Top all-time · #537
John Cochrane
Personal blog · johnhcochrane.blogspot.comeconomicspolitics
John Cochrane writes The Grumpy Economist, a personal blog at johnhcochrane.blogspot.com about economics and politics. Since 2012, 109 different Hacker News readers have linked it 203 times, most often “Bitcoin and Bubbles”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Sometimes recommended · 8 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers mostly link this blog to back their own points on H-1B visa caps, immigration, carbon taxes, inflation and stock prices. Individual posts on carbon taxes and immigration get praise.
- Recommended for · 8 comments
- Called the best article on immigration, a good carbon-tax post and worth reading; also 'strong arguments' on IP.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Bitcoin and Bubbles5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2017-12-01
- Fed vs. Narrow Banks5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-03-17
- Wokeademia (2020)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-01-30
- What's the Optimal Number of Immigrants?3 people · 20 mentions · first linked 2014-06-30
- Cross-Subsidies3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-07-01
- Silicon Valley Bank Blinders3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-03-12
- The puzzle of Europe3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-04
- /2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs.html3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-05-10
- /2018/09/fed-nixes-narrow-bank.html?m=13 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-03-21
- The grumpy economist: University finances2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-04-30
What Hacker News says?
You're quite correct that I didn't account for the cost of housing paid by those making between $65,000 and $125,000, which certainly reduces the marginal rate on those making over $125,000 (not by reducing the actual burden on those people but rather by increasing the burden on those paying between $65,000 and $125,000). But there are many, many things I didn't account for. The point was not to make a full accounti…
Comment linking /2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs.html
on “Parents with annual family incomes below $125,000 will pay no tuition”Submitted Pay toilets and NYT: a free market microcosm as a story · 106 points
HN discussionZoning is an instance of local government oppressing individuals. “Local control” means the person who owns a property cannot build an apartment. Marin County is so adverse to housing development, they illegally stopped even one new home from being added. Now it can go forward because of state law. https://carlaef.org/2018/04/20/we-sued-sausalito-and-then-we... The Bay Area has really dysfunctional governance. We ha…
Comment linking /2016/06/how-to-raise-gdp-10-and-reduce.html
on “Stripe to donate $1M to California Yimby”Submitted Fintech in Chains as a story · 106 points
HN discussionOne way to generate interest is to simply park it at the Fed. Check out The Narrow Bank for the story of an upstart that wanted to make that their whole business model. https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2018/09/fed-nixes-narrow-...
Comment linking /2018/09/fed-nixes-narrow-bank.html
on “FDIC Takes over Silicon Valley Bank”Submitted Free Solo and Economic Growth as a story · 101 points
HN discussionThere's a pretty good technical illustration of how the discount rate impacts stock prices here [0]. This does provide one plausible answer to the headline question from TFA: Corporations' expected future profits are lower than they were pre-COVID, but the valuation discount rate is lower because the expected future return for assets in general is lower, so the present value of corporations' expected future profits…
Comment linking /2018/02/stock-gyrations.html
on “Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?”Submitted The puzzle of Europe as a story · 60 points
HN discussionWe need a carbon tax stat IMO. Economist John Cochrane had a good blog post about this recently (I actually posted to HN a few days ago but it got buried): https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2019/05/ip-on-carbon-tax.... From the end: "Climate policy was headed to this kind of bipartisan technocratic resolution in the 1990s before it became a tool of partisan warfare. The challenge, from both sides, is to remove the…
Comment linking /2019/05/ip-on-carbon-tax.html
on “The human body is already close to thermal limits in many regions”Submitted Wokeademia (2020) as a story · 59 points
HN discussionGeneral immigration reform along these lines is what's needed: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number... http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/opinions/making-legal-immigrat... Because the current system is really broken: see what it's like to try and immigrate, legally, from Mexico if you just want to do manual labor.
