Dean Baker's Blog, page 319

Is the Stock Market Getting Bubbly?

Washington Post columnist Steve Pearlstein argues it is, taking issue with fellow columnist Barry Ritholtz who says it isn't. I'm going to come down in the middle here.

The market is somewhat above its historic levels relative to trend earnings. Pearlstein cites Shiller who puts the price to earnings ratio at 25 to 1, compared to a historic average of 16. (Pearlstein seems to place a lot of faith in Shiller who he tells us got a Nobel for his knack for spotting bubbles. Shiller may have gotte...

Washington Post Fact Checker Wastes Pinocchios on Young Invincibles

Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post's fact checker, gave the Obama administration two Pinocchios for claiming that 35 percent of the people who enrolled in the exchanges were under age 35. This was close to the administration's original target of 40 percent for people between the ages of 18-34. Kessler pointed out that the administration was able to get the figure up from a widely reported 28 percent share being between the ages of 18-34 to the 35 percent number by adding children under the ag...

Outlandish CEO Pay Is a Matter Between Friends

Joe Nocera documents what many of us already knew, the multi-million dollar pay packages of corporate CEOs are a matter between friends, not a market relationship. The specific context is the pay of the CEO and other top executives at Coca Cola.

The company has recently been in the news since an activist investor calculated it had set aside $24 billion for management bonuses over a two-year period. An amount that came to $2 million for each person in the pool. Nocera focused on the reaction...

Paul Krugman and the Economics Fringe

Paul Krugman has devoted two recent blogposts to address complaints from heterodox economists over Thomas Piketty’s new book. I have written several pieces on the book and made my own view quite clear. I think it is a great book and I am happy to see it bring so much attention to the growth in inequality over the last few decades, even if Piketty gives short shrift to policies that could reverse this rise in inequality.

Rather than dealing directly with the dispute over Piketty, I will take s...

College Doesn't Pay for Everyone

In her Washington Post column Catherine Rampell correctly pointed out that the average return in higher wages for those with college degrees more than covers the tuition and opportunity cost associated with attending college. She notes however that college enrollment has edged downward in recent years.

While she sees this decline largely as the result of young people failing to recognize the benefits of college, it can be more radily explained by a growing divergence in the income of college...

One Million More People Are Eligible for the Exchanges Every Month

The New York Times ran a piece reporting that more Democrats running for election this year are openly campaigning on the Affordable Care Act. The piece noted that eight million people had signed up for the exchanges by the end of the open enrollment period. While this is a large base of people who may perceive themselves as benefiting from the law, it is worth noting that this number is likely to increase substantially in the months leading up to the election.

Under the law, people who face...

How and Why Housing Is Holding Back the Recovery

Neil Irwin has an interesting piece in the NYT's Upshot section about how housing is holding back the recovery. There are two points worth adding.

First, the vacancy rate continues to be well above historic averages. In the fourth quarter of 2013, the most recent period for which data are available, the vacancy rate was still over 10.0 percent. This compares to a vacancy rate that averaged less than 8.5 percent in the pre-bubble years. This translates into a large number of empty units that w...

How and Why Is Housing Holding Back the Recovery

Neil Irwin has an interesting piece in the NYT's Upshot section about how housing is holding back the recovery. There are two points worth adding.

First, the vacancy rate continues to be well above historic averages. In the fourth quarter of 2013, the most recent period for which data are available, the vacancy rate was still over 10.0 percent. This compares to a vacancy rate that averaged less than 8.5 percent in the pre-bubble years. This translates into a large number of empty units that w...

Washington Post Discovers Worksharing

It's a bit late, but who said the Washington Post can't learn? It ran a nice piece on worksharing, pointing out the impact that reducing work hours can have in preventing unemployment. Those of us who have been working on worksharing for the last five years might be a bit frustrated with the delay, but if even the Washington Post can learn, there is hope for America.

NYT Reports Food Industry Claims People Would Not Buy Genetically Modified Foods If Given a Choice

According to a NYT piece, the food industry claims that people would not buy food if they knew it contained genetically modified organisms. The piece discussed a law passed by Vermont's legislature that would require foods that contained genetically modified organisms to be labeled. It told readers:

"Big food manufacturers and the biotech industry that produces the seeds for genetically engineered crops contend that mandatory labeling of products containing ingredients derived from those crop...