Dean Baker's Blog, page 282

Washington Post Offers Lesson in Bad Public Opinion Polling

The Washington Post has long used both its opinion and its news pages to push for cuts to Social Security. It has regularly exaggerated the problems with the program, for example once running a major front page story over the fact that 0.006 percent of Social Security benefits are paid out to dead people.

In keeping with this practice, the Post began a feature polling readers on how they would like to see the projected shortfall addressed with an article headlined, "Social Security Is a Mess....

Economists Who Saw the Housing Bubble Were Not Worried About a Depression

The Washington Post repeats the silly myth that we were in danger of a second Great Depression without heroic measures to save Wall Street. A piece on the path of quantitative easing (which was a good idea) told readers:

"But while economists generally agreed that effort [the Fed's purchase of $500 billion in mortgage backed securities in 2008-2009] helped the country avert another depression, the swift recovery that has historically accompanied downturns remained elusive."

It is quite fashio...

WaPo Touts the Expansion of Oil Supply, Apparently Unable to Get Projections from Energy Information Agency

As I've often noticed in the past, the WaPo apparently has difficulty getting access to government data at its location in downtown Washington, DC. If it did, it probably would not have run a Wonkblog piece by Steven Mufson touting the expansion of oil supply as the reason that oil prices have fallen sharply this year.

As I pointed out last week, the 2007 World Energy Outlook (the last projections from the Energy Information Agency before the economic collapse) projected output in 2015 of 98...

The Blame Teachers Game: Has Anyone Heard of the South?

Frank Bruni's column complaining about teachers and teachers unions undoubtedly has millions asking, "is our pundits learning?" The proximate cause is a soon to be published book by Joel Klein, the former New York City school chancellor.

It seems that the book repeats most of the old complaints of school "reformers." The big problem with our schools is that we have bad teachers and that unions won't let us get rid of them. Bruni tells readers:

"I was most struck, though, by what he observes a...

Stop Pretending Population Doesn't Matter for the Environment

The Washington Post seems to have jumped the shark by running a Wonkblog piece that demands readers, "stop pretending we can fix the environment by curbing population growth." The gist of the argument is that plausible changes in population growth will not be sufficient to prevent environmental catastrophe without other changes.

If there were people who thought that slower population growth would be sufficient to prevent global warming, then this piece would be a useful corrective. However i...

No Room for Unemployment In NYT Debate on Fed Policy and Inequality

The NYT had a Room for Debate segment on whether the Fed should be concerned about inequality. While many good points were raised in the exchange, none of the participants made the point that lower rates of unemployment are associated with faster real wage growth for those at the middle and bottom of the wage distribution.

This is the main point of the classic book, Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better Bargain for Working People, that Jared Bernstein and I wrote last year. We showed tha...

Germany Leaves the Euro Zone, and the Problem Is?

Matt O'Brien gave readers a thoughtful discussion on how the euro zone's stagnation is likely to persist for the indefinite future, primarily because Germany is acting to obstruct any serious efforts at stimulus. However at one point the logic gets a bit weak. 

In laying out the various options for promoting stronger growth O'Brien suggests that Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank could try to push ahead with quantitative easing even without the support of Germany. He say...

Robert Samuelson and the Family Deficit

We can finally declare the budget deficit crisis over; Robert Samuelson has moved on to the talking about the "family deficit." Actually, many of the points he makes are reasonable, the question is the policy implications.

People in committed relationships, generally involving marriage, do much better on average than do single adults on a variety of social and economic indicators. Perhaps more importantly, their children do much better as well. The data show that marriage is increasing a midd...

In Case You Wondered Why CEOs in the United States Make So Much Money

Okay, there are a few hundred people who believe that the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars pocketed by CEOs reflect their worth in the market. (And most of those people write for newspapers or teach in business schools.) The rest understand that CEOs get incredibly rich by being able to rip off the companies that they supposedly work for. This is because the rules are rigged to give them effective control over the company. 

Gretchen Morgenson has a good piece explaining one way i...

Krugman on Quantitative Easing and Inequality

Paul Krugman is on the mark in his comments on quantitative easing and inequality. The policy has helped boost the economy and create jobs, it is almost certainly a net gainer from the standpoint of distribution. I would make three additional points, all going in the same direction.

First, when comparing the real value of the stock market to prior levels which should expect an upward trend. The economy grows through time, as do profits, just assuming that profit share remains constant. The pr...