Dean Baker's Blog, page 340

Andrew Ross Sorkin: Top Executives Run Their Companies to Reduce Inequality

It amazing what you can learn reading the New York Times. Andrew Ross Sorkin devoted his column today to the annual World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland. He goes through a list of top executives of major companies and then tells readers:

"Whatever their reasons for staying away, the leaders of some of the largest and most transformative companies are demonstrating, with their absence, the difficulty of convening a global conversation with all the main stakeholders. Given that one o...

The Washington Post Still Can't Get It Right, Health Exchanges Need Healthy People, It Doesn't Matter If They Are Young

Why is hard to understand that a healthy person who pays $6,000 a year into the insurance system is more helpful to its finances than a healthy person who pays $2,000 a year? That is the basic story when it comes to older people in the exchanges (ages 55-64) and younger people. The average premium for this older group is three times as much as for the younger group. Large portions of both age groups will require little or no health care services over the course of a year.

This is why it makes...

Nocera Gets Growth Badly Wrong

Joe Nocera makes an important point very badly in his column today. He contrasts a sharp reduction in poverty in Brazil over the last dozen years with continued high unemployment in the United States. Nocera then notes Brazil's recent growth slowdown, which he attributes to slow productivity growth. He then notes the rapid growth in the United States in the third quarter and continually rising productivity and concludes that growth may not be the most important goal of the economy.

While the...

The Unbearable Presumptuousness of Right-Wing Elites

The NYT treated its readers to the French version of Le Grande Bargain, with a column by Sylvie Kauffman, the editorial director and former editor in chief of Le Monde. Ms. Kauffman's piece, "the unbearable lightness of Hollande," is devoted to the indecisiveness of the French president both in his policies and apparently in his personal life.

Her main complaint is:

"Perplexed by their president’s economic indecisiveness since he took office, the French now learn that he is equally indecisive...

Real Supporters of the "Free Market" Do Not Believe that Companies Can Pollute Drinking Water With Impunity

A Washington Post article on the issues involved in relationship to the chemical spill in West Virginia identified the Competitiveness Policy Institute as a "free-market think tank" in presenting its views opposing increased regulation of dangerous chemical. This is inaccurate.

Supporters of the free market do not believe that others can damage life and property with impunity. For example, it is not consistent with a free market to think that anyone can dump toxic chemicals on Bill Gates' law...

NYT Tells Us Where Our Tax Dollars Go

The NYT has a very nice (in substance, not appearance) chart on per person spending on a wide variety of government programs. readers would find that the military budget costs us $1,802 per person, Medicare $1,591, and Head Start $27. I was disappointed not to see TANF mentioned, which I would eyeball at around $55 per person and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting at around $1.50 per person.

Anyhow, it is great to see this chart, but this should be the standard way to express budget num...

Highly Paid Medical Specialists: Beneficiaries of Protectionism

Actually this excellent piece only talks about the first part of the picture, the outlandish paychecks that many medical specialists receive. Most news outlets are too committed to protectionism to discuss the idea of subjecting our doctors to the same sort of international competition as autoworkers or textile workers.

George Will Comes Out Against Freedom of Contract

George Will took a strong stand against freedom of contract in his column today. Usually freedom of contract is viewed as a pillar of a market economy, but Will apparently objects to this freedom when used by workers.

The specific context is the issue of whether public sector workers can sign a contract that requires all the workers who receive the benefit of union representation to share in the cost of this representation. Under the law, if a union represents a bargaining unit, then it must...

UK Homeownership Program Big Winner, Just Like Subprime Lending

The Washington Post used a standard that would have shown subprime loans to be a great boon to tell readers that a housing program by the conservative government in the UK has been a "winner." The Post's declaration of the program as a winner is based on the fact that the program, which allows people to buy homes with a 5 percent down payment, has allowed many people to buy homes who could not otherwise afford them. This was true of zero down subprime mortgages issued during the housing bubbl...

Property Rights, Regulation, and Brain Dead Environmentalists

The company (incredibly named "Freedom Industries") responsible for the massive chemical spill in West Virginia that left hundreds of thousands of people without drinking water declared bankruptcy yesterday. This means that all of the people who had to suffer through days without water, and some who became seriously ill from drinking contaminated water, will likely not be compensated by this company for the damage it caused them.

Many people have referred to this spill as a failure of govern...