Dean Baker's Blog, page 326

Great Expectations and the Consumer Confidence Con Game

Floyd Norris has an interesting discussion of the Conference Board's consumer confidence index in his "Off the Charts" column. The main takeaway is that the current conditions index has been on a consistent upward path since the trough of the recession while six-month expectations index has gyrated erratically with little clear trend.

It is worth adding a bit more to this analysis. The current conditions index does actually tend to track current consumption reasonably closely. On the other ha...

Elaine Chao

 

Directorships, 2008-2012: 3 (Note: This does not include Chao’s service to Twenty-First Century Fox/News Corporation, which she joined in October 2012.)

Total director compensation, 2008-2012: $1,128,466

Total director compensation, 2012: $ 545,275

Average compensation per full year of service as director: $159,257

Elaine Chao served as George W. Bush’s Secretary of Labor for the entirety of his two terms in office. Before leading the department of labor, Chao served as the CEO of Un...

The Job Apocalypse That Is Hiding From The Bureau of Labor Statistics

There is a growing industry in the United States of people promoting stories about how robots and other technological innovations are going to make us all unemployed. Unfortunately Harold Meyerson seems to have taken these people seriously.

Meyerson cites a study showing that technology is likely to slash employment in large sectors of the economy and then tells readers:

"Eventually, however, as computers pick up more and more skills, we will have to embrace the necessity of redistributing we...

What Is the Fed's Credibility as Inflation Fighting Central Bank Worth?

That's the question that readers of Fivethirtyeight Economics are asking after reading a discussion of the choices facing the Federal Reserve Board. The piece told readers that the Fed could push unemployment rate down to levels where inflation began to accelerate (overshooting):

"Overshooting is risky. The Fed would risk its credibility as an inflation-fighting central bank."

The cost of keeping the unemployment rate up is that the government (through the Fed) is denying millions of people t...

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal Claims Ads Promoting Obamacare Interfere With His Government Guaranteed Monopoly

I'm not kidding on this. If you wanted proof that Republicans have zero interest in a free market and that most reporters are too thick to notice you couldn't ask for a better example than Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's lawsuit against Moveon.org over billboards criticizing his decision not to extend Medicaid coverage in the state. As written up in a column by Katrina vanden Heuvel, the suit claims the billboards, which play off the state's tourism slogan, "Pick Your Passion," are causing...

Krugman and DeLong on Avoiding Secular Stagnation

Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman are having some back and forth on the problem of secular stagnation and what it would have taken to avoid a prolonged period of high unemployment. I thought I would weigh in quickly since I have a better track record on this stuff than either of them. 

The basic story going into the crash was that we had an economy that was being driven by the housing bubble. This was both directly through residential construction and indirectly through the consumption that f...

What Is Richard M. Daley Getting Paid $180k a Year For if Coca-Cola's Management Is Ripping Off Shareholders for Tens of Billions of Dollars?

That what readers of Andrew Sorkin's column on management bonuses at Coca-Cola will be asking. Sorkin cites analysis from money manager David Winters showing that Coca-Cola has set aside $24 billion as bonuses for senior management in recent years. The 2013 set asides alone came to an average of more than $2 million for each eligible person.

Richard M. Daley is a director of Coca-Cola. As a director it is his job to make sure that management does not rip off shareholders by paying themselves...

The CEO's of Hardee's Claims the Company Doesn't Pay Managers Management Level Salaries

This was one of the main points of a column that Andy Puzder, the CEO of Hardee's parent company CKE Restaurants, made in a WSJ column today. The column was complaining over President Obama's decision to raise the salary floor where overtime rules in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) may not apply. The current floor is $24,000 a year. Anyone getting lower pay than this is automatically covered by the FSLA overtime provisions.

Puzder is concerned that many of his branch managers will be cove...

Maybe Paul Ryan's Critics Are Upset By Very Old Ideas Being Called "New Ideas"

Washington Post columnist Marc Theissen speculates on why Paul Ryan's critics are so unhappy with his recent writings and speeches on poverty:

"Why are Democrats so threatened by a Republican congressman trying to find new ways to help the poor and vulnerable? Wouldn’t it be better if there were two parties competing to find the best ways to alleviate poverty?"

Maybe part of the reason is that Ryan didn't actually present any new ideas. Everything in his bag of tricks is at least two decades...

The "Free Traders" are Against Free Trade: Prescription Drugs

The NYT had a good column on the government's efforts to prevent people from buying lower cost drugs from foreign countries. The column makes the point that the Food and Drug Administration has misleadingly tried to claim that the issue with foreign drugs is one of safety when it really is just pharmaceutical industry profits. If people know that they can buy drugs for prices that are often less than one fifth the price in the United States, they will be unlikely to buy the drugs in the Unite...