Dean Baker's Blog, page 525

Housing Vacancies Still Near Record High

Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see any coverage of the Census Bureau's release of data on vacancy rates for the third quarter. It's a mixed picture.

The vacancy rate for rental units had fallen sharply in the second quarter from 9.7 percent to 9.2 percent. However this was completely reversed in the latest data, which showed a 9.8 percent vacancy rate. This is still down from the peak 11.1 percent peak reached two years ago, but far above historic vacancy rates. The vacancy rate for...

David Brooks Has Not Heard of Medicare Advantage

That is what readers of his column touting Mitt Romney's Medicare plan would likely believe. Romney's plan calls for allowing people to opt for private insurers instead of the traditional Medicare system. This is already allowed, with beneficiaries being allowed to sign up with private insurers under the Medicare Advantage program. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicare Advantage raises the per person cost by 5-10 percent.

The main difference between the existing Medicare...

All Things Considered Falls for Pew's Phony Generational War Story

All Things Considered did a major piece on a study from the Pew Research Center which showed substantial increase in the median wealth of people over age 65 from 1983 to 2009, while wealth among those under 35 actually fell. The Pew study was seriously misleading for several reasons.

First, the wealth of all groups except the young rose. In other words, it is not just the wealthy who saw an increase in their wealth over this period. The Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finance (a...

Why Does Robert Samuelson Have Such a Difficult Time Dealing With Reality

Robert Samuelson gave us a true Washington Post (a.k.a. Fox on 15th Street) classic in his column today. He tells us that the right is unrealistic because it thinks that it can solve the deficit problem by cutting government waste. The left is unrealistic because they think they can solve the deficit problem by cutting the military and taxing the rich. This means ..... drumroll please .....

THE TRUTH LIES IN THE MIDDLE.

Okay, as we know, the Post always looks for what they identify as the...

WAPO Book Section Reviews Michael Brown on Disaster Relief and Bill Clinton on the Economy

Given where we are today, Bill Clinton should be the second to the last person in the world (after Alan Greenspan) to be offering advice on the economy. During his presidency he set in motion the forces that led to the economic disaster that we are living through today.

Clinton gloried in the stock market bubble that led to a massive consumption boom (i.e. discouraged savings). News Flash! Bubbles burst, and the collapse of the stock market bubble gave us the recession in 2001. In terms of...

The New York Times Still Has Not Heard About the Recession

It sometimes hard to get news about the economy over in the middle of New York City. Communications ain't what they used to be. That is what people might conclude after reading David Leonhardt's piece telling us that our big problem is that the United States and governments in Europe have promised too much to their populations.

Leonhardt tells us:

"On the most basic level, affluent countries are facing sharply increasing claims on their resources even as those resources are growing less...

Houses Can Be Rented

I hate to take issue with someone making an argument that I essentially agree with, but Joe Nocera's case for principal reduction does have a major flaw. The gist of Nocera's argument is that people are losing their homes and that because of tighter lending standards, new buyers will not be able to replace them. He argues that this will lead to massive oversupply and therefore further downward pressure on prices.

Okay, boys and girls, you have 3 minutes to figure out what's wrong with this...

Bill Clinton, the Person Who Set the Economy on Its Bubble Driven Path, Has Economic Advice for the Country

The Post reports on a new book by President Clinton which offers economic advice to the country. While the book notes in passing that Clinton's policies contributed to the economic crisis by deregulating Wall Street, it failed to point out that Clinton's policies were actually central to the disaster the economy is now facing.

Clinton promoted both the growth of the stock bubble and the over-valuation of the dollar. The latter came about when his administration organized the "saving" of East ...

The Washington Post Goes "Thuggish" on Social Security

That's their word, not mine. The lead editorial in the Washington Post complains that AARP is taking out ads against cuts to Social Security. The first sentence tells readers that "the word 'thuggish' comes to mind."

It certainly does, although not in reference to the ads. The elite who manage the economy and deliberate on economic policy (a group that includes the Washington Post's editors) completely mismanaged the economy over the last decade, allowing a huge $8 trillion housing bubble to ...

WAPO Ombudsman Defends Hit Job on Social Security

If there were ever any doubts that "Fox on 15th Street" was a fitting label for the Washington Post, Patrick Pexton, the paper's ombudsman removed them with his defense of the Post's front page piece on Social Security last Sunday. Just to remind readers, the whole premise of that piece, as expressed in its headline, is that Social Security has crossed some "treacherous milestone" because it had gone "cash negative earlier than expected."

While this assertion was presented in a...