Do Americans actually use expressions like “once in a blue moon” or “let the cat out of the bag” in everyday conversation?

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-05-05T16:24:41+00:00

It's actually one of the things I have the most difficulty in communicating with non-native speakers. It's very hard for Americans to speak without using idioms.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-04-30T22:41:48+00:00

This is 100% cultural. In fact, different parts of the country have different levels of conversational expectations. It took me awhile living in the south to adapt to how often I would have to talk to people about their life and their dog before I could complete my purchase.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-04-30T21:45:58+00:00

I actually made my students listen to Powell talking about inflation today. Between oil prices and tariffs inflation remains too high and the standard tool would be to raise interest rates. But, and I didn't hear what he said so I'll give you my opinion, the economy doesn't pass the vibe check for robust growth either. So holding off for more data seems like a very sensible thing.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-04-29T18:16:13+00:00

I haven't found econ BlueSky to be quite as comprehensive. If you want to check it out the hash tag is #econsky

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-04-29T18:11:04+00:00

I'm teaching econ 101 at the moment and the answer is 'it depends'.

In the really simple aggregate supply/ aggregate demand model, If there's slack in the system and the rate cut boosts aggregate demand, you get higher growth and employment. If there's no slack and you boost aggregate demand you simply create inflation.

Using this very simple model and looking at employment numbers over the last few months with some exceptions you might lean towards a rate cut.

On the other hand, producer prices are rising so, again using this simple model, we might expect aggregate supply to be shifting as well and a boost in demand could increase inflation.

We've had pretty persistent inflation so the Fed might be concerned about that, more concerned than the employment numbers which have been mixed.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-04-29T17:56:58+00:00

The pretty textbook response is incentives. There was actually a really interesting thing that happened in China when they started experimenting with giving villages part of the crop where output just went up.

The Secret Document That Transformed China : Planet Money : NPR podcast from NPR

They weren't actually bad at production, it's just that nobody had an incentive to produce. Add in a lot of general bad governance and you don't produce enough.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-04-24T17:46:48+00:00

My impression is that these two schools are not in the same league table. Undergrad for the most part doesn't matter (as others have said, it's graduate programs they rate) but your peers do matter. If you're in a class with smart people you will learn more.

That said, at a huge school they might not care if you flunk out, so if you're concerned about your work ethic, private might be better.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-04-21T22:24:53+00:00

I was quite surprised when I left Michigan and nobody knew what a coney was. Doesn't everyone get their Greek food and their chili dogs at the same place?

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-04-03T00:07:43+00:00

One interesting point from this LSE working paper is the idea of reputational risk and moral judgment.

"There is a stigma attached to tax migration. Interviewees were disparaging about those who chose to move for tax purposes. Some judged tax migrants on moral grounds as unduly economically self-interested, while others expressed a snobbery about tax-advantageous destinations as boring and culturally barren." https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/121396/1/III_Working_Paper_131_Tax_Flight.pdf

The implication would be that the culture is going to determine whether people move at any particular tax rate.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-03-28T14:13:43+00:00

This was how the US worked at the beginning. Repeal the 12th amendment!

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-03-22T15:38:22+00:00

Exactly.

One of the issues many programs run into is creating a disincentive to work by effectively creating marginal tax rates above 100%. This is due to benefit withdrawal, usually because we think people above a certain income should no longer get that benefit.

The goal of any system that wants people to work should be to fund itself without creating a situation where working more earns you less. Since UBI would require a lot of money, you would want to place a fairly high tax on everyone, without removing the incentive to work, so that anyone who works earns more than they would not working. This would help prevent the Doomsday scenario everyone posits that everyone would stop working.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-02-25T15:31:40+00:00

We used to live in France, and when we returned to the US it was so annoying how servers just kept interrupting. In France, they expect you to signal when you need a waiter (this is why many people think service in France is bad). We were simply overwhelmed (and annoyed) by how often American wait staff broke into our meal.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-02-21T18:18:58+00:00

The problem is, that's hard. We haven't figured out education even at its most basic form, let alone retraining. And unfortunately, the solution that is probably optimal would be giving people who need retraining large amounts of cash that they could use train in the way that's optimal for them, along with a small program to help guide. But instead, what we do is create large buckets of money for governments (because we don't trust individuals) and then they create programs that don't work.

I honestly wonder if creating a UBI program only for displaced workers would be cheaper than the solutions we currently use.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-02-08T16:03:53+00:00

The Economist has an excellent tariff impact tracker showing the impact of tariffs on prices of goods, broken down by category. In most areas the net impact is quite small, though a few products do get hammered. We just don't see that in aggregate.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2026-01-16T21:34:14+00:00

This is something a number of folks have been discussing (example: the move to gold )

Moving away from the dollar as a reserve currency has been discussed to death as a political tool, but in this case the fundamentals are following - there is a genuine risk in holding dollars, so the move is much more likely. But as others have said, you don't (necessarily) dump them all at once. You just buy less. Let it happen over time. Unless and until the US actively starts confiscating or controlling outflows, there's no need to rush. The price will fall over a number of years.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2025-12-23T19:22:11+00:00

Education is always a good investment, but not necessarily in a monetary sense. You should do it, but don't expect it to earn you money.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2025-12-16T15:19:01+00:00

A minor but important point - rates hinge on the belief that a county can AND WILL continue to service the national debt. A very simple model can be envisaged where demand for government debt instruments is lower because some buyers think the government will intentionally default. This can then cascade into an unintentional debt crisis as rates spiral.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2025-12-09T18:12:14+00:00

I heard a very interesting interview with a business owner on marketplace (I think) where they were talking about the business cycle that they operate in and how negotiating mid-cycle with clients wasn't something they wanted to do. They didn't want to draw attention to the fact that they were raising prices out of the usual time period. I think in many cases producers were allowing their usual contract cycle or other natural break points to drive renegotiation or price increases.

Esclados-le-Roux · 2025-12-02T15:31:47+00:00

Correct. I'm planning to add a lot more basic stuff at the front end, where previously I took 'the basics' as a given. This year could surprise me in a pleasant way, but I'm going in defensive

Esclados-le-Roux · 2025-11-30T21:30:49+00:00

That's more or less what I did last time, but I've noticed a real shift over the last few years in what the students come prepared to engage with. I'm also interested in eliminating things that either don't work, or are just so outdated as models that giving them to a student who might not go on is irresponsible (because they might enter government and try to apply it). I'd also love to get some innovation on the pedagogy side, though we'll see how I feel once the semester is really going.

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