Dean Baker's Blog, page 485
April 1, 2012
The Cost of Health Care in Europe: The Debut of Professional Wrestling on NPR
National Public Radio told listners that, "Like the U.S., Europe Wrestles With Health Care." If the wrestling in Europe is anything like the U.S., then we must be talking about professional wrestling. ("Hit him over the head with a chair!)
The per person cost of health care across Europe is far less than in the United States. According to the OECD, in 2009 (the most recent year for which it has comparable data), per capita health care expenditures in the United States were $7,960. In France, ...
March 30, 2012
Esquire Magazine: Writer wanted to help convert class war into generational war. No skills required; pays top dollar.
This could well have been the want ad Esquire used to attract a writer for its story titled, "War Against Youth." This lengthy piece is the best compendium of warped logic and misplaced facts on this topic since the Peter Peterson financed film, IOUSA.
The whole story is given away in the first paragraph:
"In 1984, American breadwinners who were sixty-five and over made ten times as much as those under thirty-five. The year Obama took office, older Americans made almost forty-seven times as m...
Discrepancies Between National Income and GDP
Binyamin Appelbaum has a NYT blogpost suggesting that the economy may be growing more rapidly than the GDP imply based on the fact that national income has grown more rapidly in recent quarters. In principle, GDP which measures the goods and services the economy produces, should be equal to national income, which measures the income generated in the production process. (Every cost to a buyer is income to someone.)
However, they never come out to be exactly equal. They measures of GDP and...
The Lowest Number of Unemployment Claims Since April of 2008?
Yes, that it is the way that the media reported the Labor Department's release of new unemployment claims yesterday. Strictly speaking, this is true. The 359,000 claims reported for last week is the lowest number in almost four years.
However, it is worth pointing out that last week's number was originally reported as 348,000. It was revised up this week to 364,000. There has been a very consistent trend with claims numbers be revised upward over the last couple of years. (I don't think this ...
Michael Gerson Has Not Heard About the ACA
That's what readers of today's Washington Post column by Michael Gerson must conclude. After all, he tells readers that President Obama has done nothing to reduce the cost of government health care programs. If he had heard of the Affordable Care Act, then he would know President Obama had actually done a great deal to control the costs of these programs, as shown in the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) baseline budget projections which show spending if the cost control mechanisms in the A...
Helping Those at the Bottom by Paying Neurosurgeons and Pfizer More
Are you upset about inequality? According to the logic in a Washington Post column by Brookings economist Ron Haskins, we can help remedy the situation by doubling the pay of neurosurgeons to roughly $1 million a year and doubling what we pay to the pharmaceutical industry for drugs each year to $600 billion.
If you don't understand how increasing the income of rich doctors and highly profitable drug companies helps those at bottom, then you obviously don't understand economics. It's all...
March 29, 2012
Fed Policy: What Does the Washington Post Think It Is Saying?
I can't argue with today's Post editorial on the Fed, primarily because I have no clue what they think they are saying. The Post comes out in favor the Fed's expansionary policy given the continued weakness of the labor market (yeh!). But it then warns:
"Still, these benefits [sustaining growth] come with risks attached. Among the biggest risks is that easy money from the Fed enables banks and firms to postpone necessary restructuring — and for Congress and the White House to postpone...
European Economic Blogs
In order to advance inter-Atlantic dialogue, we've encouraged some of our friends in Europe to put together a list of useful European economic blogs. Here is a list compiled by Henning Meyer, the editor of Social Europe Journal. You can find his post here.
European Economic Blogs
Blog Centre for European Reform
March 28, 2012
The Iron Grip of Accounting Identities
James Kwak responded in Baseline Scenario to some of the points that I raised in the review of the new book he co-authored with Simon Johnson, White House Burning. I want to focus on one issue in particular because it is really central to how we understand the economy.
I argued in my review that the fundamental imbalance in the U.S. economy is the trade deficit. This deficit is in turn caused by the over-valued dollar. The latter is a direct result of the decision of developing countries to a...
UK Enjoys the Fruits of Deficit Reduction: Economy Shrinks 1.2 Percent
The NYT reported on a revision to 4th quarter GDP data in the UK that showed the economy shrinking at a 1.2 percent annual rate rather than the 0.8 percent rate previously reported. Unfortunately, the article reported the data giving quarterly rates, so most readers probably did not recognize that the 0.3 percent decline from the third quarter translated into a 1.2 percent annual rate.
Since this is written primarily for an audience in the United States, and GDP growth numbers are always...
Dean Baker's Blog
- Dean Baker's profile
- 2 followers
