a progression in spending

this is how government spending, and the financing of government spending, has progressed in the last few decades. these the first decades of the post WWII welfare state

1960s: tax and spend
new and higher taxes normalized to pay for major social programs

1970s-1990s: tax and borrow and spend
deficits normalized. government spending surpasses taxes collected. public debt rapidly increases at all levels

2000s-today: tax and borrow and print and spend
printing becomes normalized. spending outstrips taxation and borrowing capacity. a new term quantitative easing appears. fifteen years after the financial crisis of 2007-2008 there is still temporary printing aka quantitative easing. the appearance of Covid-19 provides cover for more extraordinary measures

the concept of a structural deficit is introduced. units of discussion switch from billion to trillion

an interesting idea for the baseball strike zone

Sometimes when flipping channels I'll stop on a major league baseball game and watch a few batters or a half inning. I used to watch a lot of baseball when I was young. Not so much the last few decades. If the Blue Jays have a good team in the playoffs I might watch a game if I remember when it's on.

So I'm randomly watching this game with the terrible California Angels. The announcers to fill time in this game between bad teams. They mention in their random banter this idea being kicked around baseball executives.

The idea is to make the strike zone both lower and wider.

I hear this and it's like aha! that would work. This change would simultaneously accomplish the following

• reduce walks
  
• reduce strikeouts
• reduce home runs

Baseball would immediately benefit from this change. They should make it. The number of at-bats resulting in some kind of ball-in-play has been in decline for decades now.

The analytics guys are geniuses. But the problem is that they "solved" baseball. Through intense and computer-assisted analysis they found "flaws" in the design of baseball rules. This led to overemphasis on walks and home runs as the optimal offense strategy.

The simple change in the strike zone would (for a while anyway) defeat or at least set back the analytics wonks.

With more batters putting the ball in play, then defense and baserunning becomes more important again. Walks, strikeouts, and home runs will still be an integral part of baseball, as they have been since the start in the nineteenth century, but just not quite as much. I hope MLB makes this change.

Australia central bank is insolvent

Surprisingly little coverage of recent financial news out of Australia. The Australia central bank has technically failed.

Australia's Central Bank Says It Is Bust

Australia’s central bank has equity wiped out 

Reserve Bank of Australia reports loss of $37bn 

hmmm. so the lender of last resort is itself insolvent. what to make of all this.

ah no worries mate we're assured

• bank of Australia losses are apparently backed by the people of Australia
• the bank of Australia is apparently free to just print money to meet its obligations
• if they hold the bonds to maturity, as they say they intend to, and the borrowers make good (by rolling over into newly printed bonds on payment day no doubt), then it's just an unrealized accounting loss
  

I'm sure the taxpayers of Australia will be thrilled to hear that first point.

For the second point, I'm shocked at such a flip attitude toward printing money. For years we've been assured by such as the Bank of Canada that there's no printing to see here. The money is all "backed" by gold or "other" assets AAA bonds (i.e. the money is backed by itself, money). But now all of that is weakened, thrown into some doubt.

could uncertainty increase the effectiveness of icing the kicker

I remember when I stated watching football decades ago now, in the early 1980s. There was this novel strategy that coaches used when the opponent was facing a late and crucial field goal attempt.

The coach would call a timeout before the opponent could kick. This strategy is known as "icing the kicker". The timeout is supposed to disrupt the kickers preparation routine, and make the kicker spend more time thinking about the critical kick he has to make. The idea is that the kickers will miss more of these kicks as a result of the timeout.

Now over the decades, I've never seen a coach fail to use the timeout to try to ice the kicker. So what does this mean from the kicker's perspective as he sets up and mentally prepares for the kick. Well he knows for certain that if the other coach still has a timeout, then the coach will call the timeout. 

So at this point the timeout has been internalized and incorporated into the preparation for the kick. The kicker, along with everyone, knows it is going to be called. So I believe icing now has little effect in reducing the success rate of these kicks.

So the alternate strategy I'm suggesting. Some of the time, maybe 25% say, on a random basis that only the coach knows, don't call the timeout. This will introduce uncertainty into the kickers mental preparation and kick routine. He doesn't know for sure now if he really has to kick, or if timeout will be called before the snap. 

I believe that the strategy of usually calling timeout to ice the kicker, combined with the uncertainty and unpredictability of sometimes not calling the timeout and just making him kick without delay, will result in overall lower success rate; than the current strategy which is to always call time.