Dean Baker's Blog, page 566

There Was No Deficit Commission Report, Why Do Post Columnists Feel the Need to Lie About This?

I know we are not supposed to say "lie" in Washington, but this is really get tiresome. There was no report from President Obama's deficit commission. The rules under which the commission could issue a report were very clear. It had to have the support of 14 of the 18 members in a vote that took place by December 1, 2010. There was no vote taken by that date, although 12 of the 18 members did indicate their support for a report produced by the commission co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan...

The Post's Jihad Against Social Security

The Post continued its Jihad against Social Security by trying to take the poor hostage. The subhead of its lead editorial told readers:

"The never-cut liberals insist that Social Security grow forever — and thereby would hurt the poor."

There is nothing in this piece that connects the opposition to Social Security cuts to hurting the poor. In the event that nothing is ever done to change the program and it begins to face a shortfall in a quarter century, the amount of additional revenue...

Robert Samuelson Gets One Right

Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson got one right today when he criticized Mark Zandi for his "good news" in the June jobs report. Zandi apparently highlighted the fact that the rise in joblessness reported for June was entirely attributable to an increase in the number of people who reported quitting their jobs voluntarily.

Samuelson correctly pointed out that this number is erratic, although his concern about the fact that this increase only appeared in the seasonally adjusted data i...

Investment Banker Peter Peterson Appears Incognito In the Washington Post

The Washington Post allowed Wall Street investment banker Peter Peterson to push his decades long crusade to gut Social Security and Medicare in his disguise as president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Given the Post's often felt need to identify individuals and organizations who get funding from labor (sometimes wrongly), it should have identified Mr. Peterson by his past affiliation with the Blackstone Group, one of Wall Street's biggest private equity firms. Mr. Peterson is also...

We Need 90,000 Jobs Per Month to Keep Pace With the Growth of the Population

In an article on the June employment report the NYT told readers that the economy needs 150,000 jobs per month to keep pace with the growth in the population. Actually, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the underlying rate of labor force growth is now just 0.7 percent annually. This comes to roughly 1,050,000 a year or just under 90,000 a month.

This is fortunate since the economy has created less than 1.8 million jobs in the 16 months since it first began adding jobs again in...

Charles Krauthhammer Doesn't Know That There Was No Deficit Commission Report

This one should be simple enough even for a Washington Post columnist, but apparently not. Krauthammer is apparently referring to the report of the deficit commission's co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. The report did not get the necessary majority to be approved by the commission and there was not even a vote taken by the deadline.

Of course Krauthammer also apparently missed the collapse of the housing bubble and resulting economic collapse, since he blames President Obama for...

Contrary to What the NYT Asserts, Not All Economists Believe that Pension Funds Assume Too High a Rate of Return

The NYT, which has repeatedly printed news stories implying that public pensions are hugely underfunded, wrongly implied that economists all agree that public pensions have overly optimistic return assumptions for their pension funds. This is not true. In fact, most pensions are now making assumptions that are completely consistent with the expected return on their assets based on widely accepted projections for the growth of the economy and the growth of profits.

In fact, it is almost...

How Does the NYT Know What Senator Coburn "Believes" About Measures of Inflation?

That's what millions of NYT readers are asking after they saw the assertion:

"Republicans are concerned about the growth of entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare. Some, like Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, support the idea of an alternative measure of inflation, known as the chain-weighted version of the Consumer Price Index, because they believe it is more accurate."

It is certainly possible that Senator Coburn and others supporting a lower cost of living...

The Costs of Copyright Protection

Will the NYT ever include any economic analysis of the costs imposed on the economy by copyright enforcement. As a result of this form of protectionism, books, music, video material, computer software and other items that would otherwise be instantly available at zero cost, instead can cost consumers large amounts of money. This dwarfs the economics costs that result from most forms of trade protection, which rarely raises the price of items by more than 10-20 percent. 

This article on...

Bill Clinton and Mrs. O'Leary

According to legend, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was started when Mrs. O'Leary's cow knocked over a latern in her barn setting it on fire. While Mrs. O'Leary certainly didn't set the fire on purpose, she is probably not the person we would consult on fire control. In the same vein, it is reasonable to ask why anyone would consult Bill Clinton about the country's current economic problems.

While the economy performed well during the second half of the Clinton administration, it was...