Chirag Lala
@CtheLala
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Indian-American | VP of Research & Chief Economist @PubEnterprise | PhD Candidate @UMassEcon | macroeconomics, industrial policy, investment, grids, finance
Joined March 2016
Imo this gets it wrong. If progressives don’t prioritize tight labor markets on their own merits, we won’t see them again. Nor anything more. We’ve seen labor markets like this maybe thrice since the 70s. This was the only one we built on purpose. It is a big structural change.
If Trump does win, one lesson I hope the (well-meaning) neoclassical left will learn is that "tight labor markets" just is not enough to improve people's live substantially. They need major institutional and structural change, not just lower unemployment and slightly higher wages
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Finishing Britain Alone by Philip Stevens. A solid history. The degree of cross-party ambivalence and short-termism over European engagement is striking. Not my favorite approach to political economy, particularly on exchange rates or diagnoses of British malaise.
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@DavidLund6 @sam_d_1995 There is no point in history when we have hit a sustained 500k-600k without having a strong federal multifamily investment policy in place. It just has never happened. My view is that if we want to get out of the deep shortage, we need a coordinated multifamily investment policy.
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Amazing work by Ken Burns synthesizing the political, military, and social elements of revolution. The maps are outstanding. Illustrates the challenges Washington faced especially well. Agree with @jbouie that the film refreshes a long standing canon of the Revolution.
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Putin is making Russia's strategic future dependent on Trump's survival in the White House and MAGA majorities in the US Congress
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I think another thing we should be thinking about is more work on helping people find meaning. If borax swaths of the economy are automated (even temporarily) I think people will struggle with that - even if there is economic compensation.
Have a robust UI system, fund the social safety net, and keep the labor market tight. Don’t set up regulations to protect jobs just for the sake of it. Don’t arbitrarily slow the utilization of technology. Society has a stake in people’s time being put to the best use.
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Still going.
When was the 'American Century'? 1917 to 2008? 1920 to 2016?
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The problem with this piece is it defines Ukraine's choices but does not engage with the Russian context. There are many indicators that Ukrainians would negotiate a rough deal if they could trust Russians to stop. Right now under Putin it does not seem likely that Russia will.
"Ukraine's choices could boil down to 'bad now, or possibly worse later'. The Donbas can't be abandoned without a fight, yet fighting threatens the same concessions forced under far uglier conditions while the promise of western support grows shakier and the prospects of a truly
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Have a robust UI system, fund the social safety net, and keep the labor market tight. Don’t set up regulations to protect jobs just for the sake of it. Don’t arbitrarily slow the utilization of technology. Society has a stake in people’s time being put to the best use.
We need smart regulation to protect 3.5 million truck drivers & 2 million long haul drivers. AI should not be used for mass layoffs that drive up short term profits w/ no productivity gains. Drivers are needed for safety, oversight, edge cases, & maintenance. I stand with
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The 2030 vs 2020 progression in Waymo/robotaxis, EV’s, renewables/batteries, and AI even in conservative scenarios feels more amazing technologically than any other decade in my lifetime, and I wouldn’t call myself an idealistic futurist.
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These three groups all have unique insights on the transmission mechanisms and efficacy of “stimulus” efforts. - Rates - Investment / Industrial Policy - Transfers But I do think the respective convos currently happen in relative isolation from one another.
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Apropos of nothing, open lane for folks who remember “pushing on a string” from the ZIRP years to talk more with those identifying macro divergences in the U.S. and PRC bw high capex and macro indicators. Maybe also “supply-side inflation shock” folks too.
@sidprabhu Monetary policy can only fix aggregate demand problems
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Good news! Frustrated it took so much time and consternation. But really pleased to see the cap go.
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More ammo for my hunch that hot money flows aren’t a worthwhile focus of politics.
Remember when Jane Jacobs wrote that downzoning is good insofar as it stops "cataclysmic money" from changing the mixed-income character of the West Village
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Saddest thing about left-NIMBYism is it’s utterly unnecessary for any discernible progressive cause. You’re siding with landlords and asset managers. For what? Erosion of the tax base. Material aid to xenophobic forces. Sprawl. Continued displacement.
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Not Conor’s main point but I think it’s good to identify divergences between high-capex scenarios and macro outcomes. Particularly for China discourse.
"There's a glut of capital amidst a capex boom but hiring is very low" is perhaps the best way of summing up how perverse the economy has been for the past 12-18 months.
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Real social democracy is finally being tried.
@besttrousers @PEWilliams_ @neipate96 @robinsonmeyer The funny thing is it’s not like Zohran invented the left-YIMBY template. It precedes his election by several years! It was discussed before 2020. I guess folks just didn’t expect a “true” social democrat / socialist to use it?
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We need to widen the aperture on electricity affordability. We can offer relief (rate base -> tax base, more out of existing assets) *but this is about insufficient supply in the face of growing demand.* Demand is good for our economy, security, & climate! More energy is good!
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I like how the conventional wisdom literally everywhere else is that turning your country into a low-consumption, high-investment, export-driven economy is desirable and sustainable and yet the one country that did it has become a Latin America tier basket case
Hard to overstate the crisis engulfing the German economy - investment & goods exports in free fall, private consumption stagnant (despite higher population), only the size of government is growing. Energy prices, US tariffs, China shock 2.0 - Germany needs a new growth model.
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