary conclusions without having them explicitly pointed out. It's called "not beating your readers over the head with a club".

Still, I must say that I am extremely disappointed with the administration's trade policy thus far. Here is one policy arena in which Clinton was incomparably better. What use is there in having a Republican administration that won't even stand up for free trade? I understand the need to make painful compromises to win fast-track authority, but now that the administration has it, I don't see the will to use it in a way that would risk anything politically, though I would love to be proven wrong.

From a foreign-policy point of view, nothing would do more good for the poor in Third-World countries than to have agricultural tariffs slashed, but I don't see either the loyal GOP party-men or the extreme left, anti-globalization types holding the administration's feet to the fire.

The Krugman of pre-NYT days would have been well-placed to do the job, but he's since squandered all his credibility by being so nakedly and consistently partisan. That's the problem with becoming a hatchet-man for one party - you end up preaching only to the converted (and the unthinking, I might add). Heavy criticism of one side is alright, as long as you're willing to acknowledge that they aren't all angels on your bench either.

Tom Friedman is pretty much the only NYT columnist who ever says anything that transgresses partisan boundaries, which is why he's the only one I'm willing to read nowadays; I don't need to read the others to know what they have to say - "Bush dumb, Republicans evil, blah blah blah ...") I know Friedman's made the argument for free-trade in the past, but it would be nice to have a politically uncompromised economist doing the same in the broadsheets.

AL
As an extreme left (sigh) anti-globalization type, (really a pro-justice type) let me just assure you that I would be holding the administrations feet to the fire on the farm bill, but I don't get invited to many meetings at the white house and my friends are all out protesting the war.

I like to think the conomist was being ironic. I certainly laughed.

"An interesting thing about the German sense of humor: in a global study of humor, it turned out that Germans found more jokes funny than any other people."

Very possible. But what I was trying to bring out was the amount of common ground, not the presence or otherwise of a sense of humour. Of course the Germans have a sense of humour; I once read a joke in German that was written barely two centuries ago, quoted in Isabella Burton's biography of her husband ("the reek of the roses fouls the air and the damned nightingales howl each night" - oh well, it's funnier in German). The cultural divide isn't English speaking/non-English speaking, at least these days. It aligns far better with, say, parliamentary government in the Westminster tradition.

"The Krugman of pre-NYT days would have been well-placed to do the job, but he's since squandered all his credibility by being so nakedly and consistently partisan."

Yup, the Paul Krugman of today is nothing more than a Democrat Party hack. Does anyone doubt what I say? If so, you need only read his earlier columns written for Slate.com. They are readily available for free on their website.

"Still, I must say that I am extremely disappointed with the (Bush) administration's trade policy thus far. Here is one policy arena in which Clinton was incomparably better."

You are absolutely correct. President Bill Clinton did a far better job regarding free trade issues. The Bush administration has got to get its act together.

Now, let me get this straight. Those in the US have trouble telling when the “Economist” is employing irony because we are less clued in to irony than the rest of the English speaking world, but PML (whom I take to be a native speaker of Brit) thinks the passage in question is intended to be ironic, while derrida derider (whom I also take to be a native speaker of Brit) does not. Hmmm... Then, Julian Elson comes along with evidence that another non-US member of the English speaking family of nations probably doesn’t cotton to all that irony either. Maybe some cultural premises need examining.

Irony, in the way the Economist is accused of using it here, relies on saying something other than what one means. So Brad’s broader point, behind the question of whether irony was intended, is that it is tough to know what the “Economist” really thinks in this case. Funnily enough, that means that irony, when it relies on saying something other than what one means, makes for bad journalism. So we have one of the worlds premier journalistic outlets messing up in its core task because it wants to make its points in a very culture specific way. Maybe facial expressions and tone of voice would be useful. Web-video for the "Economist"?

