The K shaped economy and prediction markets have spurred a lot of discussion. The unproductive congress is certainly something I am aware of, but I had not really considered the implications. What a great insight! I suppose future congresses will inherit a house with significant "deferred maintenance!"
Yes indeed. The work is not being done and will eventually have to be completed. Not paying attention to deferred maintenance will have implications on our lives.
Nice piece, but I am afraid I have a few critiques:
I'm skeptical that a declining number of bills reflects less legislative work. The story would be more compelling if the data was more granular (showing page or word counts). Here is a quote from govhttp://track.us:
"Congress has typically enacted 4-6 million words of new law in each two-year Congress. However, those words have been enacted in fewer but larger bills. Therefore, the generally decreasing number of bills enacted into law does not reflect less legislative work is occurring."
Over time, politicians have learned they can get more politicians on board by wrapping legislation into big omnibus bills. That way, everyone will vote on it for the pieces they like, despite the presence of elements they dislike.
As for prediction markets, the whole idea is to aggregate information that is not publicly available or easily accessible. That may have undesirable effects in some instances (insider trading) which could lead to loss of faith in government if violations go unpunished, but it is a non sequitur to say that this would lead to a loss of faith in prediction markets. If anything, it makes prediction markets much more reliable. (You may have meant that it makes individuals with little new information less inclined to participate in prediction markets, and that is exactly the outcome we should desire if we want the prediction to be accurate.)
Housing for the Under-30 cohort will continue to be a problem since builders are not addressing the need. Starter homes have dropped to ≈9% of builds in 2023 where it was 40% in the early 80's. That simple wealth building ability has been shutoff for younger people.
Those same "live-at-home" group will continue to be set back since housing rarely deflates and renting will become the norm.
Congress? They spend more time running for a job than doing that job. I've had a meeting pushed 3 times this month because of availability changing. Ended up cancelling it because I value my time.
Ever fill out a SF714 - Financial Disclosure Form? While it asks for specific holdings, it has gaps where Crypto or anonymous financial products are listed. It common to see people pay off credit cards to game the system by showing a decreased debt load at the end of the calendar year. If you understand the system, moving income for gambling/prediction markets can be washed paying down debt.
*The numbers are entered into the system and randomly audited, barring some glaring income gain the software flags for human review.
It's surprising the debts carried by individuals who hold high level security clearances. GS-8's driving $80k Mercedes gets those who know better laughing!
Hi Lary 👋 the starter home data is intriguing. Do you have more information on that. My RAs and I are working on housing affordability project and that data would be helpful. Any sources?
Prediction markets are often promoted as investments. Some brokerages have prediction platforms (advertised as "not suitable for all investors") They are not investments, they are gambling and should be treated as such. Buyer beware!
The K shaped economy and prediction markets have spurred a lot of discussion. The unproductive congress is certainly something I am aware of, but I had not really considered the implications. What a great insight! I suppose future congresses will inherit a house with significant "deferred maintenance!"
Yes indeed. The work is not being done and will eventually have to be completed. Not paying attention to deferred maintenance will have implications on our lives.
Nice piece, but I am afraid I have a few critiques:
I'm skeptical that a declining number of bills reflects less legislative work. The story would be more compelling if the data was more granular (showing page or word counts). Here is a quote from govhttp://track.us:
"Congress has typically enacted 4-6 million words of new law in each two-year Congress. However, those words have been enacted in fewer but larger bills. Therefore, the generally decreasing number of bills enacted into law does not reflect less legislative work is occurring."
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics
Over time, politicians have learned they can get more politicians on board by wrapping legislation into big omnibus bills. That way, everyone will vote on it for the pieces they like, despite the presence of elements they dislike.
As for prediction markets, the whole idea is to aggregate information that is not publicly available or easily accessible. That may have undesirable effects in some instances (insider trading) which could lead to loss of faith in government if violations go unpunished, but it is a non sequitur to say that this would lead to a loss of faith in prediction markets. If anything, it makes prediction markets much more reliable. (You may have meant that it makes individuals with little new information less inclined to participate in prediction markets, and that is exactly the outcome we should desire if we want the prediction to be accurate.)
Housing for the Under-30 cohort will continue to be a problem since builders are not addressing the need. Starter homes have dropped to ≈9% of builds in 2023 where it was 40% in the early 80's. That simple wealth building ability has been shutoff for younger people.
Those same "live-at-home" group will continue to be set back since housing rarely deflates and renting will become the norm.
Congress? They spend more time running for a job than doing that job. I've had a meeting pushed 3 times this month because of availability changing. Ended up cancelling it because I value my time.
Ever fill out a SF714 - Financial Disclosure Form? While it asks for specific holdings, it has gaps where Crypto or anonymous financial products are listed. It common to see people pay off credit cards to game the system by showing a decreased debt load at the end of the calendar year. If you understand the system, moving income for gambling/prediction markets can be washed paying down debt.
*The numbers are entered into the system and randomly audited, barring some glaring income gain the software flags for human review.
It's surprising the debts carried by individuals who hold high level security clearances. GS-8's driving $80k Mercedes gets those who know better laughing!
Hi Lary 👋 the starter home data is intriguing. Do you have more information on that. My RAs and I are working on housing affordability project and that data would be helpful. Any sources?
https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/data/series.html
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/categories/32302
Case-Shilling has a historic dataset, but I don't recall what the URL is.
Prediction markets are often promoted as investments. Some brokerages have prediction platforms (advertised as "not suitable for all investors") They are not investments, they are gambling and should be treated as such. Buyer beware!