Dean Baker's Blog, page 164

Health Care Spending as Share of GDP Under Obama: One Year Makes a Difference

Folks looking at the NYT charts comparing the nation's performance by various measures under President Bush and President Obama may be misled by the health care chart. The chart shows health care spending as a share of GDP rising from 14.0 percent in 2001 to 16.3 percent in 2008, which it describes as the "Bush years." It shows a further increase to 18.1 percent in 2016, which are the "Obama years." By this measure we see a modest slowing of health care cost growth as a share of GDP, with a r...

Davos Man Is a Neanderthal Protectionist

The NYT had an article on the annual meeting of the world's super-rich at Davos, Switzerland. It refers to Davos Man as "an economic elite who built unheard-of fortunes on the seemingly high-minded notions of free trade, low taxes and low regulation that they championed." While "Davos Man" may like to be described this way, it is not an accurate description.

Davos Man is actually totally supportive of protectionism that redistributes income upward. In particular Davos Man supports stronger an...

Headline Repair Service: Food Stamp Households Do Not Disproportionately Consume Soft Drinks

This is what the NYT article and the underlying study both concluded. While families on food stamps did spend a somewhat larger share of their food budget on soft drinks and other unhealthy foods, there was not a big difference in their behavior compared with families not receiving food stamps. The headline likely gave readers the opposite impression, telling readers:

"In the shopping cart of a food stamp household: lots of soda."

Come on folks, try to have your headlines reflect what the art...

David Brooks Hasn't Heard of the Affordable Care Act

David Brooks has apparently not heard of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) since he thinks he is providing new information in telling readers that markets can work in health care. If he was familiar with the law, then he would realize that the ACA was quite explicitly designed with the idea that patients should share in costs, and therefore have incentives to seek lower cost care.

As a practical matter, this has not worked out very well, since patients tend not to do comparative shopping for heal...

Amazon and Sales Tax

The NYT devoted an article to Amazon's plans for building out its warehouse network and managed to completely avoid any reference to Amazon's efforts to avoid having to collect sales tax. For years Amazon pursued a strategy of trying not to maintain a physical presence in states so that it could argue that it did not have collect sales tax. This effectively gave Amazon an enormous taxpayer subsidy at the expense of conventional retailers.

Jeff Bezos has effectively been handed millions of yea...

Weak Labor Market: President Obama Hides Behind Automation

It really is shameful how so many people, who certainly should know better, argue that automation is the factor depressing the wages of large segments of the workforce and that education (i.e. blame the ignorant workers) is the solution. President Obama takes center stage in this picture since he said almost exactly this in his farewell address earlier in the week. This misconception is repeated in a Claire Cain Miller's NYT column today. Just about every part of the story is wrong.

Starting...

China Does Know How to Reduce Its Trade Deficit

An NYT article on Robert Lighthizer, Donald Trump's pick to be trade representative, left out some important background information. It notes that Lighthizer wants to reduce the size of the U.S. trade deficit with China. It then told readers that this could lead to major conflicts with China:

"Exports are important for China. It consistently sells $4 worth of goods to the United States for each $1 of imports. That mismatch has produced a bilateral trade surplus for China equal to about 3 per...

Great Ironies of History #23,453: Supporters of China's Entry to WTO Now Argue for TPP as Bulwark Against China

As the protectionist supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) desperately try to regroup, it's entertaining to see how they think that China-bashing is their best hope for success. (Yes, supporters of the TPP are protectionist. A major thrust of the deal is to impose longer and stronger patent and copyright and related protections on the member countries. These are by definition forms of protectionism, even if economists and reporters tend to like them.)

Anyhow, we got an example of...

Does NYT Require Reporters to Needlessly Add "Free" to References to Trade Policy?

Reporters always complain about not having enough space to give the full story, which makes it a mystery as to why they so frequently add the word "free" to references to trade policy. We got an example of this wasteful wordiness in a NYT article on Donald Trump's decision to ignore nepotism and conflict-of-interest rules and appoint his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a top adviser.

The piece told readers that Kushner, along with other responsibilities, would work on "matters involving free trad...

Does NYT Require Reporters to Needless Add "Free" to References to Trade Policy?

Reporters always complain about not having enough space to give the full story, which makes it a mystery as to why they so frequently add the word "free" to references to trade policy. We got an example of this wasteful wordiness in a NYT article on Donald Trump's decision to ignore nepotism and conflict-of-interest rules and appoint his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a top adviser.

The piece told readers that Kushner, along with other responsibilities, would work on "matters involving free trad...