By the way, we tried irony, ya know. Full grown adult jounalists making statements about politicians on lofty TV news shows, then shouting “Not!” after a brief pause. It didn’t go well. There has also been a movement of sorts over here to wipe out irony. The point made by movement members was that irony had so saturated the upper half of US culture (can you believe it?) that it had become a cliché. It was obligatory, and so had lost its impact while at the same time leading people endlessly into insincerity and lack of clarity. Saying something other than exactly what one means means not saying clearly what one does mean, if you know what I mean.

I suppose most people here are aware that most years since F2F one-third to one half of each dollar of American farm income comes directly from Uncle Sugar.

(PS: not to complain about my free content, but I've been really lurking in expectation of a post expanding on the latest Fed "we have a plan, please don't panic" announcement as noted on Eschaton a few days back. Please. Pretty please.)

Different Chris,

Did you notice? Yesterday, Ferguson essentially said "we don't have a plan." Ferguson is among the most circumspect, careful members of the Board, very prone to reflect Greenspan's views. If he says the Fed's plan isn't developed enough to be called a plan, I believe him. Isn't that reassuring?

"One of the big problems with reading British periodicals is that you can never tell whether they are being sarcastic or not."

With more readers in the US than in any other country including Britain and an American editor, you can wonder if the Economist is a British periodical any longer.

Unfortunately, I don't think it was irony and that's a pity for the credibility of the Economist.

Theproblem with The Economist is that they have this reputation of being smart and, at times, sarcastic. So they can just write whatever they want and then claim they're being sarcastic. Thing is, though, that they have quite consistently praised Bush' economic "policies" (if we assume for a while there is something like that) without being sarcastic. I remember one fine example where they wrote how committed Bush was to "free trade", heaping pages of praise on him, and the next week, Bush had introduced some tarriffs (I believe it was over steel) and that was that. The Economist has had a very strong pro-Bush tilt and when it was too painful for me to see how they tried to justify or explain even the biggest nonsense Bush came up with I ended my subscription. - So I think that section quoted here is not sarcastic at all.

Definately not irony. It probably comes close to Bush policy. Bush would probably like to cut spending on farm subsidies along with many other domestic programs. A trade agreement might give him and the senators the cover needed to do it.

However, if all export subsidies go to zero, US producers will still be whining for support because there will be a big fallout. For the farm states, it is a question of subsidies or abandoning infrastructure and swallowing huge losses. When the farms collapse, the surrounding towns and businesses collapse as well. At that point, in grand Bush style, he can just unilaterally pull out of the treaty.

Quite bluntly, many of these rural areas were never sustainable for development and are unsuitable for supporting workers in a modern economy. To be independently stable, these areas must build an alternative economy that can replace the farm economy. That is easier said than done. With all the emphasis on tax cuts for the wealthy, most of the funding for rural development is being cut.

The funny thing is that, before Bush was ever in office, I didn't like what Krugman had to say, either. He (along with every other lock-stepper on the NYT Op/Ed page) dismissed out of hand anti-globalist arguments, and I hated him for it. Obviously, DT liked him then. It's almost as if we think that those who agree with us are brilliant, and those who disagree buffoons. But surely that can't be the case with clever, thoughtful policy debaters such as ourselves?

For the record - I was barely aware of PK before he became a NYT regular - '99 was it? So I probably agreed with him on more things then, but I only really noticed his anti-globalist bits. I know damn near everyone here is a happy globalist, but the NYT was just pig-headed on the topic, to the point where Friedman famously cited a study - what was it, the nut industry in Africa? - and literally lied about its conclusions to bolster his own argument. I know the overall set of issues in that country (Tanzania? God, it was so long ago that little things like international economics were critical. Quick, Orange Alert!) is complex, but the study Friedman cited had some very clear points, and he misstated them - and I suspect DT didn't mind at all. Still doesn't, I'm sure. Creative Destruction of inconvenient facts, and all.

but there's a difference between being ironic (saying something in a way to have it mean something else) and being unclear about what one means so that different interpreations are possible.

if the economist was trying to be ironic, it failed because we're all scratching our heads trying to interpret the editors's meaning.

