Dean Baker's Blog, page 191

German Finance Minister Plans to Make Europe Poorer to Punish Britain

That is what an article in the Washington Post seemed to imply, as it indicated that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble would have the European Union put up protectionist trade barriers as a way of punishing the United Kingdom if the country voted to leave the European Union. Such barriers would likely prove costly to the people in the European Union.

There have been a number of analyses showing that the UK could see a loss of between 2–5 percent in output if left the European Union (E...

The Story on Retirement Income:It's Worse Than What You Read in the NYT

Steve Rattner had a column in the NYT warning that 401(k) accounts are proving to be an inadequate replacement for traditional defined benefit accounts. While the points he makes are exactly right (people lose too much money in fees, make bad investment choices, and don't put enough money aside), one of the figures he cites may have misled readers about the state of workers' finances.

Rattner cites a study by Alicia Munnell, the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College...

The European Commission As Spurned Lover

We usually like to think of people holding positions of responsibility in places like the United States and Europe as rational actors who make reasoned decisions based on the evidence presented them. Apparently this is not the case if the New York Times is to be believed.

According to the NYT, the leading figures in the European Union are prepared to act like spurned lovers if the people of the United Kingdom vote this week to leave the European Union. One might think that a rational course...

Presidents and the Economy: They Ain't Helpless

Bryce Covert had a column in the NYT this morning arguing that the performance of the economy in a president's term is largely out of their control. There is considerable truth to this. Business cycles have a dynamic that is largely outside of the president's control. President Reagan was fortunate in having a severe recession in the first year of his administration. Memories being what they are, voters blamed the recession on Reagan's predecessor, while giving Reagan credit for the robust re...

Licensing Requirements: Can We Talk About Doctors?

The NYT had two articles on occupational licensing requirements today and there was not one mention of the restrictions that lead us to pay twice as much for our doctors as other wealthy countries. It is illegal to practice medicine in the United States unless you completed a U.S. residency program. In other words, under the law, all of those doctors trained in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and other wealthy countries can't be trusted to provide people in the United States with medical...

Paul Krugman, Brexit, and Unaccountable Government

Paul Krugman devoted his column on Friday to a mild critique of the drive to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union. The reason the column was somewhat moderate in its criticisms of the desire to leave EU is that Krugman sympathizes with the complaints of many in the UK and elsewhere about the bureaucrats in Brussels being unaccountable to the public. This is of course right, but it is worth taking the issue here a step further.

If we expect to hold people accountable then they hav...

Causes of Stagnation: Mankiw's Big Five

Greg Mankiw used his NYT column to discuss the weak growth the U.S. economy has experienced over the last decade and goes through five explanations. To my view there's not much complicated about the story. We lost a huge amount of demand when the housing bubble collapsed and there is nothing to replace it. That is essentially #4, presented as secular stagnation by Larry Summers. Regular BTP readers know the story well, so let me briefly comment on the other four.

The first one, that the econo...

Those CBO Interest Rate and Deficit Projections

Back in January, when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued its annual Budget and Economic Outlook, the Washington Post and other deficit hawk types seized on the projections of rising deficits and debt to GDP ratios in the latter part of its 10-year projections. There was another round of cries for deficit reduction, with cuts to Social Security and Medicare again holding center stage.

Some of us took the opportunity to point out that the projections of rising deficits hinged almost e...

Steven Pearlstein Wants You to Lose Your Job

That's right, he's upset that the Federal Reserve Board didn't raise interest rates this week. He tells readers:

"Until a year or two ago, there was good reason for the Fed to continue with its extraordinary monetary policy. But with the U.S. economy nearly back to full employment, and incomes rising, and core inflation running close to 2 percent, it’s well past the time to start easing back on the stimulus by raising rates."

The idea here is that we need to start raising rates or the labor m...

Doesn't Anyone Pay Attention to Bad News from the Fed?

No, I'm not talking about its decision not to raise interest rates yesterday, I mean the release of May data on industrial production. The data showed a decline in manufacturing output in May of 0.4 percent. The output levels for both March and April were also revised downward. Over the last three months production has been declining at a 2.4 percent annual rate.

This indicates that the manufacturing sector continues to be a drag on the economy and is likely to mean further job losses in the...