Dean Baker's Blog, page 204

Michael Gerson's Fact Free Attack on Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump

No one reads the Washington Post opinion page to learn about the economy. People read it to learn what the Very Serious People have to say about the world. Michael Gerson gave us the latest edition in a column attacking Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

Readers learned that this was about the Very Serious People view of the world rather than economic reality in the second paragraph.

"The past several decades have seen both dramatic increases in productivity and the fading of the traditional,...

The Generational Warfare Industry

At a time when the income inequality is growing ever larger in most wealthy countries the market for work that highlights inequality between generations is growing rapidly. After all, if young people are spending their time yelling about their parents' and grandparents' pensions they won't have any time to get mad about all the money the one percent are taking.

The Wall Street Journal did its part today with a piece telling readers that "older people do better than those of working age." Whil...

It Was As Inevitable that Doctors and Lawyers Would Lose Jobs to Foreign Competition as Factory Workers

It is apparently very appealing to many people to think that the loss of jobs in manufacturing and the resulting downward pressure on the wages of large segments of the working class was simply an inevitable result of globalization. For example, in an otherwise excellent piece on the closing of a Carrier factory in Indiana that makes heating and cooling equipment, the NYT told readers:

"The relentless loss of American manufacturing jobs, however, goes back nearly half a century, driven large...

Robert Samuelson Pushes the TPP Again

President Obama's allies in the media are working hard laying the groundwork for Congressional approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Robert Samuelson did his part with a column warning that it would "dangerous" if the next president repudiated the TPP. I suppose the piece is worth some brownie points with the administration, but it doesn't make much sense.

He tells readers:

"The United States has had continuous annual trade deficits since 1976, well before the North American Free...

Washington Post Tea Parties Out on Representative Donna Edwards

I generally restrict my comments on this blog to economic issues. But the Post really went over the top in its criticisms of Donna Edwards when it endorsed her opponent Chris Van Hollen in the race for the Democratic nomination the fill the open Maryland senate seat.

Before commenting, I should say that I know Representative Edwards and consider her somewhat of a friend. I also know and like her opponent, with whom I went to college many years ago.

Anyhow, the Post complained that Edwards is...

More on Kevin Drum's Protectionism for Doctors

Kevin still thinks that we don't especially protect doctors, or at least not more than any other country. His key factoid is that 25 percent of our doctors were educated in foreign medical schools and then entered U.S. residency programs. He argues that this is roughly the same percentage as for other wealthy countries.

There are two important reasons why this means less than the NCAA basketball tournament scores about the issue at hand. First, we should expect many more foreign doctors would...

New York Times Hypes Financial Industry Scare Story on Public Pensions

Most newspapers try to avoid the self-serving studies that industry groups put out to try to gain public support for their favored policies. But apparently the New York Times does not feel bound by such standards. It ran a major news story on a study by Citigroup that was designed to scare people about the state of public pensions and encourage them to trust more of their retirement savings to the financial industry.

Both the article and the study itself seem intended to scare more than infor...

Kevin Drum Strikes Out Big Time on Trade

I usually think Kevin Drum makes pretty good arguments even when I disagree with them, but his trade case really strikes out badly. He wants to take issue with my argument that we protect doctors with average paychecks of more than $250k a year, while deliberately putting autoworkers in direct competition with their low paid counterparts in the developing world.

He quotes my comment that we ban foreign trained physicians unless they go through a U.S. residency program. He then comments:

"Car...

Trade Treaty Propaganda Goes Into High Gear

The proponents of the protectionist Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement are getting ever more shrill as it becomes clearer that the public is not buying what they have to sell. David Ignatius does the rant for the deal in his column in the Post today. The title of his column warns against "Trump and Sanders' dangerous revolt against free trade."

The first point that everyone should remember is "free trade" is just a term that the proponents of these deals throw around to make them...

If China Held a Normal Amount of Reserves, Would Its Currency be Higher or Lower Against the Dollar?

That is the question millions are asking, or at least the question that people who talk about whether China's government is holding down the value of its currency should be asking. Neil Irwin is on that list.

In a NYT column today he argued that China is no longer holding down the value of the yuan to maintain a competitive advantage in trade. He pointed to their recent sale of reserves to keep the yuan from falling against the dollar and other currencies. However, however his discussion igno...