@dpp @jgordon A very interesting twist on retirement social insurance! Since we’ve made retirement so asset-centered in the US, insure retirement assets. 1/

@dpp @jgordon I think you’d want not to let the amount of these gap notes depend on individual transaction prices and home values. It’s too gamable. The government could develop zillow-like notional values and rely upon those and just the purchase and sales dates. There’d be some legit “basis risk”, as your home’s value evolution might differ from the Fedestimate, but it’d be very hard to police overpriced purchases underpriced sales + side agreements. 2/

@dpp @jgordon Same for portfolios: The state could tie these notes to the performance of a reference portfolio (perhaps age sensitive, to accommodate older savers’ greater bond preference). There’s a bit less risk of self-dealing with prices of buys/sells of public securities via regulated brokers. But people can do idiosyncratic things in their IRAs, for example, and that could create Springtime-for-Hitler-style temptations to milk. 3/

@dpp @jgordon Alternatively these things can be declared fraud and seriously policed, but that creates new costs and risks on both sides, and in some sense escalates the risk. I’d think I’d go with notional rather than actual experience. 4/

@dpp @jgordon A minor nitpick: I think for most purposes it’s best to consolidate the debt position of the Treasury with the Fed. (For example, when the Fed buys bonds, “debt held by the public” doesn’t typically change. The “public” includes the Fed, which makes sense when you realize the public no longer holds Treasuries, but it now holds Fed reserves and notes.) 5/

@dpp @jgordon I think the Federal debt in an accounting sense means a lot less than most people think. (Recall Stephanie Kelton!) But to the degree we’re interested in that kind of accounting, I think these notes should be included as a form of debt. /fin

@llimllib @akkartik I have this hypothesis that basically we’ve made ourselves institutionally, structurally more greedy. Burgeoning inequality at the top means you have to make a lot more to have the social position you consider normal, not a loser. At a policy level, that goes through Wall Street and the tax system, we’ve made payouts from firms to the already wealthy very cheap, and called it “efficient” if Wall Street demands ever more of them.

@llimllib @akkartik Things that make customers and workers happier, that contribute to public science or social welfare or any other commons, are just “waste” under this world view, “agency costs”, because the only stakeholder whose satisfaction is efficient is the shareholder.

@kentwillard What I think yesterday suggests is that Kamala’s campaign thinks swing voters are people frustrated about the cost of living including especially housing, groceries, and child-rearing, who think abuse of corporate power is part of the problem, and who want an active interventionist state to address these issues. 1/

@kentwillard If she thought these ideas would only please “lefties” already firmly in her pocket, I doubt she’d have risked alienating “centrists” (who do not in fact constitute the center of mass of the broad public, they steal that intuition for the conventional views of a small professional establishment), who hate them. She had to make judgments about what swing voters want, and her judgment is they are not remotely with the misnamed center. /fin

@John We are usually on a knife’s edge, that’s the attractor of a two-party system. But the knife’s edge isn’t on a one dimensional continuum, left or right. The preferences and inclinations (on policy and other things) that drive voters are multidimensional. 1/

@John That we are 50/50 balanced does not tell you we are “where voters are”. The deep insight of “What’s the matter with Kansas” is that the knife’s edge is defined by the dimensions along which the parties choose to compete. What Frank pointed out is that, during the Clinton/Bush/Obama era, parties (there are only two!) chose not to compete on “economic populism”, so the balance was set by positions on social issues. 2/

@John We were not “right there” on economics during that era. That’s not to prejudge where were would have ended up, if parties had competed on that dimension (although yes, like the libertarians I suppose, I have a view). Both parties governed within a narrow consensus. Barack Obama appropriated the Mitt Romney / Federalist society health care plan. 3/

@John What Frank pointed out was that the “paradox” that downscale Kansans who pay almost no income tax voted for tax-cutting Republicans becomes easy to understand when neither party was offering much in economic terms that would affect them. (I’m not claiming that about Obamacare, he wrote earlier.) 4/

@John Sure, directionally and by (post-FDR) historical vibe, the Democrats better served their economic interests. But the difference was so minor, it was perfectly reasonable to vote values. Democrats could have shaken this equilibrium and potentially won votes, but both a 70s/Carter/Reagan hangover and how financial support gets allocated in an increasingly unequal society dissuaded them. 5/

@John The process of even trying to limn that 50/50 edge on economic issues was suppressed, until in 2016 both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump broke the tacit agreement between the parties not to compete aggressively along this dimension. Now, finally, we are groping our way towards something like the 50/50 point (although that has to be hedged, our system doesn’t find that point on any one dimension, but holistically across all issues). /fin

@John * (all issues the parties contest!)