"Egad! Since when has a failure to endorse your own rabidly partisan viewpoint become a mark of pathology".

Sorry, guys, I'm the only rabid partisan on this board. DeLong at al are far too mild.

Perhaps the Economist feels the hot breath of Ashcroft on the back of their collective neck. That would be a bit ahead of the times, but sharp people are supposed to be ahead of the times. Eastern Europeans under Soviet rule became masters of veiled and indirect communication.

The hue and cry against Krugman strikes me as proto-totalitarian, especially when you consider the ethical and professional lapses of George Will, William Safire, the WSJ editorial board and a fair number of other solidly conservative columnists.

One column on one paper consistently gives strong support to the Democrats, and there's something wrong with that? (Especially because nobody ever, ever bothers to show that what Krugman says is not right).

And a few other people at the the same newspaper seem more like Democrats than Republicans, though they waffle a lot -- and there's something wrong with THAT?

Are there people here who would like a one-party state? Or a sanitized neutral media (except for the WSJ, etc.?) There are places where you can get that kind of thing, you know.

The Administration will never ever ease up on farm subsidies. They get it! The Senate race in Louisiana went to the Democrat because the issue of sugar imports from Mexico was stressed.

Europe is not giving over farm subsidies, nor are we. Yes, folks there is a Senate. Yes, folks farmers do vote.

Krugman is brilliant and courageous.So far as I can tell he has been correct about everything he has said regarding Bush admin policies.Indeed he was a trailblazer.It is just now that others have belatedly been scrutinising the falsehoods emanating from just about every dept in this admin.He is about as far from a "hack" as you can get:independent,free thinking.In short, a true public intellectual.

The point of course is that Paul Krugman is as fine an economist as there is, and as honest, and as fine a writer. No wonder there is such fear of the columns, and of the NYTimes. Hacks prefer that we be as ignorant as clams. They send kids to Yale or Brown or Berkeley and sell Bob Jones University to the rest. Bah.

Paul Krugman, we love you.

"Krugman is brilliant and courageous." Just so. We are indeed fortunate to have such a columnist.

K Harris writes:

>By the way, we tried irony, ya know. Full grown adult
>jounalists making statements about politicians on lofty
>TV news shows, then shouting ?Not!? after a brief pause.
>It didn?t go well.

But that's not really irony. That's irony as practiced by Wayne and Garth on the "Wayne's World" segment of Saturday Night Live. That's irony followed by an auditory emoticon, and usually not said with anything like a straight face to begin with. The written word is different, and this is a good thing. Clearly, the level of internet discourse is as high as it is because people have assiduously avoided such cheesy devices for clarifying their intent.

K Harris continues:

>There has also been a movement of sorts over here to wipe out
>irony. The point made by movement members was that irony
>had so saturated the upper half of US culture (can you believe
>it?) that it had become a cliché.

I think the cliché part of this was that people were just not very good at irony. Is it good irony if it needs "air quotes" as it did at your better cocktail parties of the late 80s? I'd say not, but you needed the air quotes because otherwise irony was too easily confused with clumsy *insincerity* and that is what I believed pushed irony over the brink in the US. In other words, we needed to be insincere with a straight face, so it wasn't possible to be ironic with the same straight face.

In the case of the Economist passage, I would guess this has to be irony. For me, the give away is the fact that they directly cited the opinion of "Mr. Zoellick" when they could have more easily given the argument more generically, or painted the US farm bill as a reaction to unfair tarriffs abroad. That they didn't do this when they had a chance and start the whole thing with "Admittedly" is pretty glaring in my view.

So a translation for the ironically impaired might be something like "He really did argue this way, and we're just going to let it sit there. It makes perfect sense to us. NOT!"

It was obligatory, and so had lost its impact while at the same time leading people endlessly into insincerity and lack of clarity.

K Harris writes:

>By the way, we tried irony, ya know. Full grown adult
>jounalists making statements about politicians on lofty
>TV news shows, then shouting ?Not!? after a brief pause.
>It didn?t go well.

