Bernanke on the Taylor rule

The first two-thirds of my yearlong macro sequence in grad school was team-taught. Half of the classes were taught by Bob Hall. Hall is brilliant, but quirky, and overall he was not a very inspiring teacher. He shared the duties with a young fellow named Ben Bernanke. Bernanke was rigorous, clear, and practical-minded. An excellent teacher. These qualities are still apparent in his post-Fed Chair gig as a blogger. His latest post, on the Taylor rule, is exemplary. Sure, he's not a disinterested party when it comes to assessing recent Federal Reserve policy. But he is clear, careful, and fair. There are two main takeaways for me. First, Bernanke does a splendid job distinguishing between the Taylor rule as a statistical description of how the Fed has set policy in the past, and the Taylor rule as a potential normative guideline for setting optimal Fed policy now and in the future. Second, he shows that the normative advice that follows from applying the Taylor rule to current economic conditions is rather sensitive to certain key assumptions and parameters, on which reasonable people can disagree. For Bernanke, a rigid rule cannot replace considered discretion on the part of Fed policy makers.

Red Hills

In retrospect I would have enjoyed my visit to the Red Hills a lot more had I better calibrated my expectations. Anticipating a vivid display of unusual spring wildflowers, I instead encountered a rugged, rather hostile terrain, dominated by a monoculture of pine and buckbrush, with a fair-to-middling bloom of poppies and clarkia, in pockets here and there. What I should have appreciated more was the stark beauty of that terrain... I see that now in my photos. Tips to visitors: (1) The trails are poorly marked. Bring a map and compass, and plenty of water. (2) It was 90 degrees on an April afternoon. Did I say bring plenty of water? I did, and I was glad for it.

Very big trees

I played hooky Monday and Tuesday and spent a night camping at Calaveras Big Trees State Park, and did some hiking in the general vicinity. My main objective was actually to see the spring wildflowers in the foothills... in particular the Red Hills Area of Critical Environmental Concern (!), a Bureau of Land Management property near Chinese Camp, CA. More about that in the next post. Meanwhile, some highlights from Big Trees...

Calaveras Big Trees SP preserves a couple of fine stands of giant sequoia. After I arrived in the late afternoon I took the longer hike to the more pristine South Grove, home to the park's largest sequoias. I had the grove entirely to myself. Ditto for my early morning stroll through the more accessible North Grove, adjacent to the park's headquarters and visitors center. In other words: If you have some desire to experience these extraordinary places in complete solitude, go on a weekday off season. I would not characterize myself as a spiritual person, but wonderment is something I am capable of, and you get it here.

Calaveras was privately owned for a period, and the dudes who ran the operation committed some "atrocities." They felled one of the largest specimens and made the resulting log into a bar and bowling alley. When you see the stump today there is some wonderment at how much trouble they went to in the mid 1800s to cut down such a behemoth. Essentially they attacked the thing with an auger, repeatedly drilling holes until they had hollowed out a slice, and it toppled.

Another giant(ess), the Mother of the Forest, some 2500+ years old, was stripped of its bark, which killed the tree in short order. The corpse is still standing. The bark was shipped around to various exhibitions, where it was reassembled to provide onlookers some idea of the enormity of these trees. Such pillaging is unimaginable to us now, but I have mixed feelings. Humans are collectively, for better or worse, the planet's stewards, and they can have no desire to steward what they cannot imagine or conceive. Aside from pure preservation from extinction, this is our best defense of zoos. If a traveling exhibition inspired people to value these trees and their habitat, well, perhaps the Mother died not in vain.

I have never seen a photo of a sequoia that does justice to the experience of the mammoth ancient thing in person, so I'll stick to the sideshow. Late afternoon and early morning brought slanting light, which illuminated the blossoming and leafing dogwoods against the dark hulks of the big trees. The bugs were out (photo 3), and with them the birds.

They still have asparagus in Florida...

Asparagus season may be over in California, but it's still thriving in Florida, where the spears grow a lot bigger. Here's Dad standing next to this year's crop... hoping to win first prize at the Marion County Fair...

Pessimism is the new optimism

Eduardo Porter on inequality and the frayed safety net:

That is, perhaps, the best reason for hope. The silver lining in these dismal, if abstract, statistics, is that they portend such a dysfunctional future that our broken political system might finally be forced to come together to prevent it.

The last asparagus of spring

Asparagus is my favorite vegetable, and most years we have excellent organic asparagus into early summer and beyond at the local farmers' market. Not so this year. Maybe it's the drought, or maybe the mild winter. I'm thinking the latter, considering that we already have organic California zucchini appearing at the market. Not a bad consolation.

Very funny

The President has excellent writers... only a few of the jokes fell flat. But stand-up is half jokes, half delivery. And his delivery is near-professional quality. Not to mention a very nice assist from Mr. Key. How Barack kept a straight face through that little duet is beyond me...

Hunters Point...

... is a scruffy industrial and low-income section of rapidly gentrifying San Francisco. The old naval shipyard barracks at the Bay's edge are now home to one of the country's largest artists' communities. We checked out their open studios today. I wasn't quite ready to shell out a couple thousand for one of Jenny Robinson's exquisite, large-scale monotype / drypoint prints, but I was really tempted.