Dean Baker's Blog, page 139

Protectionism in the Age of Trump: The Case of Dentists

Dentists are apparently among the group of workers who lack the skills necessary to compete in the modern economy, who then turn to the government to protect their jobs and wages. This is in effect the story told in this Washington Post news article about the power of the American Dental Association (ADA).

The piece focuses on the ADA's efforts to block other professionals from doing work that is now done by dentists. While the piece doesn't mention this fact, the ADA also blocks foreign trai...

Bret Stephens Doesn't Understand Inflation or Is a Liar

I'm not sure which it is since I never met the guy, but it really is tiresome to see people try to pass off as a serious argument on health care something that anyone with any knowledge on the topic knows to be false. In a column touting the virtues of health savings accounts, so that we can all do comparison shopping for our colonoscopies, Stephens pronounced Obamacare a failure.

He notes the high rate increases in the last two years for insurance plans offered on the exchanges (ignoring the...

Minimum Wage Wars: The Media Celebrate Job Loss

There has probably never been a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper that produced as much glee in the media as last week's report showing that Seattle's minimum wage law may have led to a net loss in wages for low wage workers. According to the analysis, there was a reduction in average hours worked among those in the low wage labor market that more than offset the gain in wages. The result was a net loss in wages for exactly the group of people the law was intended to benefit....

The Washington Post Wants You to Worry About Less Crowded Roads and Beaches

That seems to be the case in an article on the recent drop in fertility rates that warns:

"If the trend (lower fertility) continues — and experts disagree on whether it will — the country could face economic and cultural turmoil."

That is more than a bit hard to see. If we do see a sustained drop in the fertility rate it will mean that eventually we will have higher rates of retirees to workers, assume no offsetting increase in immigration or an increase in labor force participation by eith...

Yet Another Piece on Jobs Lost Because Employers Don't Know How to Raise Wages

Just kidding, we know that newspapers don't make a point of running stories on incompetent bosses. Instead we have Obama administration car czar Steve Rattner telling us in a NYT column that manufacturers are not hiring because they can't get qualified workers. His evidence is data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey which shows a rise in job openings reported in manufacturing, but little increase in hires. Rattner says that this is because firms can't...

Central Bankers Seem Seriously Confused About Robots and the Economy

I suppose that is their natural state. After all, they completely missed the housing bubble and then somehow expected the economy would bounce right back even though there was nothing to replace the demand generated by the bubble. Anyhow, at least according to this NYT article, they are very confused about the course of technology.

There are two big issues that the piece implies the bankers are missing. First, contrary to the concern of massive job displacement by robots, productivity growth...

Thomas Friedman Whines About His Lost TPP

Thomas Friedman, who is legendary for his boldly stated wrong assertions, got into the game again making absurd claims about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the great loss the U.S. suffers from it going down. Friedman tells readers:

"It was not only the largest free-trade agreement in history, it was the best ever for U.S. workers, closing loopholes Nafta had left open. TPP included restrictions on foreign state-owned enterprises that dumped subsidized products into our markets, inte...

The Meaning of Republican "Cuts" to Medicaid

Realizing the unpopularity of their health care plan, the Republicans are now playing games with the word "cut," to deny that their proposal would lead to large cuts in Medicaid spending over the next decade and beyond. The NYT ran a piece that ostensibly was intended to clarify the issue, but likely left readers more confused than they had been previously. The piece tells readers:

"At issue is whether the funding changes should be compared to the increases that would occur under current law...

The Republican Clown Show on Health Care

The New York Times reported this afternoon that Senate Republicans have now altered their health care bill to include a provision that would penalize people who opt not to buy insurance. According to the article, people who go more than two months without insurance will have to wait six months for a new policy to take effect after they buy it.

This is an entirely reasonable change since it prevents the obvious problem that many people would have opted to game the system without a provision li...

Can We Get Some Real Intelligence to Talk About Artificial Intelligence

The NYT gave us yet another piece telling us that Donald Trump is right about his growth projections and that the Congressional Budget Office is wrong. The piece, by Kai-Fu Lee, the chairman and chief executive of Sinovation Ventures, a venture capital firm, and the president of its Artificial Intelligence Institute, tells readers that we are about to see mass displacement of jobs due to the spread of artificial intelligence (AI).

This mass displacement has another name, it's called "producti...