Astral Codex Ten

The Fed

5 min read

The Fed

Article

The Fed is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between December 09, 2021 and February 01, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as “The Fed was apparently so embarrassed by this that they stopped reporting land value estimates”; “The Fed ends up doing more than its currently forecast three interest rate hikes”. It most often appears alongside China, COVID, France.

Metadata

  • Category: Organizations
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: December 09, 2021
  • Last seen: February 01, 2022

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Does Georgism Work? Part 1: Is Land Really A Big Deal?
December 09, 2021 · Original source
Here's a graph of America's total aggregate land value over time, according to twelve different estimation methods. My sources are The Lincoln Institute, Larson (2015), Albouy, Ehrlich, and Shin (2018), The American Enterprise Institute, PLACES Lab, the Federal Reserve via a method worked out by Matt Yglesias, Larson (2019/2020), and Jeffrey Johnson Smith's 2020 book Counting Bounty: The Quest to Know the Worth of the Earth.
Inline links: Lincoln Institute, Larson (2015), Albouy, Ehrlich, and Shin (2018), The American Enterprise Institute, PLACES Lab, Federal Reserve, Matt Yglesias, Larson (2019/2020), Counting Bounty: The Quest to Know the Worth of the Earth
Larson (2019) uses this method, and AEI's figures are based directly on those results with a slight upward correction. The Lincoln Institute and the Federal Reserve's figures use the same basic approach, relying on official estimates of construction costs and housing prices. The one outlier is the PLACES lab estimate, which uses a machine learning model but gives a single-year result that tracks with the four cost approach lines.
Long story short, I found numerous persuasive criticisms of the cost approach. Ultimately, I think Smith's estimate is most likely closest to the truth. Let's dig into Larson, Albouy, and the Federal Reserve figures to understand why.
Predictions For 2022
February 01, 2022 · Original source
YGLESIAS PREDICTIONS 1. Democrats lose both houses of Congress (90%) HOLD 2. Democrats lose at least two Senate seats (80%) HOLD 3. Democrats lose fewer than six Senate seats (80%) HOLD 4. Nancy Pelosi announces retirement plans (70%) HOLD 5. Stephen Breyer does not retire (60%) N/A 6. Some version of Build Back Better passes (60%) HOLD 7. Joe Biden is still president (90%) HOLD 8. At least one Biden cabinet-rank official resigns (70%) HOLD 9. No military conflict between the PRC and Taiwan (a worryingly low 90%) HOLD 10. New U.S. sanctions on Russia (70%) HOLD 11. Saudi Arabia and Israel establish diplomatic relations (60%) SELL to 50% 12. Fewer U.S. Covid deaths in 2022 than in 2021 (80%) BUY to 90% 13. Emmanuel Macron re-elected (60%) HOLD 14. Traffic light coalition exploits loopholes to get around the constitutional debt brake (70%) HOLD 15. No recession in 2021 (90%) SELL to 80% 16. Liz Cheney loses primary (80%) HOLD 17. Some version of USICA passes Congress (70%) HOLD 18. Lula elected president of Brazil (60%) SELL to 50% 19. China officially abandons Covid Zero (70%) HOLD 20. Fewer U.S. Covid-19 deaths in 2022 than in 2020 (80%) BUY to 90% 21. Additional booster shots of mRNA vaccines authorized for seniors (80%) HOLD 22. November 2022 year-on-year CPI growth is below 6% (70%) BUY to 80% 23. November 2022 year-on-year CPI growth is above 4% (70%) SELL to 50% 24. The Fed ends up doing more than its currently forecast three interest rate hikes (60%) HOLD 25. Russia does not invade Ukraine (60%) HOLD 26. Viktor Orbán loses power in Hungary (60%) HOLD 27. Sinn Fein becomes the largest party in the Northern Ireland assembly (60%) HOLD 28. The U.S. and Canada reach an agreement on softwood lumber (70%) HOLD 29. Democrats go down at least one governor on net (60%) HOLD 30. The unemployment rate stays between 4 and 5% (70%) SELL to 60% if you mean 12/22, to 40% if you mean it never gets outside that range at all
Yglesias is mostly forecasting things he understands much better than I do, so I’m mostly holding. I’ll go hard on “fewer US COVID deaths in 2022 than previous years” because Omicron seems less deadly and there’s less “dry tinder” of unvaccinated people; I could be wrong if a non-Omicron lineage spits out a really severe new variant. I’m pretty confused by Matt predicting high inflation for next year; my understanding is the Fed and markets predict lower; I totally admit Matt knows more about inflation than I do but in order to make things interesting I’ll bet against him anyway. I’m equally confused about his prediction of a pretty narrow band of unemployment rates; if I understand right, last month was already outside his band (3.9%) and so he’s betting no future month will repeat that. Again, Matt knows more econ than I do but I’ve sold anyway.