Dean Baker's Blog, page 201

Bernie Sanders: Enemy of the World’s Poor?

A popular theme in the media in recent days is that the world’s poor would face disaster if Bernie Sanders ended up in the White House.[1] The story is that Sanders would try to protect jobs for manufacturing workers in the United States. The loss of these jobs has been a major source of downward pressure on the wages and living standards of a large portion of the working class over the last four decades.

While saving manufacturing jobs here may be good for U.S. workers, the media line is tha...

More Problems in the NYT With Paul Ryan's Numbers

In addition to touting House Speaker Paul Ryan's policy wonkiness, the paper also applauded his fundraising prowess, telling readers:

"The National Republican Congressional Committee raised $185,000 from two emails from Mr. Ryan last month, more than the group’s entire haul in March 2014, during the last House races."

This would not be true unless March of 2014 was an extraordinarily bad month for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). According to its filings with the Federa...

Making the Federal Reserve Board Accountable

Professor Andrew Levin (Dartmouth College), the former special advisor to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and then-Vice Chair Janet Yellen, released a proposal for reform of the Federal Reserve Board’s governing structure in a press call sponsored by the Fed Up Campaign. The proposal has a number of important features, but the main point is to make the Fed more accountable to democratically elected officials and to reduce the power of the banking industry in monetary policy.


See the fuller story.

&nbs...

Paul Ryan Wants to Cut Social Security and Medicare

Some people may have failed to realize this fact when a NYT article profiling Speaker Ryan told readers:

"Mr. Ryan is the architect of his party’s plan to rein in spending on entitlement programs."

"Entitlement programs" is a popular euphemism used by politicians who want to cut Social Security and Medicare. The phrase is likely to mislead many readers.

The piece also asserts that:

"For example, if the Republican nominee does not provide an alternative to the Affordable Care Act — something R...

Dana Milbank Tells Readers He Has an Incredibly Weak Imagination

We know that the Washington Post editors really hate Bernie Sanders and rarely miss an opportunity to show it. Dana Milbank got in the act big time today as he once again denounced Sanders (along with Donald Trump and Ted Cruz) in his column. 

There was much good stuff in the column but my favorite was when he told readers:

"MacGuineas's group [the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget] calculates that Sanders would increase government spending to unimaginable levels: to as much as...

Protectionist Washington Post Never Mentions Role of Patent Monopolies in High Prices for Cancer Drugs

The Washington Post is well known as a hotbed of protectionist sentiment, at least when it comes to policies that redistribute income upward. For that reason it was not altogether surprising that the paper never once mentioned the role of patent monopolies and related protections in a on the difficulties cancer patients face in dealing with the high price of drugs.

The article begins by talking about a patient, Scott Steiner, who needed the cancer drug Gleevec. The manufact...

Fun and Games in Scaring People About Social Security

As we all know, one of the major recreational sports of media outlets is finding new and innovative ways to scare people about Social Security. One of my favorites is "infinite horizon accounting." This is when you project out Social Security spending and revenue into the infinite future and then calculate the difference. It gives you a REALLY BIG NUMBER.

We got an example of the casual use of this infinite horizon accounting in a column by Wharton Business School Professor Olivia Mitchell. T...

There is No Problem of Deflation, Just Low Inflation (see addendum)

The problem of deflation just refuses to go away. I don't mean the problem of weak economies with very low inflation rates, I mean the media's obsession with the idea that something really bad happens if the rate of price change crosses zero and turns negative.

We got another example of this strange concern in the NYT this morning. The piece noted the European Central Bank's (ECB) concern:

"Still, the central bank acknowledged its deep concern about the risk that the eurozone’s economic dold...

There is No Problem of Deflation, Just Low Inflation

The problem of deflation just refuses to go away. I don't mean the problem of weak economies with very low inflation rates, I mean the media's obsession with the idea that something really bad happens if the rate of price change crosses zero and turns negative.

We got another example of this strange concern in the NYT this morning. The piece noted the European Central Bank's (ECB) concern:

"Still, the central bank acknowledged its deep concern about the risk that the eurozone’s economic dold...

Dumping on Trump: Tariffs Aren’t Part of the Apocalypse

Let me start this one by saying that I think Trump’s threats of a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports are a bad idea. We should take steps to lower the value of the dollar against the yuan, but the public threat of large tariffs is probably not the best way to go. The route is obviously through negotiations where we would have to give up things, like protections for Microsoft’s copyrights and Pfizer’s patents.

But that aside, the fact that a particular policy is unwise should not be a licens...