But that's not really irony. That's irony as practiced by Wayne and Garth on the "Wayne's World" segment of Saturday Night Live. That's irony followed by an auditory emoticon, and usually not said with anything like a straight face to begin with. The written word is different, and this is a good thing. Clearly, the level of internet discourse is as high as it is because people have assiduously avoided such cheesy devices for clarifying their intent.

K Harris continues:

>There has also been a movement of sorts over here to wipe out
>irony. The point made by movement members was that irony
>had so saturated the upper half of US culture (can you believe
>it?) that it had become a cliché.

I think the cliché part of this was that people were just not very good at irony. Is it good irony if it needs "air quotes" as it did at your better cocktail parties of the late 80s? I'd say not, but you needed the air quotes because otherwise irony was too easily confused with clumsy *insincerity* and that is what I believed pushed irony over the brink in the US. In other words, we needed to be insincere with a straight face, so it wasn't possible to be ironic with the same straight face.

In the case of the Economist passage, I would guess this has to be irony. For me, the give away is the fact that they directly cited the opinion of "Mr. Zoellick" when they could have more easily given the argument more generically, or painted the US farm bill as a reaction to unfair tarriffs abroad. That they didn't do this when they had a chance and start the whole thing with "Admittedly" is pretty glaring in my view.

So a translation for the ironically impaired might be something like "He really did argue this way, and we're just going to let it sit there. It makes perfect sense to us. NOT!"

It was obligatory, and so had lost its impact while at the same time leading people endlessly into insincerity and lack of clarity.

[Jonathan King posted the same message twice...]

Bleah! Can somebody lend Brad DeLong a web server
that responds to POST requests within some reasonable interval? Otherwise people won't be able to figure out whether or not I'm an idiot unless they look at the bottom of the message and see:

>It was obligatory, and so had lost its impact while at
>the same time leading people endlessly into insincerity
>and lack of clarity.

...which of course was another K Harris snippet that I didn't
edit out the message text despite previewing the sucker twice. Oops.

I have been contemplating cancelling my Economist subscription because it seems to have lost all credibility over its non-stop praising of Bush. This is not irony. This is the Limbaughization of the Economist.

Dan, if what Paul says of an American editor at The Economist, it goes a long distance to explain this Bush praising. And the loss of journalistic quality I fear.

DSW

"So when the Economist says that the farm bill shows American willingness to cut subsidies . . . "

The "this" in "What this shows . . ." does not refer to the farm bill. That is a misreading. It refers to the fact that American trade negotiators are pushing for one thing while domestic actions are doing the opposite. In addition, it isn't the economist speaking in this sentence it is the econmist summarizing Mr. Zoellick's argument.

I don't understand why this link between subsidies and free trade bargaining persists. A tariff is unambiguously bad for the country that imposes it and for foreign countries. So a foreign country has a case to be angry at the U.S. for having tariffs on imports. But a subsidy, while bad for the home country, does not hurt foreign countries and even helps foreign countries' terms of trade. So why should our trading partners be mad at us for tariffs. It's bad policy but here hurting only ourselves.

Bobbie, no, they are pretty fungible. The way we refund our farmers is really, REALLY complex and I'm not going to pretend to even have a good grip on how we do it, let alone have the type of knowledge that allows me to explain it.

But ignoring how the money is actually transferred, the amount of money that comes in determines the price at which I can sell. If every dollar magically doubles itself, then I can sell things for 1/2 as much as I really should be able to. So if in a normal world I would have to sell my bushels of corn for $4.00 each to make it worth my front-end investment (instead of like building a golf course), the fact that these agricultural dollars are "magic" doubling dollars means that I can sell for $2.00.

Even with zero tariffs, this leaves the Argentinian who can produce corn for $2.20 shit out of luck.

Rough, uneven, oversimplified explanation but farm policy is a nightmare to figure out for a kid from suburbia.

