Suchergebnisse

Urlaubsverhalten, Freizeitaktivitäten am Wochenende und beabsichtigte
Urlaubsreisen im folgenden Jahr.

Themen: Zufriedenheit mit der eigenen wirtschaftlichen Situation und
Beurteilung der wirtschaftlichen Lage der BRD (Katona-Fragen) vermutete
Entwicklung der wirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse in den nächsten 5 Jahren;
präferierte Verkehrsmittel bei Urlaubsreisen; präferierte Urlaubsziele
und Urlaubszeit; Urlaubsdauer; Teilnahme an Gesellschaftsreisen;
Urlaubskosten; Informationsquellen für die Urlaubsreise; benutzte
Unterkunftsmöglichkeit; ausführliche Beschreibung der für die Zukunft
geplanten Reisen; präferierter Urlaubstyp und Urlaubsaktivitäten; Anzahl
der Urlaubsreisen im letzten Jahr; Wochenendausflüge und
Freizeitaktivitäten am Wochenende; benutztes Verkehrsmittel für
Wochenendausflüge; Ausflugsziele; zurückgelegte Entfernungen und
benötigte Zeit; KFZ-Besitz; Mediennutzung; Meinungsführerschaft und
Meinungsgefolgschaft, aufgegliedert nach Sachgebieten; Besitz
langlebiger Wirtschaftsgüter; geplante Anschaffungen für das kommende
Jahr; Alter des Ehepartners; Anzahl der zustehenden Urlaubstage;
Betriebsferien; Mitgliedschaft in Vereinen und Organisationen; Grad der
Aktivität im Verein; regionale Herkunft; Staatsangehörigkeit.

Bei Verheirateten wurde zusätzlich gefragt: detaillierte Angaben über
die Arbeitsteilung in der Familie; Entscheidungsstruktur bei
Geldausgaben.

Demographie: Alter (klassiert); Geschlecht; Familienstand; Kinderzahl;
Konfession; Schulbildung; Berufsausbildung; Beruf; berufliche Position;
Berufstätigkeit; Haushaltseinkommen; Haushaltsgröße;
Haushaltszusammensetzung; Haushaltungsvorstand; soziale Herkunft.

Interviewerrating: Schichtzugehörigkeit des Befragten.

With the tech policy landscape showing no signs of slowing down in 2024, AEI's tech policy team is taking a moment to make some predictions for the year ahead.
The post 2024 Tech Policy Predictions appeared first on American Enterprise Institute - AEI.

It's of some interest to see how polls and prediction markets are viewing the presidential race, and how this links with economic sentiment. First polls and sentiment. Source: TheHill, accessed 4/17/2024. Source: U.Michigan via FRED, TradingEconomics, accessed 4/17/2024. Now, a prediction market. Below, I show PredictIt odds for Biden vs. Trump (omitting RFK Jr.), for […]

Predictions for next years annual global mean surface air temperature anomaly based on the long term trend and the state of ENSO have been quite skillful. Until 2023.
The post Annual GMSAT predictions and ENSO first appeared on RealClimate.

