Morning in America: Butthurt Achieved

[Saul Goodman]

It is not personal, Gil, it is business...


House Votes to Shut Down Labor Board

By Todd Ruger

The National Law Journal

April 12, 2013

   
WASHINGTON — The House voted Friday to shut down the National Labor Relations Board, with one Republican congressman calling the board "worse than useless" since a recent appeals court ruling voided the recess appointments of two board members.

The bill, called the Preventing Greater Uncertainty in Labor-Management Relations Act, calls for the NLRB to stop activity until the Senate confirms new members or the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's appointments.

The House voted 219-209 to pass the bill, which will likely stall in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Under the bill, the board would also be prevented from enforcing any decision, rule or vote made after Jan. 4, 2012, when Obama made the recess appointments.

Representative John Kline, R-Minn., said that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's decision in Noel Canning v. NLRB in January means uncertainty for both employers and employees who depend on the board to enforce the law. He called the board "dysfunctional" and said all its decisions are now suspect.







   



   





   
   
   
       

I know there's an Easter egg somewhere in all that whitespace, and I intend to use all day to find it.

[CBStew]

Someday I am going to have to learn how to quote from an article without cutting and pasting.  Won't someone cut me some slack for being one of the few computer users who was born before the transistor radio was invented?

[PenFoe]

Someday I am going to have to learn how to quote from an article without cutting and pasting.  Won't someone cut me some slack for being one of the few computer users who was born before the transistor radio was invented?

Honestly, the fact that you use a message board, link to things, quote things AND have seen the Cubs in a World Series is incredible. 

[Gilgamesh]

It is not personal, Gil, it is business...


House Votes to Shut Down Labor Board

By Todd Ruger

The National Law Journal

April 12, 2013

   
WASHINGTON — The House voted Friday to shut down the National Labor Relations Board, with one Republican congressman calling the board "worse than useless" since a recent appeals court ruling voided the recess appointments of two board members.

The bill, called the Preventing Greater Uncertainty in Labor-Management Relations Act, calls for the NLRB to stop activity until the Senate confirms new members or the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's appointments.

The House voted 219-209 to pass the bill, which will likely stall in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Under the bill, the board would also be prevented from enforcing any decision, rule or vote made after Jan. 4, 2012, when Obama made the recess appointments.

Representative John Kline, R-Minn., said that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's decision in Noel Canning v. NLRB in January means uncertainty for both employers and employees who depend on the board to enforce the law. He called the board "dysfunctional" and said all its decisions are now suspect.

Yeah, it's bullshit politics.  Granted, this is a problem that is 6 years in the making, at least as the Board is concerned.  It began when Senate Democrats wouldn't vote to confirm Bush's NLRB appointments in 2007, beginning this trend of pro forma sessions in the Senate.  Then the Board went down to 2 members, we got scolded by SCOTUS in the New Process case, and now we're back at square one, only now, a Democrat is in the White House.

Once we get either a confirmed Board, for which we now have a full slate of nominees or the Supreme Court's anticipated smack down of the insanely silly and legally tendentious Noel Canning decision, we're in a very nebulous period.

Honestly, though many management practitioners wouldn't advise this, compliance with the NLRB at this point (until we get a Board or the Supreme Court intervenes) is almost voluntary.  You can appeal every decision of an ALJ or a Regional Director and cite Noel Canning and boom, the matter is in limbo.

It sucks, but this is really a pox on both your houses kind of thing.

[R-V]

Oops!

...all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems

[J. Walter Weatherman]

Oops!

...all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems

Kind of odd that they didn't release their data in the first place, isn't it?

[SKO]

Oops!

...all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems

Kind of odd that they didn't release their data in the first place, isn't it?

They didn't have the data in front of them, at the time.

[morpheus]

Barry Ritholtz has the implications about right:

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/04/did-reinhart-rogoff-screw-up-their-debt-research/

All of these bias the results towards their conclusion. If this is verified, it will be the biggest academic snafu since Professor Jeremy Siegel messed up his book Stocks for the Long Run relying on bad data.

This does not justify running huge deficits, but it also removes all of the urgency of the Austerity camp. A much more slow form of de-leveraging – what Ray Dalio calls "the Beautiful de-leveraging" — and not austerity is what appears to be what is called for.

That is, assuming R&R don't have some more meaningful explanation as to why they did what they did.  (outside of the spreadsheet error, which is, of course, inexcusable)

Also: I love his disclaimer:

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

[Gilgamesh]

Oops!

...all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems

Kind of odd that they didn't release their data in the first place, isn't it?

They didn't have the data in front of them, at the time.

Datases are quite expensive these days.

[Yeti]

Oops!

...all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems

Intrepid Reader: Tonker:
I woulda rocked that excel sheet in its arse.

[R-V]

Oops!

...all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems

Kind of odd that they didn't release their data in the first place, isn't it?

They didn't have the data in front of them, at the time.

Datases are quite expensive these days.

Hopefully this is the part where Tank digs up the log on this particular joke because although I'm pretty sure I was involved in the original discussion I'm having a hard time remembering the details on this one. Was it Chuck who couldn't find his database?

[BH]

Oops!

...all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems

Kind of odd that they didn't release their data in the first place, isn't it?

They didn't have the data in front of them, at the time.

Datases are quite expensive these days.

Hopefully this is the part where Tank digs up the log on this particular joke because although I'm pretty sure I was involved in the original discussion I'm having a hard time remembering the details on this one. Was it Chuck who couldn't find his database?

It was Fork. I can't remember the details, but assume he was either trying to track his injuries and recoveries or favorite places to eat around new york city.

[morpheus]

Oops!

...all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems

Kind of odd that they didn't release their data in the first place, isn't it?

They didn't have the data in front of them, at the time.

Datases are quite expensive these days.

Hopefully this is the part where Tank digs up the log on this particular joke because although I'm pretty sure I was involved in the original discussion I'm having a hard time remembering the details on this one. Was it Chuck who couldn't find his database?

No BH.

[BH]

Oops!

...all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems

Kind of odd that they didn't release their data in the first place, isn't it?

They didn't have the data in front of them, at the time.

Datases are quite expensive these days.

Hopefully this is the part where Tank digs up the log on this particular joke because although I'm pretty sure I was involved in the original discussion I'm having a hard time remembering the details on this one. Was it Chuck who couldn't find his database?

No BH.

I was referring to the "datase", wasn't the Fork?

[morpheus]

Oops!

...all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems

Kind of odd that they didn't release their data in the first place, isn't it?

They've already issued a short response.  It sounds like they've already anticipated some of the critique and addressed it in their JEP paper.  

EDIT: the last paragraph seems particularly relevant.

Lastly, our 2012 JEP paper cites papers from the BIS, IMF and OECD (among others) which virtually all find very similar conclusions to original findings, albeit with slight differences in threshold, and many nuances of alternative interpretation.. These later papers, by the way, use a variety of methodologies for dealing with non-linearity and also for trying to determine causation. Of course much further research is needed as the data we developed and is being used in these studies is new. Nevertheless, the weight of the evidence to date –including this latest comment — seems entirely consistent with our original interpretation of the data in our 2010 AER paper.