Dean Baker's Blog, page 555

Robert Samuelson Redefines "Wealthy"

The Washington Post once ran a front page piece questioning whether people who earned $250,000 a year, President Obama's cutoff for his no tax hike pledge, were really rich. However, it also features Robert Samuelson on its opinion page telling readers that seniors with income of $30,000 a year are wealthy. I'm not kidding.

In a piece titled "Why Are We In This Debt Fix? It's the elderly stupid," Samuelson tells readers:

"some elderly live hand-to-mouth; many more are comfortable, and some...

Robert Sanuelson Redefines "Wealthy"

The Washington Post once ran a front page piece questioning whether people who earned $250,000 a year, President Obama's cutoff for his no tax hike pledge, were really rich. However, it also features Robert Samuelson on its opinion page telling readers that seniors with income of $30,000 a year are wealthy. I'm not kidding.

In a piece titled "Why Are We In This Debt Fix? It's the elderly stupid," Samuelson tells readers:

"some elderly live hand-to-mouth; many more are comfortable, and some...

It's Stupid to Talk About Demography When Countries Suffer from Inadequate Demand

The NYT told us "it's the demography stupid" as the explanation for the economic crisis afflicting the United States and the world. This piece is truly remarkably for its ability to confuse just about every basic economic fact relevant to the crisis.

The fundamental problem facing the U.S. and European economies is the lack of sufficient demand to fully employ their workers and their productive capacity. There are few economists who dispute that if there were more demand, there would be more ...

It's a Debt Ceiling Crisis, Not a Debt Crisis

The NYT headlined a section that gave some facts on the size of the debt, its holders, and the reaching of the debt ceiling, "Charting the American Debt Crisis." Actually, there is no debt crisis. Investors were willing to lend the U.S. government trillions of dollars at very low interest rates. There is no evidence that this was about to change any time soon. The United States and other countries have had much higher debt burdens and still faced no problem borrowing.

The problems at the...

New York Times Puts Another Anti-Social Security Editorial In the News Section

The NYT again complained in its news section that Congress did not make cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, telling readers that the debt reduction plans under consideration "defer tough decisions." (Here's the previous editorial.) It then turns to Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Peter Peterson funded Concord Coalition, to tell readers that the real budget problems are the entitlement programs, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Of course the reality is that...

Does Everyone Know How Much $2.2 Trillion Is Over the Next Decade?

It seems unlikely that many people, even among the relatively well-educated readers of the New York Times and Washington Post, have much clue as to how much money is at stake in the battle over the debt ceiling. As some points of reference, the government is projected to spend roughly $46 trillion over the next decade. This means that $2.2 trillion in cuts would be around 4.8 percent of projected spending.

However, the impact is likely to be much larger on specific portions of the budget. If ...

Tell NPR, It's a Debt Ceiling Crisis, Not a Debt Crisis

NPR misrepresented the nature of the crisis in a comment introducing a Morning Edition segment on the pending default of Jefferson County, Alabama. It referred to the country suffering a debt crisis. This is not accurate.

The problem is one of Congress refusing to raise the debt ceiling. This would be comparable to someone losing their checkbook even if they had still had $20,000 in their account. They may face a problem getting money out of their account until they get more checks (or learn ...

Mulligan's Tale for Older Workers Is Easily Explained by Shifts in Relative Demand

I'm glad to see that Casey Mulligan responded to my earlier post responding to his argument that the rise in employment among seniors indicates that the overall drop in overall employment is explained by supply factors, not demand factors.  I countered by pointing out that if this were true, then we would expect that there was decline in earnings for seniors relative to earnings for other workers. The data show the opposite, median weekly earnings for seniors actually rose somewhat more...

NYT Does PR Push for the Bond Rating Agencies

Let's see, if the bond rating agencies lower the credit rating for the U.S. then, if we look at the NYT chart, the interest rate on U.S. Treasury bonds may fall from today's 3.0 percent to 1.1 percent paid by AA- paid by Japan. There is little evidence that the markets pay a great deal of attention to the credit rating agencies. Note that many countries with lower ratings pay considerably less in interest than those with higher ratings.

The piece also includes a bizarre paragraph stating:

...

Is Thomas Friedman Impervious to Facts?

The evidence suggests that he is. He gives yet another of his diatribes about the need to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in order to advance his grand agenda for the country. Of course Social Security is financed by its own designated tax and is projected to be fully solvent for the next quarter century, so it is a bit bizarre to have this one on the list.

More importantly, the entire budget problem is the result of a broken health care system. This is why serious people point...