 Last night, at the big conference dinner, a Finnish attendee asked me about the big question of 2024 in the US (yes, US are super worried and they should be).  I first said that I don't do predictions anymore, given my blogging/tweeting/facebooking debacle of 2016.  Then she pushed, so I discussed how I am slightly optimistic but that was diminishing with the potential impact of Gaza on Democratic turnout.  And then I woke up this morning after another Democratic run of success--that the GOP has pretty much lost every election since 2016.  So, I am feeling a bit more positive than I was last night.  So, what am I thinking now these days?  First, I am concerned about Gaza/Israel as it may turn off Arab Americans particularly in Michigan.  I don't think that these folks will vote for Islamophobic, xenophobic Trump and his party that is now tyring to get Palestinians living in the US kicked out.  But they may not turn out as much--that Dem turn out has been the key since 2016. So, not great. The Jewish vote?  Oh, where it is strong, it is not going to swing anything---not in California, New York, or, ha, Florida.Second, the vote yesterday matters far more than various polls.  In each election since 2016, the GOP has underperformed.  Why? It turns out switching from being vaguely racist, more obliquely misogynist, only somewhat theocratic to being rabidly racist, wildly Christian nationalist, and actually depriving women control over their bodies (arresting moms for transporting their daughters for abortions? jailing them?) has made a dent.  In 2016, people could argue that Trump wasn't a real conservative and wouldn't appoint theocrats and their pals to the courts. Now?  Yeah, people are mighty upset that radical courts matter, that state legislatures and various governors are very enthusiastic about making many Americans miserable in so many ways.  So, abortion is a vote winner for the Dems, and that's not going to change anytime soon.  The part that stunned me the most was the wipeout of the Christian nationalists on school boards.  Local politics is hard, people don't turn out, but the batshit crazy folks with their book banning and trans and homophobia hate, indeed, triggered the Libs.  Trump and the GOP will be wearing this shit next year as the primary campaign is going to define the party as, well, freaking crazy and way outside the mainstream.  Third, on the big "issues" that the GOP want to use against Biden--his age, his son's crimes--Trump is far, far worse.  Biden may be old, but there is not the record of him losing his train of thought and saying truly bizarre stuff compared to Trump.  Of course, the media will false equivalence this stuff away, but that still means that Trump can't get much of an edge on this.Fourth, I was asked what happens if Trump is in jail in November.  I said unless it is for the documents case, I believe he will still be the GOP candidate.  There is simply way too much fear in the party regarding Trump's supporters--both because they are violent and because candidates want their support if Trump were to somehow be eliminated.  Trump's criminal behavior is already priced in, however, so it won't hurt him as much as it should.  His voters both want power and are super resentful, so they don't care. Do enough non Trumpist Republicans exist that might stay at home?  Um, I made a gamble about that last time, and it didn't work out--power matters more.  HOWEVER, the big promise for non-Trumpist GOP folks last time was getting the courts, and that is not going to change with another four years of Biden.  So, maybe they won't be so motivated to vote?Fifth, the GOP is not going to learn any lessons right now about what is causing their electoral defeats.  Why?  Because their primary processes are still going to reward extremism, so they will still send proto-Nazis and theocrats to compete for otherwise winnable Senate seats and then lose those races.  In red states, they can win those races, but in purple ones, they can't--playing to the extremist base may aid in some turnout but hurts more than it helps... at least that is how I read 2018, 2020, 2022, and now 2023.Sixth, the Dems?  Damned if I know whether they will learn the key lessons and apply them well.  Biden's presidency has been a mixed bag with the media emphasizing the mistakes and the losses.  If the recession still doesn't happen, if jobs remain plentiful and wages going up, the inflation narrative may fade a bit. Will they make progress on making housing more affordable?  Probably not.  Oh, and that foreign policy stuff?  It won't matter except to various diasporas, but some of those are in key locations.  So... 🤷Oh, and a Canadian note: the Conservative Party has been plagiarizing a bunch of GOP bullshit--trans phobia, using woke as a slur, etc.  I am thinking now that if the Canadian electorate is at all like the American one, these stances are going to hurt the Tories, not help.  So, will Polievre snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?  Probably.But that would be a prediction, and I suck at those.

California urgently needs to improve its precipitation forecasting: this could help the state better manage its water supply and prepare for disasters, among other things. But that's not as easy as it sounds, says Dr. Xianan Jiang, a UCLA researcher. We asked him to tell us more.

From Real Clear Politics and PredictIt, today: Source: RealClearPolitics, accessed 4/3/2024. The spread between Trump and Biden has narrowed recently. Polls also tabulated at FiveThirtyEight. For the sample beginning at the green line in the above figure, we have PredictIt odds. Source: PredictIt, accessed 4/3/2024. Biden (light blue), Trump (dark blue), RFK, Jr (not shown). […]

Reader Bruce Hall notes the correlation between Fed funds rate peaks and recessions, as a counterpoint to my use of spread inversions. Let's compare peaks to inversions: Figure 1: Fed funds (blue), and 10yr-3mo Treasury spread (tan). NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: Treasury, Fed via FRED, NBER. Inversions and peaks precede recessions. […]

This is a guest post by Oliver Strijbis, Sveinung Arnesen, Kjetil Thuen, and Lucas Rachow* *** About one year ago we published on this blog for the first time predictions for direct democratic votes taken from our “prediction market”. Prediction … Continue reading →

Ahmed and Chinn (2023), coauthored with Rashad Ahmed, accepted at JMCB. The US and Foreign 10yr-3mo inversion remain deep (although not as deep as in March when last I posted). Figure 1: US 10 yr-3 mo term spread (blue), GDP weighted foreign (Canada, Germany, Japan, UK) 10 yr-3 mo term spread (tan), 5yr-to-10yr-3mo term spread […]

In The Experience Machine, philosopher and scientist Andy Clark offers an updated theory of mind.