Comment linking /2014/06/the-optimal-number-of-immigrants.html
on “What I Heard from Trump Supporters”Submitted Nothing matters but reproduction rate R as a story · 54 points
HN discussionI would recommend this small article by economist John Cochrane <a href=" https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2021/10/supply.html">http... . The corporate media in general is very quick on this one calling it a transitory inflation. I am not sure that's case. We may be in for a bad stretch. Supply-side inflation can be very damaging and hard to fix, especially when the government is pushing a stimulus bill that, not…
Comment linking /2021/10/supply.html%22>https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2021/10/supply.html</a>
on “Skimpflation: A reason inflation is worse than the government says it is”Submitted Wealth and Taxes as a story · 49 points
HN discussion(1) Liquidity always dries up prior to the announcements. If you're a market maker, you don't want to get run over by someone moving the price on new information. (2) It's a myth that raising rates will give the Fed more ammunition. That's like saying you should exercise less now so that if you gain weight in the future you'll be able to make a bigger change in the amount you exercise. (Not the perfect analogy, but…
Comment linking /2015/05/small-shoes-and-headroom.html
on “Fed Ends Zero-Rate Era”Submitted “I’m glad climate is not a crisis…” as a story · 40 points
HN discussionAs I understand it, the inflated prices are to cover price breaks given to other groups (especially Medicaid, but also Medicare): https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2018/11/cross-subsidies-a... . Insurance companies generally get “most favored nation” clauses so that they all pay the same price as each other. EOBs show the list price for a service, and the much smaller amount actually paid. The people who really get…
Comment linking /2018/11/cross-subsidies-and-monopolization.html
on “What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills”Submitted Wokeademia as a story · 36 points
HN discussionThis is the best article I've seen on immigration: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number...
Comment linking /2014/06/the-optimal-number-of-immigrants.html
on “H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms”Submitted Secret Data: On replication in economics as a story · 24 points
HN discussionI'd prefer a system without a "magic number" of people allowed in. http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number...
Comment linking /2014/06/the-optimal-number-of-immigrants.html
on “Large Companies Game H-1B Visa Program”Submitted Is California Libertarian? as a story · 16 points
HN discussionHere's the economic argument against, from conservative economist John Cochrane (try to check the tribalism and focus on the arguments), who used to be a proponent of carbon taxes. The standard vision in policy discussions assumes infinite substitutability. As soon as the cost of clean energy is lower than the cost of carbon-emitting energy, everyone substitutes completely to the latter and the oil and coal stay in…
Comment linking /2021/07/rossi-hansberg-on-effects-of-carbon-tax.html
on “I liked the idea of carbon offsets until I tried to explain it”Submitted Where your money goes as a story · 13 points
HN discussionTo be clear, the NAIC isn't an industry group - it's made up of insurance regulators. I suppose the argument could be made that they have a conflict of interest in that they'd benefit from increased regulation from an "empire-building" perspective. But I've never gotten the impression that that motivates their decisions in practice. (I'm a former actuary and still work in the insurance industry.) It's likely true th…
Comment linking /2018/06/cross-subsidies.html
on “Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says”Submitted Having your cake and eating it too: The maturity structure of US debt (2012) as a story · 11 points
HN discussionhttps://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2021/08/covid-incompetenc... Say many things worth reading, but of masks specifically: > Masks do much more to stop you from giving it to someone else than to protect you. Cloth masks are close to useless. Well-fitting N95 masks work much better in both directions. Neither comes close to vaccination. Wearing cloth masks outdoors, far from other people, in the wind, as is the fashio…
Comment linking /2021/08/covid-incompetence.html
on “YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days”Submitted The U.S. and NATO must fight as a story · 9 points
HN discussionWhy not take a courageous approach and let people in who want to work? Don't tie them to one job. Don't pick arbitrary numbers of the 'right' number of immigrants. Don't try ever more complex schemes based on where people live and what job they do. Keep the government involved to vet them in terms of avoiding criminals, and let the market handle how many people to bring in, not government bureaucrats and politicians…
Comment linking /2014/06/the-optimal-number-of-immigrants.html
on “H-1B Visas: U.S. Lawmaker Re-Introduces Bill to Tighten Rules”Submitted Bitcoin and Bubbles as a story · 8 points
HN discussion
