Dean Baker's Blog, page 356

Senator Mary Landrieu Proposes Government Takeover of Insurance Industry

That would have been a more appropriate headline to a NYT article discussing politicians' reactions to the troubles facing Obamacare. The piece notes several Democrats expressing concern about the program's rollout. At one point it refers to Senator Landrieu's proposed bill which would, "force insurance companies to reissue the health plans they have been canceling by the thousands."

Such legislation would imply that insurers had to issue plans even if they were losing money on them, for exam...

NYT Endorses Imaginary TPP Deal

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade deal that is being negotiated completely in secret. The main actors at the table are large corporate interests like Wall Street banks, multinational drug companies, and oil and gas companies. This might lead one to think that the end product will be an agreement that furthers the upward redistribution of income rather than benefits the bulk of the population. That seems especially likely since this is a "next generation" trade agreement that is p...

It's Per Capita Growth that Matters for Well-Being

The NYT had a piece telling readers that growth in Africa has not been able to reduce the number of people in poverty. By not taking population growth into account, it wrongly implied that the continent is seeing rapid growth. It told readers:

"The continent is indeed posting gains — in 2013, sub-Saharan Africa’s growth rate is projected at 4.9 percent, a figure that would be the envy of any Western government."

Actually, the 4.9 percent figure is not especially strong. Africa's population gr...

It Doesn't Help Obamacare If Heavily Subsidized Healthy Young People Sign Up

The obsession with healthy young people and Obamacare is getting really whacky. Yesterday the NYT had a piece reporting on the large number of people who would be able to get plans at little or no cost because of the subsidies provided under the Affordable Care Act. At one point it refers to comments from Mark V. Pauly, a professor of health care management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School:

"The availability of zero-premium plans may make the deal especially enticing to the...

Social Security Paid Out 0.006 Percent of Benefits to Dead People

That's what the headline of the front page Washington Post story might have read if the purpose was to inform readers. Instead the lengthy piece (which covers the whole back page) told readers that Social Security paid out $133 million in benefits to people who were dead over the last three years.

While it is useful to weed out such improper payments, this piece likely led many readers to wrongly conclude that such payments are a major cost to the program. They are not. Nothing about the fina...

Germany's Unemployment Rate is 5.2 Percent, Not 6.5 Percent

The official German unemployment rate includes people working part-time who would like full-time jobs. For this reason it is not directly comparable to the unemployment rate in the United States. Fortunately the OECD produces a harmonized unemployment rate for its members which is directly comparable.

For this reason it was needlessly misleading for the NYT to tell readers that the unemployment rate across Germany is 6.5 percent. This refers to the official Germany government measure. The OEC...

Washington Post Uses Faulty Logic to Highlight Anger Over Obamacare

The Washington Post lead front page article has a headline telling readers that "sticker shock" is leading to "anger" over Obamacare. Whatever the reality of this anger, the information presented for the piece's poster child is wrong.

The article begins by telling readers about a 58-year-old lawyer in Washington, DC who will see her premiums increase from $297 a month to $463 a month with a policy purchased through the exchange. The piece tells that with the policy purchased through the excha...

Robert Samuelson Is Trying Yet Again to Divert Attention from the Upward Redistribution to the Wealthy

Robert Samuelson has pretty much devoted his column to trying to distract readers from the policies that have redistributed income upward to the richest one percent, urging them instead to focus on high living seniors. The latest occasion is a new study from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank which found that median income for those aged 62 to 69 gained 12.3 percent to $50,825 from 2007 to 2012. It found that median for those over age 70 increased 15.6 percent to $31,512.

There are two points...

China and the Euro Zone: Beggaring Neighbors

Paul Krugman is wrongly beating up on the euro zone for its current account surplus, showing that it is now larger than China's. The problem with the comparison is that China is an extremely fast growing developing country. This is the sort of place that in the good old days we expected to run trade deficits.

The euro zone on the other hand is a bloc of slow growing rich countries. We would expect them to be running trade surpluses. This does not negate the fact that the euro zone could and s...

China and the EU: Beggaring Neighbors

Paul Krugman is wrongly beating up on the EU for its current account surplus, showing that it is now larger than China's. The problem with the comparison is that China is an extremely fast growing developing country. This is the sort of place that in the good old days we expected to run trade deficits.

The EU on the other hand is a bloc of slow growing rich countries. We would expect them to be running trade surpluses. This does not negate the fact that the EU could and should be doing much m...