Dean Baker's Blog, page 33

NYT Has Trouble Talking Seriously About the Swedish Approach

Opinion columns are always given more leeway than news articles, but it would be reasonable to expect that an opinion column in a major newspaper have some connection to reality. That does not appear to be the case with this one that tells us I live in Sweden. Im not panicking.

The piece is a defense of Swedens decision to not have a shutdown period in which most businesses are closed and people are restricted from traveling for non-essential purposes. This has resulted in far higher...

Corruption and the Pandemic Bailout

(This piece was originally posted on my Patreon page.)

Neil Irwin had an interesting New York Times piece on how concerns about moral hazard in the bailout may damage the recovery. The gist of the article is that the fear that bad actors will be wrongly rewarded will prevent us from spending enough money to get the economy back on its feet. Irwins point is very important, but it does require some further examination.

We might agree for example, that it is silly to oppose an airline bailout...

Hot Tip for CNN: People Eat Food When They Are not in Restaurants

I happened to catch a few minutes of a CNN story featured an interview with a famous chef (sorry, didnt catch his name) he was discussing the crisis hitting the restaurant industry. After explaining how restaurants will find it almost impossible to survive operating at 25 percent of capacity, he then described the chains of suppliers the truckers, the wholesalers, the food processors and the farmers who will also go under because of the collapse of the restaurant industry.

There is a small...

Here We Go Again, the Washington Post Tells Us that Politicians Are Philosophers

It is bizarre how reporters continually feel the need to tell us about politicians philosophies. Why on earth would they think that politicians are guided by any philosophy. Politicians get elected by getting the support of key constituencies, not by having wonderful philosophies. I would not think that is seriously contested claim.

This is why everyone should be upset at a Washington Post article on the prospects for another big economic rescue package when it tells us:

As some states move...

White Unemployment Rose More than Black Unemployment and No One Notices

One of the most striking items in a very striking employment report yesterday is that white unemployment has actually risen slightly more than black unemployment in this crisis. White unemployment has risen from 3.1 percent in February to 14.2 percent in April, a rise of 11.1 percentage points. Black unemployment rose from 5.8 percent to 16.7 percent, an increase of 10.9 percentage points. 

While the difference is small and surely statistically insignificant, it does go opposite the usual...

Why Did the NYT Tell Readers that Republicans “Distrust” Food Stamps?

It was a very bizarre choice of words. In a useful and lengthy article on Republican efforts to cut food stamp benefits, we are told:

The Republican distrust of food stamps has now collided with a monumental crisis. Cars outside food banks have lined up for miles in places as different as San Antonio, Pittsburgh and Miami Beach.

The piece gives no evidence whatsoever that Republicans distrust food stamps. It provides plenty of evidence that they dislike food stamps, just as they dislike...

Fixing the Bailout Scammers: The Ten Percent Solution

The pandemic crisis created a rare economic opportunity. In effect, the whole economy was thrown up for grabs, with the winners and losers determined by who had the political power to get a nice bailout. Needless to say, those who were already rich got the big handouts, those at the bottom got crumbs if anything at all. 

Suppose we had let the market work its magic on the airlines, on the hotel chains, the restaurant chains, the aircraft industry (i.e. Boeing), and on the oil industry. With...

As Betting Odds for Yankees Improve, Economists Anticipate Strong Recovery: The Stock Market and the Economy

Daniel W. Drezner used his Washington Post column to contribute to the confusion around the stock market and the economy. He picks up from prior pieces by Paul Krugman and Desmond Lachman  as to whether the recent run-up in the economy means investors are expecting a strong recovery.

(Drezner unfortunately refers to the question of a V-shaped recovery. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the economy will shrink at a 39.6 percent annual rate in this quarter, and then grow at 23.5...

Government-Granted Patent Monopolies Give Drug Companies an Incentive to Lie About the Safety and Effectiveness of Their Drugs

I know the media are prohibited from stating this obvious truth, but it seemed a good time to remind folks. The NYT posted an article about how Japans prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is promoting a drug produced by a subsidiary of Fujifilm, a large Japanese company, as a treatment for the coronavirus. According to the piece, there is little evidence that the drug, Avigan, is an effective treatment, although the drug is known to cause birth defects. The piece also reports that Fujifilm has been...

How Many People Will Patent Monopolies Kill In This Pandemic?

No one wants to die, but hey, who wouldnt be willing to sacrifice their life to protect someones patent monopoly? That is a question that is implicitly raised in this New York Times piece on the race to develop an effective vaccine against the coronavirus. Near the beginning the piece tells readers:

In an era of intense nationalism, the geopolitics of the vaccine race are growing as complex as the medicine. The months of mutual vilification between the United States and China over the origins...