Dean Baker's Blog, page 199

Does the NYT Require Reporters to Add "Free" to Discussions of Trade Agreements?

I suppose the NYT should get credit for only doing it once, but it is still necessary to ask what information it thought it was providing readers in describing the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP) as a "free trade" agreement? As a practical matter, the formal trade barriers between the United States and the European Union are already near zero, so there is not much to be gained from further reducing the remaining barriers.

The TTIP is primarily about putting in places rules on...

Washington Post Opens the Door for Name-Calling to Push the TPP

Yep, all is fair in love and war and pushing trade agreements, and the Washington Post really really wants the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). So, when they asked Ivo Daalder and Richard Kagan to make the case for the TPP as part of a story about preserving American leadership in the world, the Post apparently gave the greenlight to name-calling.

This meant that the opponents of the TPP appear in the piece as "demagogues." Sounds good, now we don't have to deal with arguments from people lik...

Retirement Ages and Social Security: Rich People Also Have Easier Jobs

Neil Irwin had a good piece in the Upshot section of the NYT pointing out that the growing gap in life expectancies for rich and poor have made Social Security a less progressive program. He argues that this is a good reason not to consider increases in the Social Security retirement ages as a way to reduce the projected shortfall in funding.

This is true, but there is also a further reason that raising retirement ages would be regressive. Lower income people are far more likely to work at ph...

Trade Deficits and Secular Stagnation

Alan Blinder is a very good economist. For this reason, I am quite certain that he is familiar with the concept of "secular stagnation," which means a persistent shortfall in aggregate demand. In fact, I suspect I could probably quickly find a few pieces he has written on the topic.

This is why it is surprising to see him assert boldly in the Wall Street Journal:

"The U.S. multilateral trade balance — its balance with all of its trading partners — has been in deficit for decades. Does that m...

Catherine Rampell Says President Obama Supports a Constitutional Amendment to Balance the Budget, Overhauling Social Security and Medicare, and Cutting Off All Public Funding for Planned Parenthood

That would seem to be the implication of her Washington Post column, the headline of which told readers, "Republicans don't like Kasich because he sounds like Obama." What Rampell actually means by this is that Governor Kasich doesn't sound angry, not that his political positions are at all similar to the ones advocated by President Obama. (In addition to the headline items, I should also mention that Kasich is opposed to the steps President Obama has taken to curb global warming and wants th...

Republican Extremist Gets High Marks from Washington Post

The Washington Post gave high marks to Ohio Governor John Kasich after he met with the Post's editorial board. The lead editorial noted that Mr. Kasich, "does not dismiss science." It goes on to point out that he recognizes that climate change is human caused, although he has no plan to address the problem. (Kasich does reject President Obama's plan, as the piece notes.) Editorial writer Charles Lane was even more effusive, asking readers, "what's not to like?"

People who follow politics and...

Douthat Strikes Out on the Economics of Democrats After Sanders

It's too bad the NYT doesn't have a policy of fact-checking their columnists. (I realize, it might make it harder to get columnists, but it would make their columns more informative.) Ross Douthat's confused piece on "The Democrats After Sanders" definitely would have benefited from more attachment to reality.

In the second paragraph Douthat tells us about the constraints on the budget since we are likely to face "the prospect of structural deficits for as long as baby boomers are taking Medi...

Doesn't Anyone Care About Housing Any More?

The Census Bureau put out some pretty bad numbers on housing yesterday. March starts were down 8.8 percent from the February level and permits were down by 7.7 percent. The drop in starts was across categories and regions. There was no obvious weather-related factors to explain this drop.

Monthly housing data are erratic, but these numbers do deserve some attention. Residential construction is one of the few bright spots in an economy seeing weak consumption growth, stagnating equipment inves...

David Brooks Does Name Calling Against Bernie Sanders

Okay, he does it against Donald Trump as well, but the theme of his column is to denounce both of them for pushing a "single story" for the difficulties confronting working people. While Sanders blames an economy rigged to favor the rich and Trump blames immigrants and the unfair trading practices of foreign countries, Brooks tells us that the real issue behind wage stagnation is "intricate structural problems."

Get it? Brooks used the words "intricate" and "structural," that means that he is...

The Elites Deserve More Credit for Undermining Support for Economic Integration

The Washington Post had a major article telling readers, "why populist uprisings could end a half-century of greater economic ties." The piece notes the rise of populist sentiment in both Europe and the United States. In the former case it is turning against immigration and also the European Union. In the case of the United States, populist sentiment is directed against trade agreements and immigration (also efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare.)

The piece doesn't give elites the credi...