Dean Baker's Blog, page 180

Why Doesn't the WaPo Care About Plunging Employment for Prime-Age Women?

In a Sunday editorial the Washington Post touted the strength of the economy. While it got some things right, it also showed some serious confusion.

At the top of the list is its concern for the declining labor force participation rates for prime-age men (ages 25–54). This is not a men's problem, there has also been a comparable decline in the employment rates for prime-age women. (Employment rates are a better measure than participation rates because many people who are not working continue...

Why Doesn't the WaPo Care About Plunging Employment for Prime Age Women?

In a Sunday editorial the Washington Post touted the strength of the economy. While it got some things right, it also showed some serious confusion.

At the top of the list is its concern for the declining labor force participation rates for prime age men (ages 25-54). This is not a men's problem, there has also been a comparable decline in the employment rates for prime age women. (Employment rates are a better measure that participation rates because many people who are not working continue...

Obama and Coal Can't Explain Kentucky and Trump

A recurring theme of much of the coverage of support for Donald Trump in Appalachian states is that President Obama's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and thereby reduce the use of coal, have led to a large loss of coal mining jobs. This loss of jobs supposedly devastated the economy of the region. Voters hope that Trump will bring back the mining jobs and thereby restore the economy of the region. A New York Times article on support for Trump in Eastern Kentucky repeats this theme...

An Even Better Idea for Taxing Apple's "Irish" Profits

A few days ago I argued that one way to get around the tax games that Apple and other corporations play is to require them to turn over a proportion of their stock in the form of non-voting shares. These shares would get the same benefits that any voting shares would receive in the form of dividends and share buybacks, but would give the government no say in the running of the company. This should get rid of most of the opportunities for gaming the tax system and assure the government its tar...

Washington Post Presents an Overly Simplistic View of Trade

It is unfortunate that it now acceptable in polite circles to connect a view with Donald Trump and then dismiss it. The result is that many fallacious arguments can now be accepted without being seriously questioned. (Hey folks, I hear Donald Trump believes in evolution.)

The Post plays this game in noting that the U.S. trade deficit with Germany is now larger than its deficit with Mexico, putting Germany second only to China. It then asks why people aren't upset about the trade deficit with...

As UK Productivity Growth Falls to Zero, John Harris at the Guardian Tells Readers that Technology Is Making Old Workplace Relations Obsolete

The efforts by many elite types to deny basic statistics and to tout the new technologies transforming the workplace are truly Trumpian in their nature. According to the OECD, productivity growth in the UK was essentially zero between 2007 and 2014 (the most recent year for which it has data). So we would naturally expect that the Guardian would run a column telling us that globalization and new technologies are making old workplace relations obsolete.

As John Harris tells readers:

"In a wor...

The Simple Way to Crack Down on Apple's Tax Games

While Elizabeth Warren is praising the European Union's crackdown on Apple's Ireland tax scheme, Jack Lew and the Obama Treasury Department are going to bat for corporate tax cheating. Warren is far too optimistic about the prospect of a successful crackdown. These folks are prepared to spend a lot of money to hide their profits from tax authorities and they are likely to find accomplices in many Irelands around the world.

It would be good to look in a different direction. I remain a big fan...

NPR Reports on the Mystery of Rivers Flowing Downstream and Men Leaving the Workforce

Okay, they only consider the latter a mystery, but for those who follow the data both are equally mysterious. The piece was titled "an economic mystery: why are men leaving the workforce?" The piece noted the reduction in the percentage of prime-age men in the workforce from nearly 100 percent in the 1960s to 88.3 percent at present. It then said that no one really knows why there has been this decline.

Actually, it really is not much of a mystery. While the piece wants to attribute it to the...

David Brooks Didn't Realize that Obamacare Ended Health-Based Insurance Premiums

No one expects NYT columnists to have any knowledge of the topics on which they write, which is a very good thing for David Brooks. In his column belittling the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), he never once mentioned the requirement that insurers charge everyone the same premium, regardless of their health.

Brooks focuses on the health care exchanges, which do in fact have fewer participants than expected. The main reason for the shortfall is not that fewer people are being insured,...

WaPo Wants Us to Mourn the Lost Political Power of Big Business

Seriously, the Post ran a major front page article in its Sunday business section telling us that "big business lost Washington." The piece does acknowledge that business lobbies are still very effective in getting special deals for their industry, like favorable tax treatment for offshore profits and low cost access to public lands for fossil fuel extraction, but it complains that business leaders are not openly setting the national agenda.

It's not clear where exactly business leaders are s...