Dean Baker's Blog, page 439

China and Protectionism: It Ain't Quite as Simple as They Tell Us

Eduardo Porter has an interesting column on Governor Romney's threat to declare China a "currency manipulator" on day 1 of his administration. He makes the point that the real value of China's currency has risen substantially against the dollar in the last two years. He also notes that China is not the only country that deliberately props up the dollar relative to its own currency. Most importantly, he points out (as I have frequently noted) that declaring China a currency manipulator does no...

Two Percent GDP Growth Is Not Good News

The Washington Post had an article highlighting the Fed's commitment to continue to buy long-term bonds for the foreseeable future, even if the economy looks somewhat better. It then gives a list of what it presents as relatively positive recent economic reports and says that the Fed intends to still continue its bond buying policies.

One of the items on this list is a forecast that the economy will grow 2.0 percent in the third quarter. It is difficult to view this as positive. The Congressi...

How Much Does Charles Lane Get Paid to Complain About Being Unable to Compete With the Post Office?

I'm not kidding. Charles Lane's column in the Washington Post is quite literally complaining about the fact that the Washington Post stands to lose business to the postal service. Lane is upset that the postal service has contracted with a major distributor of ads to use the mail service to bring the material to people's houses. Previously this material was distributed largely by newspapers like the Washington Post, which means that the Post and other newspapers stand to lose from the deal.

L...

The End of China Bashing: Toward a Serious Discussion of the Trade Deficit

Paul Krugman and Ezra Klein both say, following Joe Gagnon, that the time for criticizing China for "currency manipulation" has passed. This is partly true in the sense that China's currency has risen substantially in real terms against the dollar over the last few years. However this does not mean either that the relative value of the dollar and the yuan is now at a sustainable level or that China is not continuing as a matter of policy to prop up the dollar against its currency.

To see the...

NPR Sets Straight All Those Silly People Who Thought Unemployment Was the Country's Biggest Problem

Almost five years after the start of the recession we still have close to 25 million people who are unemployed, underemployed, or who have given up work altogether. Given that this is ruining the lives of millions of workers and their children we might think that this is the country's most important problem. Fortunately, we have National Public Radio (NPR) to set us straight.

NPR presented a segment this morning that is largely based on the views of Nariman Behravesh, the chief economist of t...

Robert Samuelson and the Affordable Care Act: Almost Half Right

Robert Samuelson goes after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in his column today. Remarkably, he is almost half right. His target is the provision that larger employers must provide insurance for full-time employees, which he says could amount to $5,000 a year. He tells readers that this provision will both lead to less hiring and also encourage employers to keep workers' hours below the 30 hour cutoff, both of which would be undesirable outcomes.

This is partly right, but only partly. The ACA d...

Steven Pearlstein Doesn't Like the European Welfare States

That is what readers of his column will conclude when they see him saying:

"Europe is a different story. The bubble years allowed much of Europe to avoid making the kind of structural changes necessary to put its social welfare system on a sustainable fiscal path and reform its labor and product markets. The euro crisis — which is both a banking crisis and a sovereign debt crisis — has forced Europeans to begin addressing those issues. But the noisy process will take years to complete, if for...

The Washington Post Tries to Scare You on Public Sector Pensions

The Washington Post rarely tries to conceal its contempt for unions or middle class workers. In keeping with this spirit it ran a column today that was intended to scare readers about the extent to which public sector pensions will impose a burden on taxpayers in the years ahead. The column projects that the unfunded liabilities of public sector pensions will require:

"on average, a tax increase of $1,385 per U.S. household per year would be required, starting immediately and growing with the...

What Krugman Said, With a Not So Small Addendum

In his latest blogpost Paul Krugman makes the point that the recoveries from financial crises have in general been slow and difficult, but that they need not be. The point is that this downturn is not like the severe downturns in the 74-75 or 81-82, because they were both driven by the Fed raising interest rates to combat inflation. That left the obvious corrective step of lowering interest rates, which in both cases prompted a swift recovery.

That option does not exist today because this dow...

CEOs Will Make Millions if Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy are Extended

This little factoid would have been worth including in a front page Washington Post news article reporting business executives' expressed concerns about the end of the year budget situation. The article tells readers that the executives warned of dire consequences, including another debt downgrade and higher interest rates on government bonds, if the budget situation is not resolved quickly. An early resolution is more likely to leave the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in place, since it would...