Dean Baker's Blog, page 169

Yes Folks, Trade Does Affect Manufacturing Employment

You need not be a fan of Donald Trump to say that trade has had a big impact on manufacturing jobs, you really just need to be someone in the reality-based community. Unfortunately, a lot of people who should, and probably do, know better are insisting that trade is not a big deal. The story is that we lost the jobs due to productivity growth, not trade.

There are three points worth making here. The first is a simple logical one, we have a trade deficit of around $500 billion a year, a bit le...

Steve Rattner Argues for More Protectionism in NYT

Steve Rattner had a column on Donald Trump's deal to keep 1000 jobs at the Carrier air conditioner factory in Indiana in the country. The column argues against imposing tariff barriers that would protect manufacturing workers, but ignores the protectionist barriers that inflate the wages of doctors and other highly paid professionals.

The United States prohibits foreign doctors, even those with top quality health care systems like Germany and Netherlands, from practicing in the United States...

Auto Dealers Arranging Loans Are Not Covered by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

This is an important point that would have been worth including in this NYT article on the growing risks in the subprime car loan market. The lack of oversight from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is likely a major reason that bad lending practices persist in this area.

Note: I corrected the title to make it more accurate. The loans themselves are covered by the CFPB, the arrangements and discussions by dealers explaining the terms of the loan are not. Thanks to Robert Sa...

Econ 101 for NYT Reporters: Unauthorized Copies Are Not Necessarily Counterfeit

The NYT had a major article focused on a Chinese man who makes his living by exposing retailers for selling unauthorized versions of clothes, shoes, and other retail products. His income comes from the government, which rewards people who find unauthorized copies of products being sold in stores. The article repeatedly refers to these items as "counterfeit." This is inaccurate.

While all the items noted in the piece are in principle being sold without the consent of the named manufacturer, ma...

Ross Douthat Says that Trump Voters Were Motivated by Imaginary Concerns

He may not have intended to say that Trump voters were driven by illusions, but that is effectively what he wrote. His column warned Democrats that they have to move right to get more political support:

"some of the Trumpian (and pre-Trumpian) backlash against liberalism in white working-class communities was associated with welfare programs — disability rolls, food stamps, Medicaid — that seem to effectively underwrite worklessness at a time of social disarray. It would not require Democrats...

Andrew Ross Sorkin's Joke Letter to Trump: He Has to Sell the Stuff

Donald Trump is about to become president and immediately begin violating the constitution. The constitution explicitly prohibits the president from taking payments and gifts from foreign governments. (Can we stop using the term "emolument"? No one has used it for a hundred years. We want to be clear on what the constitution means.)

Donald Trump is right now and will continue to be taking payments and gifts from foreign governments in the form of benefits to his properties, unless he dumps th...

NYT's Misleading Tale on Lost West Virginia Mining Jobs

The NYT had an interesting piece on the hopes that West Virginians placed on the ability of Donald Trump to bring back jobs to the state. However a comment on the loss of mining jobs under President Obama may have misled readers.

The piece noted:

"Coal has always been boom and bust; its decline began long before Mr. Obama took office. But in West Virginia alone, 12,000 coal industry jobs have been lost during his tenure."

While this is true, the start of the Obama administration was a tempora...

Robert Samuelson Does the Problem with Men Story

Hey, why should he be left out? He repeats the story about prime age (ages 25–54) men dropping out of the workforce. As noted here before, since 2000 there has been a comparable drop in employment rates for prime-age women. It is important to add in this respect that employment rates for women had been rising before 2000 and were almost universally expected to continue to rise. In other words, there is a simple story where the drop in both men and women's employment rates is due to a weak lab...

Quick Lesson on Silliness of Concerns Over Government Debt

In Washington there are two sure ways to get rich: you can work as a corporate lobbyist or you can work with a Peter Peterson funded organization and whine about government debt. The Peterson Foundation, along with its allies at the Washington Post and other media outlets, have long worked to fan irrational fears about government debt just as Donald Trump and othe demagogues have fanned racism and xenophobia. One small positive of a Donald Trump presidency is that it may provide a teachable m...

Is the NYT Trying to Explain Republican Medicare Plan or Disguise It

Suppose a candidate proposed ending the U.S. commitment to NATO. Based on this NYT article on Republican plans to privatize Medicare, the headline would probably tell readers that the candidate wanted to "change" U.S. involvement with NATO.

In fact, as readers of the article will discover, Republicans want to replace Medicare's commitment to provide seniors with insurance that covers most of their health care costs with a "a fixed government contribution for each beneficiary." After describin...