Dean Baker's Blog, page 311

Is Uncertainty Delaying Hiring or Is This Just Another Make Work Project for People Who Write About the Economy?

For some of us the story of the downturn and the slow recovery is pretty damn simple. The collapse of a huge housing bubble created a big gap in demand that is not easily filled. (Name your favorite demand-filling candidates. You have consumption, non-residential investment, residential investment, government spending, and net exports -- that's all folks.) Since there was no plausible story whereby the economy could quickly fill this demand gap, continuing slow growth and high unemployment is...

Robert Samuelson Looks to the Stock Market to Get Guidance About the Direction of the Economy

Robert Samuelson agreed to be a punching bag again this morning. His column expressed his concern that the stock market and bond market are going in opposite directions. While the stock market has been rising, which in his view is supposed to mean a stronger economy, interest rates in the bond market have been falling which is supposed to mean a weaker economy.

There are two major flaws in Samuelson's conundrum story. The first is that the stock market is a horrible indicator of the future....

Does the Right Hold the Economy Hostage to Advance Its Militarist Agenda?

That's one way to read Tyler Cowen's NYT column noting that wars have often been associated with major economic advances which carries the headline "the lack of major wars may be hurting economic growth." Tyler lays out his central argument:

"It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear power, the computer and the modern aircraft were all pushed along b...

Why Do Calls for Immigrants Never Include Doctors?

The Washington Post had a pitch for allowing more high-skilled immigrants into the country, arguing that by allowing more foreign software engineers into the country we would create more jobs. While there may be some possible gains here, it is worth noting that the wages of stem workers have been flat since the late 1990s. (Also, it would be easier to be sympathetic to the demands of the tech industry if they had not conspired to hold down their workers' wages.)

However it is striking that wi...

Greece's Progress in Putting the Economy Back on Track?

Many people reading a NYT article on a series of Greek court decisions rejecting government austerity measures were probably surprised to see the comment that:

"According to analysts, the decisions could upend Mr. Samaras’s progress in putting the economy back on track."

It's not clear what progress these analysts have in mind. The Greek economy shrank at a 1.1 percent annual rate in the most recent quarter. While it is projected to show modest (0.6 percent) growth for the year as a whole, th...

How Does WSJ Know That Obama Administration Wants Eased Mortgage Standards In Order to Help Buyers As Opposed to Increase Industry Profits?

That's the question millions are asking after reading this article on the decision of the Securities  and Exchange Commission to go along with more lax standards. Under these standards issuers of mortgage backed securities (MBS) would not be required to keep any stake in a mortgage even if it has less than a 5 percent down-payment. This reversed efforts to ensure that issuers did not deliberately put questionable mortgages into MBS, which was a major problem in the run-up of the bubble....

Are We Suffering from Too Many or Too Few Workers?

Binyamin Appelbaum had an interesting piece in the NYT more or less summarizing views of economists on the economy's near and long-term problems. The piece reflected the incredible confusion among economists. This raises the obvious question, if economists really have no clue about the economy, why do we waste good money on them?

Anyhow, we find that we are suffering from too many workers (high unemployment) and likely to continue to experience high rates of unemployment for the indefinite fu...

The Continuing Attack on Disability Beneficiaries

The media have spent a great deal of time in the last few years highlighting the money paid out to people on Social Security disability. Associated Press was on the job again yesterday with an article that highlighted four administrative judges employed by the Social Security Administration who approve almost all the cases that are brought to them. There are many important facts that are left out of this piece.

First, these judges were deliberately selected by the House Oversight Committee be...

Loss of Good Paying Jobs Could Just Be Due to High Unemployment Policy

Thomas Edsall had a piece noting the deterioration of job quality since 2000 that many of us have been writing about in recent years. He discusses various possibilities going forward, but ignores an obvious one.

For most of the period since the 2001 recession the economy has been below full employment by almost anyone's definition. In such situations, it should not be surprising that there would be a deterioration in job quality as workers have to slide down the skills ladder in order to find...

Correcting Vox on Cramdown

Matt Yglesias has a piece in Vox explaining the politics of cramdown in which it tells readers that there was no way the Obama administration could have gotten cramdown through Congress. While Yglesias correctly points out that the Obama administration never really tried, he misrepresented the nature of the problem.

One of the great things about cramdown was that the proposal could have been sliced and diced in almost an infinite number of ways. While Yglesias is undoubtedly correct in saying...