Today, Afghanistan is a nightmarish place for many Afghans, marked by a lack of rights and opportunities. It's crucial to recognize this reality. However, it's also important to acknowledge that numerous predictions from Washington did not materialize as expected. For all the admonishments of the Biden administration, Afghanistan has not become a gift for China or Russia, or a hotbed of transnational terrorism.President Biden faced relentless criticism for the withdrawal, decried as squandering "20 years of blood and sacrifice" by Republican Senator Jim Risch and branded "fatally flawed" by Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who oversaw the end of the U.S. surge in Afghanistan during President Obama's tenure, likened the evacuation to the infamous Bay of Pigs fiasco, even before the tragic loss of 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans in an ISIS attack. Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who less than one year earlier had proudly stood for a photo op with the Taliban's chief negotiator, after agreeing to withdraw U.S. troops, told Fox News that the "Biden administration has just failed in its execution of its own plan." In April, the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board partly attributed Russia's invasion of Ukraine to "U.S. surrender in Afghanistan" and during a Congressional hearing in July, Congressman Michael McCaul labeled the withdrawal "a mistake of epic proportions." Failure is, indeed, an orphan.One of the most frequently cited reasons for why the U.S. military had to remain in Afghanistan was rooted in counterterrorism efforts. Indeed, fighting terrorism was the reason for the authorization for the use of military force that allowed U.S. troops to be deployed to Afghanistan in the first place. President Biden drew criticism from certain pundits when he asserted on August 16, 2021, that "Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on [sic] American homeland." He emphasized that the original mission was, in fact, a response to a terrorist attack and had a primary focus on counterterrorism. Some pundits might find this fact inconvenient, especially those who have come to believe that our presence in Afghanistan was primarily about nation-building, rather than acknowledging that nation-building itself was an ill-conceived strategy within the context of the War on Terror. In the lead-up to the withdrawal, the notion of over-the-horizon counterterrorism capabilities was often ridiculed as ineffective. During the fall of 2021, the Pentagon assessed that the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP), an ISIS offshoot in Afghanistan, could potentially launch an attack on the U.S. within as little as 6 months. Yet, nearly two years later, no ISKP attack originating from Afghanistan has targeted U.S. soil. Furthermore, senior analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) recently evaluated that the group relies on "inexperienced operatives in Europe" to carry out attacks abroad. In other words, the next generation of 9/11 hijackers is not being trained in Afghanistan. The Biden administration showcased its ability to secure significant over-the-horizon victories against terrorists, such as when a U.S. drone killed al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in a Kabul apartment on July 31, 2022. As of last March, Nicholas Rasmussen, the Department of Homeland Security's counterterrorism coordinator, viewed the likelihood of a 9/11-style attack as "almost inconceivable." The world of today is different than on the morning of September 11, 2001. Back then, Afghans had extremely limited communication with the outside world. In contrast, today, over 60 percent of adults own a cell phone, with more than 80 percent having access to one. This trend holds true for other once-isolated parts of the world as well. This connectivity will pose challenges to the Taliban's ability to enforce their draconian restrictions over the long-run. It has also changed the way terrorists operate. In the realm of terrorism, the world is indeed flat. Extremist ideologies can be disseminated, and terrorists can recruit overseas operatives to inflict harm. But this may not be such a big win for terrorist groups like ISKP. While their capacity for recruitment is more substantial than in the past, their ability to train and direct quality recruits without interference is actually diminished. Meanwhile, the capacity of potential target nations to intercept such plots is stronger than ever before. Instead of participating in a global campaign of terrorist whack-a-mole, it is our domestic defenses that are best positioned to protect the homeland. This isn't meant to downplay the potential of ungoverned spaces to serve as breeding grounds for adept and motivated terrorists. However, concerning the case of Afghanistan, NCTC analysts concluded that the Taliban's activities have "prevented the branch [ISKP] from seizing territory that it could use to draw in and train foreign recruits for more sophisticated attacks."While it's true that terrorism can be managed and nation-building wasn't the purpose of going to war, it was still shocking for many Americans to witness the swift collapse of a government that so many U.S. lives, tax dollars, and lives of our Afghan partners had contributed to building. One reason for the astonishment shared by lawmakers, media, and the American public over the evacuation debacle, the vanishing of Afghan security forces, and the hasty departure of the Ghani administration, stems from a steady flow of falsehoods regarding the war. Rather than a deliberate effort of intentional deceit, it was more of a collective exercise in self-deception, omission, and hopeful exaggeration. As the U.S. war in Afghanistan trudged onward, a carefully curated liturgy of talking points was repeated in Washington. Our leaders were well aware that Afghanistan was an archipelago of cut-off cities and forward operating bases, while the Taliban dominated the countryside, roads, and the night. It was no secret that Ashraf Ghani was surrounded by a circle of sycophantic advisors. The economy was sustained by a continuous flow of aid and war-related industries. Yet, speaking candidly about this was rare until after the Afghan government collapsed.A cognitive dissonance made it acceptable for U.S. lawmakers, foreign elites, military-aged men who had fled their conflict-ridden countries, and even human rights organizations to not only call for the perpetual deployment of American soldiers but to claim we owed such a commitment. Of course, the U.S. military was more than enthusiastic to oblige. And for soldiers, there is an unrelenting desire and pressure to deploy. I too volunteered to deploy. However, the enthusiasm of young warfighters shouldn't grant a blank check for putting them in harm's way.Since the U.S. withdrawal, unsettling truths emerged. Although tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice, when push came to shove — even before the Americans' departure — Afghan forces fell to the Taliban. Their supplies ran out and corrupt leaders in Kabul left them to die or surrender. The strongman warlords, elevated by Washington and summoned by Ashraf Ghani to save the republic, fled to neighboring countries. Over the years, the Taliban were dismissed as a proxy of Pakistan, disconnected from Afghan society, yet, it was the Afghan government, created through an international conference in Bonn, Germany, and supported with billions of U.S. aid, that failed to inspire Afghans to fight for its survival at a crucial moment. Many observers, myself included, were confident that Afghans would fiercely resist the Taliban and the country would rapidly descend into civil war. The country has instead fallen into a haunting silence.One prediction that has come true is the dire situation for women under the Taliban's rule that can only be described as gender apartheid. They have progressively restricted girls'and women's right to education, closed gathering places and livelihoods like beauty parlors, and even banned women from a national park. Their actions seem more driven by an obsession with control of every aspect of women's lives than religious doctrine. Additionally, the Taliban have stifled dissent and used torture against rivals. We must confront these harsh realities and take meaningful actions, but we must also avoid making promises we cannot fulfill, both for the sake of Afghans and our own credibility.Today, Afghanistan is not at war for the first time in twenty years, with violent deaths decreasing from well over 20,000 per year in the years leading up to the U.S. withdrawal to under 2,000 last year. The country hasn't turned into a narco-state. The Taliban also haven't abandoned their extremist beliefs, disavowed al-Qaeda, or restrained the Pakistani Taliban. However, their current focus seems to be inward on Afghanistan. The Afghan economy is struggling, partly due to Taliban mismanagement, though it doesn't appear to be much worse than the previous government at management, and their corruption seems to be less. Their cruelty, however, seems unfailing.It's worth reflecting on why so many of our predictions were inaccurate. The U.S. facilitated Afghanistan's development, but it also prolonged the war. Now, Taliban rule and the isolation it creates has plunged Afghans into deeper poverty and created a nightmare for women, a bargain from hell, created by Washington and its partners in Kabul, but that ultimately can only be resolved by Afghans themselves.

