What will be the next economic reform gimmick policy to catch on in the U.S.?

[Benjamin Frank]

Biden has already signaled it: buy American made for all (federal) public works projects.

I'm not sure how that squares with free trade agreements, but I don't think it's malarkey.

Even if Trump is reelected, there seems to be overwhelming bipartisan support for this populist nonsense.

[Benjamin Frank]

Trying to build a classification for these ideas is a fool's errand, but I'm gonna try.

Neat little proposals that Europeans/East Asians/most of the developed world has thought of but is just completely alien to Americans: Short work/technical unemployment/Wage Guarantee Fund, paid sick leave*, subsidized childcare, the Biden buy American public works project(??)

Revolutionary for Americans but existent in other countries: Medicare For All (single-payer or other form of UHC), Federal Jobs Guarantee, Land Value Tax (in its full Georgist form, either as a single tax or in countries like Singapore or Hong Kong** where land can only be leased from the government)

Sweeping ways of thinking: MMT, Universal Basic Income (both in its libertarian negative tax conception or in a sci-fi post-scarcity fully automated luxury space communist forms), the Green New Deal, One Billion Americans

* wait no, that's just a common policy, Samof94 must've been trolling

** not 100% clear if that's how it actually works in those two examples

The Single Tax/Land Value Tax is hardly new though it's deservedly fringe, as its inventor, Henry George, lived from 1839-1897.

I agree with others here on universal health care, it's hardly a gimmick.

[Benjamin Frank]

Not anytime soon. Inflation remains low and almost unaffected by this year.

The proponents of zero inflation have traditionally said that low rates of inflation are the second best option, but there are some very authoritative economists who prefer zero inflation.

Zero inflation is a silly idea.  In addition to whatever costs there might be of trying to achieve it i.e there might be increasing marginal costs of going from 1% inflation to 0.5% to 0%, not only is there no benefit to it, there are practical reasons for a low inflation rate.

Given the stickiness of wages, a low inflation rate allows a firm in some trouble a few years to sort out problems.  With an inflation rate of 0%, this firm would need to lower wages or lay off staff likely causing dissent among employees, with an inflation rate of 2% per annum, although it is the 'real' same thing, simply not increasing wages doesn't have the same negative psychological impact for two or three years before many employees start feeling 'really' poorer.

Of course, this may depend on what components make up the inflation increases.  If it's rent, food or energy, the decrease in wages in real terms might be noticed right away.  It still might not have the same negative psychological impact as seeing a $ decrease in wages though.

[Benjamin Frank]

Then they are ivory tower idiots of the sort who thought bimetalism could work.

It has been repeatedly shown that it impossible to fix any economic value at a constant, so it is impossible to achieve sustained zero inflation. Moreover, any attempt to achieve such a thing is likely to bring about deflation which is far more damaging to economies than modest inflation. Yes, we do need to guard against hyperinflation, but deflation is at least as poisonous. Whatever the theoretical benefits of zero inflation might be, they are unachievable in reality.

Essentially zero inflation could become reality through a series of Fed targets. The GDP’s immediate decline would be 6%. But an annual permanent dividend of 1% would result, with a present GDP value of at least thirty percent.

See:
Martin Feldstein, Capital Income Taxes and the Benefits of Price Stability
Narayana Kocherlakota and Harold Cole, Zero Nominal Interest Rates: Why They’re Good and How To Get Them

What are (some of) the assumptions behind this modeling?

[Benjamin Frank]

Then they are ivory tower idiots of the sort who thought bimetalism could work.

It has been repeatedly shown that it impossible to fix any economic value at a constant, so it is impossible to achieve sustained zero inflation. Moreover, any attempt to achieve such a thing is likely to bring about deflation which is far more damaging to economies than modest inflation. Yes, we do need to guard against hyperinflation, but deflation is at least as poisonous. Whatever the theoretical benefits of zero inflation might be, they are unachievable in reality.

Essentially zero inflation could become reality through a series of Fed targets. The GDP’s immediate decline would be 6%. But an annual permanent dividend of 1% would result, with a present GDP value of at least thirty percent.

See:
Martin Feldstein, Capital Income Taxes and the Benefits of Price Stability
Narayana Kocherlakota and Harold Cole, Zero Nominal Interest Rates: Why They’re Good and How To Get Them

What are (some of) the assumptions behind this modeling?

You can find freely available PDFs of both papers on regional Federal Reserve Bank websites by googling the titles. I didn't bother looking in detail at the econobabble in either paper because they both presume policy makers would have perfect information about the macroeconomy and don't even bother to look at what happens under typical measurement errors for the current state of the economy. Granted, that would heavily complicate things, even assuming we'd be able to accurately judge what typical errors are and accurately determine the results of making policy decisions with imperfect information.

Problem is, historical results don't jive with the assumptions of these brief papers, effectively making them GIGO, even if the econobabble that tries to predict what happens if their assumptions are true is otherwise without error.

Yes, I agree.  I was just trying to point out that all economic models, especially those based on mathematical calculations predicting the future, have built into them myriad assumptions.  So, if these studies show a 1% per year increase in GDP (or whatever the number was) where did the numbers come from that formulated this calculation.  What assumptions were behind the numbers?

I don't dismiss all economic forecasting, it depends on how far out they go and on how speculative they are, but with something this hypothetical, I think the calculations of future benefit need to be regarded with a great deal of skepticism.  

That is, of course, if it were even possible outside of academic models.  As you have correctly pointed out here, the Federal Reserve can not mandate zero inflation as if by waving a magic wand. They can have a zero inflation target, but from what the modeling posted here claims, it seems that it requires actual guaranteed zero inflation and not a zero percent target to achieve the hypothetical benefit.

[Benjamin Frank]

Trying to build a classification for these ideas is a fool's errand, but I'm gonna try.

Neat little proposals that Europeans/East Asians/most of the developed world has thought of but is just completely alien to Americans: Short work/technical unemployment/Wage Guarantee Fund, paid sick leave*, subsidized childcare, the Biden buy American public works project(??)

Revolutionary for Americans but existent in other countries: Medicare For All (single-payer or other form of UHC), Federal Jobs Guarantee, Land Value Tax (in its full Georgist form, either as a single tax or in countries like Singapore or Hong Kong** where land can only be leased from the government)

Sweeping ways of thinking: MMT, Universal Basic Income (both in its libertarian negative tax conception or in a sci-fi post-scarcity fully automated luxury space communist forms), the Green New Deal, One Billion Americans

* wait no, that's just a common policy, Samof94 must've been trolling

** not 100% clear if that's how it actually works in those two examples

The Single Tax/Land Value Tax is hardly new though it's deservedly fringe, as its inventor, Henry George, lived from 1839-1897.

I agree with others here on universal health care, it's hardly a gimmick.

It is not fringe and does not deserve to be fringe. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Pennsylvania, and other jurisdictions have taxes on land. Perhaps it would be more prevalent if wealthy land owners and speculators didn't oppose it.

??

There are property taxes all over.  The single tax is not just a land tax, it's meant to be the only tax, hence the name.  Property taxes make sense, but not as the sole tax.