Dean Baker's Blog, page 476

Washington Post Calls a Free Market in Prescription Drugs "Radical"

The Washington Post showed that it clearly does not believe in free market fundamentalism. It ran an article on a bill proposed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to replace patent monopolies for prescription drugs to treat AIDS with a prize system.The headline and second sentence of the piece described the system as "radical."

Under this proposal, the government would pay to buy the patents for successful drugs. These drugs would then be placed in the public domain so that the drug could be p...

What's a "Financial Recession?"

I hate to be picky, but this seems like a rather bizarre term to include in this Washington Post piece on the G-8 meeting on Saturday. The full sentence is:

"Obama, who has pushed for additional fiscal stimulus in the United States, said the new agreement affirmed the course his administration pursued during the financial recession at home."

It is difficult to see what is added by including the word "financial." The point is that we are still suffering from the effects of the recession that o...

The Washington Post Tells Us What the White House "Believes" About Financial Transactions Taxes

In a blogpost discussing the push by many groups to get a financial transactions tax the Post told readers:

"The White House believes it would be easy to evade, could hamper economic growth, and might make markets more volatile, not less so. Instead, Obama has proposed a new “financial crisis responsibility fee” on big banks, which would raise about $61 billion. "

While it is not clear how the Post knows what the White House really believes, what we know is that financial transactions taxes a...

Gretchen Morgenson Makes the Case for an Accurate Accounting of Bailout Costs

The methodology that the Treasury Department is using when claiming that we made money on the TARP would imply that the government could make money by issuing a 30-year mortgage at 1.0 percent interest to every homeowners in the country. The vast majority of these mortgages would of course be paid off with interest, therefore the taxpayers would come out ahead.

This is ridiculous accounting, as Gretchen Morgenson points out in her column today. There is an opportunity cost to this money and i...

WAPO Provides Important Misinformation on Greece's Choices

A front page Washington Post article discussed the choice that people in Greece must consider, of either staying in the euro and facing perhaps a decade or more of double-digit unemployment, or leaving the euro and facing the uncertainty of going back to its own currency. The Post misrepresented the tradeoffs involved when it presented the views of Nikas Niakaros, an exporter of feta cheese:

"But instead, Niakaros is sweating bullets. Like many Greek exporters, he depends on a supply chain of...

Front Page WAPO Story on Jaywalking by Government Employees

It wasn't quite that bad, but it was pretty close. A front page Washington Post story told readers that:

"The overpayments, discovered in an inspector general’s audit, boosted the annual pay of some of the employees [some of four employees] by as much as $64,000."

I will be the last person to defend to people ripping off the government, but we do need some context here. Assuming a worst case scenario, the amount of overpayments to these government employees amounted to less than $200,000 a ye...

Matt Miller Celebrates the Stinking Corpse of Americans Elect

Matt Miller is the perfect embodiment of the Washington punditry. In his weekly column in the Washington Post he complains about being a victim of the "False Equivalency Police." These would be the people who point out that many of the assertions that he and other professional centrists make about the Democratic and Republican parties being taken over by extremists are not true.

It is only the Republican Party that has moved to the extreme right, the Democratic Party has actually moved toward...

David Brooks, Self-Doubt and Self-Confidence

David Brooks lectures us this morning on the need to have a balance between self-doubt and self-confidence.

"Western democratic systems were based on a balance between self-doubt and self-confidence. They worked because there were structures that protected the voters from themselves and the rulers from themselves. Once people lost a sense of their own weakness, the self-doubt went away and the chastening structures were overwhelmed."

According to Brooks:

"In Europe, workers across the Contine...

The Washington Post Attacks Euro Zone Problems With the Passive Voice

When you hear the passive voice, as in "mistakes were made," it's a good idea to get out the ammunition. The Post gave us a great example in a piece that discussed the meeting of G-8 leaders and plans to deal with the euro zone crisis. The piece told readers that:

"Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti took office in November and, while given credit for taking a tougher line on government spending, has yet to win parliamentary approval for broader labor and regulatory policy changes considered c...

The Washington Post Attacks Euro Zone Problems With the Passive Tense

When you hear the passive tense, as in "mistakes were made," it's a good idea to get out the ammunition. The Post gave us a great example in a piece that discussed the meeting of G-8 leaders and plans to deal with the euro zone crisis. The piece told readers that:

"Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti took office in November and, while given credit for taking a tougher line on government spending, has yet to win parliamentary approval for broader labor and regulatory policy changes considered c...