Dean Baker's Blog, page 45

Free Market Drugs: A Key Part of Elizabeth Warren's Transition to Medicare for All

(This post first appeared on my Patreon page.)

Earlier this month, Senator Warren put out a set of steps that she would put forward as president as part of a transition to Medicare for All. The items that got the most attention were including everyone over age 50 and under age 18 in Medicare, and providing people of all ages with the option to buy into the program. This buy-in would include large subsidies, and people with incomes of less than 200 percent of the poverty level would be able to...

NAFTA Was About Redistributing Upward

The Washington Post gave readers the official story about NAFTA, diverging seriously from reality, in a piece on the status of negotiations on the new NAFTA. The piece tells readers:

"NAFTA was meant to expand trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico by removing tariffs and other barriers on products as they were shipped between countries. The pact did open up trade, but it also proved disruptive in terms of creating new manufacturing supply chains and relocating businesses and jobs."...

The Gospel on Population, According to the Washington Post

The Washington Post reported that birthrates hit their lowest level in more than three decades in 2018. It then told us why this could be bad news for the country:

"Keeping the number of births within a certain range, called the “replacement level,” ensures the population level will remain stable. A low birthrate runs the risk that the country will not be able to replace the workforce and have enough tax revenue, while a high birthrate can cause shortages of resources."

That's an interesting...

Amazon Still Does not Collect Sales Tax on All the Items it Sells

That would have been worth mentioning in a piece discussing a new organization dedicated to reining in Amazon. Through much of its existence Amazon did not collect sales tax in most states.

As this became more contentious and it had a physical presence in more states, Amazon eventually agreed to start collecting sales taxes in all states. However, it still does not collect sales taxes on the sales of its affiliates, who account for more than 40 percent of the sales through Amazon's site.

This...

China Has Hugely Outgrown the U.S. Under Trump

This is one in the "whose is bigger?" category; which country has added the most to their GDP over the last three years. There is not any particular reason anyone should care about this, except that Donald Trump has made a big point of touting something about how no one says China will soon be the world's largest economy anymore.

In fact, China's economy surpassed the U.S. economy in 2015, using the purchasing power parity measure of GDP. This measure, in principle, uses a common set of...

Is the Local Hardware Store Dying?

I have a lot of respect for Tim Wu, who has done much valuable work on concentration in the tech sector. However, when I saw his NYT piece on the death of the local hardware store I was somewhat skeptical. Most immediately, my experience with my thriving local hardware store (which gives great service, if any readers make it to Kanab) is 180 degrees at odds with his experience with his local hardware story in New York City.

So, I thought I would check the data. According to the Bureau of...

Should We Have Billionaires?

(This post originally appeared on my Patreon page.)

The Democratic presidential campaign has taken a strange twist in recent days, with candidates being asked whether we should have billionaires. While there may be some grand philosophical questions at stake here, I will stick to more mundane economic ones. The real question is; how do you want the economy to work?

The basic story is that if we have a market economy, some people can get very rich. If we buy the right-wing story, the...

Donald Trump Brings Ukraine Scandal Home in Texas

Donald Trump went to Texas yesterday to take credit for the opening of an Apple plant that had been open for five years and is not actually an Apple plant. (It is a supplier than produces parts for Apple products.) While there, he indicated that he may exempt Apple products imported from China from the 25 percent tariffs he has imposed on Chinese imports more generally.

While the prospect of a seemingly politically motivated waiver did get some attention, it deserves much more. There are real...

Donald Trump Boasts About Taxing Middle Class for "Billions and Billions"

This was in the context of the tariffs he has imposed on imports from China. According to the Washington Post, Trump boasted:

"I like what’s happening right now. We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars."

Tariffs of course are taxes on imports. The evidence is overwhelming that the vast majority of these taxes are being borne either by consumers or retailers in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the price of imports from China has fallen just 1.6 percent over the last year. This means tha...

NYT Tells Readers that Boris Johnson Boasted About Plan to Commit Ten Cents Person Per Year to Health Care

I'm not kidding, this is what the piece said. The article was about talks by current prime minister and Conservative Party candidate Boris Johnson and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbin before the United Kingdom's biggest business group.

The piece told readers:

"In Mr. Johnson’s speech on Monday, he promised a package of tax cuts designed to entice businesses to support his party but said a further cut to the corporation tax would be postponed. Money designated to finance that tax cut would instead be directed t...