New York City, Dec. 21, 2023.

The attacks on Sweden's laissez faire approach were shortsighted, says the Cato Institute senior fellow.

This amuses:A string of offshore wind projects meant to power Britain are in jeopardy after the global race to net zero sent costs soaring, casting doubt over the industry's future as a cheap source of energy.A surge in supply chain costs has pushed up the price of wind turbines, while increases in global interest rates have raised refinancing costs substantially.Ah, so that terribly cheap wind power isn't, in fact, cheap. The reason why is obvious and no, it's not supply chains. It's the price of money.The vast majority of wind farm costs are upfront. Capital costs that is, which are then paid back over the operating lifetime. To be crude about it, the cashflow from the last 18 months (or whatever) of the 15 year installation is the profit, everything that comes before it is just paying back the capital plus interest. When interest rates rise that 18 months becomes 12 and 6 and negative 12 and so on.The basic financial economics is exactly the same for solar - the costs are near entirely upfront meaning that interest rate changes hugely change the viability of an installation. This just is so. Therefore we're going to see shrieking that something must be done. We've actually already seen it being floated, the idea that there should be some special - lower - interest rate for green projects. No, there shouldn't be, for we're already including all those externality costs of fossil fuels in the other things - carbon permits, etc - that we're doing. To then insist upon lower interest rates is double counting - or double subsidy. But there will be those calls, we guarantee it. It is after this that we make our prediction. For that basic fiscal set up is also shared by nuclear. High upfront costs, low running costs, the real determinant of the cost of the entire project being the interest rate applied. So, logically, if we are to have a special low interest rate for wind and solar then we should for nuclear. And we will not.Which is the prediction - we will be told we must have low interest rates for 15 year wind projects, for 20 year solar and not for 50 year nuclear. And that is how we will know they are lying.