From: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: Re: WWII: Causes and Effects.
Date: 3 Sep 1999 05:50:53 -0000
George Stebbins writes:
> On Thu, 2 Sep 1999 18:55:44 -0500, "John J Weatherby"
>
> <jweather@bayou.uh.edu> wrote:
> >
> >No President ever should get credit for the econmy. The President has very
> >little effect on the economy. He is powerless without congress and it seems
> >even at physical policy has little effect on growth.
> > The who should get the credit? If anyone it is the fed. It is there
> >moves that make or break expectations. It is there moves that provide stable
> >environments for economic growth or rampant uncertainity. In this sense
> >Reagan should get the credit for appointing Alan Greenspan in the first
> >place. Clinton should should get some credit for not replacing Greenspan
> >when he had the chance. But neither Reagan or Clinton have CAUSED the
> >prosperity we have seen.
> > Yes Regan deregulation has helped the economy to operate more efficency.
> >This has relieved some of the barriers that cause disequilibrium economics.
> >Yet it is uncertain that this is the sole cause of prosperity. As I have
> >said before read Christina Romer's work. It shows that government
> >involvement has not changed the business cycle one bit. This implies that
> >Reagan, Clinton, Carter, Eisenhower, etc. have had no effect on the economy.
> >
>
> But there has been one change in the business cycle and that is the
> and that is an increase the longevity of the expansions in the post
> war period. And even Romer's data supports that. I think this is
> supported by this paper at the KC Fed.
>
Hi George. Its a bit of a paradox, but:
http://www.johncon.com/john/correspondence/990215192020.29398.html
tends to indicate that the frequency distribution of the run lengths
of the US GDP's contractions and expansions agree very well with the
traditional random walk fractal model, ie., the frequency distribution
is erf (1 / sqrt (t)), irregardless of scale, and the statistics seem
stationary in both the third and fourth quarters of this century.
I don't know what to make of it, since the traditional random walk
fractal model is stochastic, ie., dominated by lottery.
Maybe we can't exercise as much authority over the US GDP as we think
we can.
John
--
John Conover, john@email.johncon.com, http://www.johncon.com/