Dean Baker's Blog, page 375

Washington Post Myths About Its New Owner, Jeff Bezos

In a piece that was ostensibly intended to dispel myths about Jeff Bezos, the new owner of the Washington Post, "Five myths about Jeff Bezos," the paper seemed intent on creating new myths. Its list of myths included two items which are largely true.

Myth # 1 is "Jeff Bezos is destroying independent booksellers." The piece implies that independent booksellers were already well on their way to collapse before Amazon came into existence telling readers:

"The year before, Barnes & Noble and...

Liberating the Post Office

Gail Collins took up the Post Office and its large annual losses in her column yesterday. While she does make the point that the Postal Service has been hamstrung by Congress in its efforts to take advantage of its assets to move into new lines of business, this point deserves greater emphasis.

Congress mandated that the Postal Service should be self sustaining in the same way as a private for profit company. However it has repeatedly blocked the Postal Service from taking advantage of its en...

Good NYT Piece on Workers Defense Project in Texas

This is a nice piece on a non-traditional organizing effort among immigrant construction workers in Texas.

Floyd Norris Notices Upward Revision in Corporate Profits

Floyd Norris has a piece in NYT this morning reporting on the upward revision in profits in the GDP data released last month. It also notes some of the other major revisions. Good to see this being picked up.

They Are "Taming the Debt" Again at the Washington Post

The Washington Post had yet another news article with cheerleading for cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The piece told readers about the bad news that a number of experienced Republican congressional staffers were leaving their jobs, telling readers:

"Moreover, many observers worry that the exodus is an ominous sign that Republicans see low odds for significant progress toward taming the debt."

Of course many observers who are more concerned about promoting economic growth and reducing u...

Michael Gerson Doesn't Like Quantitative Easing and Misrepresents Bernanke's Statements to Make His Case

Michael Gerson used his column today to warn of the bad effects of quantitative easing, telling readers that it is concealing structural problems. To make his case, he completely misrepresented statements from Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke.

After referring to comments from Mario Draghi, the President of the European Central Bank, urging governments take steps to increase potential growth, Gerson tells readers

"Outgoing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has been gently suggesting there a...

NPR Covers Trade Deficit, Sort of

One of my frequent complaints here at BTP is the tendency of the media to ignore the trade deficit. As an accounting identity, the trade deficit must be equal to the sum of the budget deficit and the deficit in private saving. This means that if we have a large trade deficit, then we must have either a large budget deficit and/or a large deficit in private savings. 

For whatever reason people don't like budget deficits. We get large deficits in private savings when we have wonderful deve...

The People Who Turn 65 in the Next Decade Are Not 25-44 Today

Robert Samuelson's column today notes the sharp slowdown in health care cost growth over the last 5 years and discusses the extent to which it can be attributed to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He is rightly skeptical of claims that the ACA has been a major factor in the slowdown since it preceeded the passage of the Act and we still have not seen most of its provisions put into effect.

However at the end of the piece Samuelson gives three reasons why costs are likely to increase going forwa...

NYT Forgot To Mention EU/ECB Contribution to High French Unemployment

The NYT had an article on French President Francois Hollande's efforts to lower the unemployment rate. The article neglected to mention the role of the policy of the European Central Bank and European Union in raising unemployment in France.

The EU/ECB have forced the countries of southern Europe to have large cuts in government spending and tax increases. This has pushed the countries into a severe recession, thereby sharply reducing demand for imports from countries like France. 

This...

Do We Want High House Prices or Affordable Housing? Lessons on the Government Debt

Matt Yglesias asked this question of President Obama on his twitter feed. It's a very good question and reporters at President Obama's speech in Phoenix would have been asking it if they were awake.

In case folks missed it, President Obama touted immigration reform as one of the actions he would do for housing. He said that this would raise house prices.

There probably is some truth to this. Normalizing the status of 10-12 million immigrants living in the country will allow more of them to be...