PS- to show that I'm not a total Bush basher, the misAdminstration (oops, old habits die hard) DID send a short note to Congress objecting to current ag policy last year when they were debating the farm bill. But they didn't spend any further capital on it.

K Harris write: Isn't that reassuring?

Yes, I feel much better now.

(Betcha everybody, regardless of country of origin, got the sarcasm there ;>)

"PML (whom I take to be a native speaker of Brit) thinks the passage in question is intended to be ironic..."

No. Did I say I did? I was addressing the question of whether people can spot irony, and some related points. I showed some of the culture gaps, and where I think groups fall on either side of the divide. But no, I did NOT suggest that the original passage was ironic in itself; and, as it happens, I don't think it was. But it's worth pointing out that the original writer used a technique related to irony, i.e. understatement - a sort of ironic relation of emphasis.

"The Krugman of pre-NYT days would have been well-placed to do the job, but he's since squandered all his credibility by being so nakedly and consistently partisan."

Yup, the Paul Krugman of today is nothing more than a Democrat Party hack. Does anyone doubt what I say? If so, you need only read his earlier columns written for Slate.com. They are readily available for free on their website."

The rapid Krugman haters have become particularly shrill lately.

Hmm do export subsidies worsen the terms of trade of countries that export the same thing? I'm confused. I think my statement was wrong. I'm taking international trade next year, so hopefully I'll know what I'm talking about then.
I don't see the need for chris to say he's not a complete Bush basher. Call a spade a spade regardless of how it makes your attitiude about Bush appear.

I suspect it was only a typo, but I confess to being particularly charmed by the image of "rapid Krugman haters." Instant-reflex hatred!

They are rapid as well as rabid. Brad need only post something related to Krugman and several posters give the usual knee jerk responses: shrill, partisan, lost all credibility, much more intelligence before he criticized Bush, blah blah blah.

Just a quick note to K Harris. I don't speak native Brit, cos I aint a Brit. I'm a proud Aussie, of Irish extraction. In spite of that I actually quite like the Poms, except of course when the Ashes are on (Brits will know what I mean).

And, based on the Yanks I know, and on US movies and TV comedies, I still reckon that irony isn't most Americans' forte, whereas it is definitely the average Brit's preferred mode. Though as with all national stereotypes you can always find plenty of exceptions.

Would farmers actually benefit from free trade policies? Maybe not in isolation but consider the following deal. The Federal government decides to reduce spending by dumping all farm supports and other interferences with the market place in exchange of a serious commitment to fiscal restraint. That is, cuts in other areas of spending and higher tax rates. Wouldn't the old Mundell macroeconomic modelling suggest that the dollar devalues so that a rise in net exports would take part of the increase in national savings? And isn't agriculture a major source of our exports? So the economic question is whether this benefit would be greater than or less than the losses to farmers from giving up on their government interventions.

The problem with agricultural production is overcapacity combined with high investment costs in land and equipment. A combine can run well over $100,000. Plus the commidity supply and price is unknown until harvest, but planting decisions and input purchases must be made even earlier. There is little profit in production agriculture. Most of the money is in value added processing, packaging, etc.

that's what futures markets are for. Farming in Australia and Canada (and numerous other countries) gets by perfectly well without government subsidy - no reason why US shouldn't do the same.

I don't suspect the Economist is being ironic. I
suspect they are actually quoting from some unnanmed government official. There was a piece in the NYTimes that Brad had posted awhile back --
and which I can't find the reference to in the
archive because I'm too blind -- where Zoellic
says that the US is for free trade in apparel but
won't talk about ag subsidies because they are not
tariffs. Later in that same piece, an unnamed
government official is quoted as saying the US
is for free trade as long as the playing field is level.

"So when the Economist says that the farm bill shows American willingness to cut subsidies,..."

I don't think The Economist said that. What The Economist said was:

"What this shows, ARGUES MR ZOELLICK, is that America is ready to dismantle subsidies--but only if the playing-field is level."

From my reading, that means The Economist was reporting on what Mr. Zoellick said, not expressing its own editorial opinion.