RSS

Dean Baker

Recent Articles

China's "Human Face" on Opposition to a Higher Yuan

Dean BakerMar 20, 2010

According to USA Today, China's government tried to put a "human face" on its opposition to raising the value of the yuan by presenting the case of a small business owner who is worried that he will lose his workers to better paying employers if the yuan rises in value. Of course, this is not exactly how the situation was described.

Are Auto Companies Really Worried that Financial Reform Will Prevent Them From Giving Consumers "Cheap Credit"?

Dean BakerMar 19, 2010

That's what the Post told readers in noting opposition to Senator Dodd's bill. Of course just because they say that they are worried about their ability to provide cheap credit to consumers does not mean that this is actually their concern. Lobbyists sometimes do not tell the truth.

--Dean Baker

Greenspan Tries to Rewrite History of Housing Bubble

Dean BakerMar 19, 2010

Alan Greenspan refused to acknowledge responsibility for the housing bubble again in a talk given at Brookings yesterday. It would have been helpful if the NYT had provided some additional history to point out to readers that what Greenspan was claiming was not true.

For example, Greenspan asserted that: "Unless there is a societal choice to abandon dynamic markets and leverage for some form of central planning, I fear that preventing bubbles will in the end turn out to be infeasible. ....Assuaging their aftermath seems the best we can hope for.”

Non-Story On Regulator Bonuses: A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Dean BakerMar 18, 2010

AP broke the big news -- better be sitting down: "During the 2003-06 boom, the three agencies that supervise most U.S. banks – the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – gave out at least $19 million in bonuses"

Oh my god! oh my god! Just think, the money used to pay bonuses at these three agencies over this three year period would have been almost enough to pay the one-year bonus of a single top performer at Goldman or AIG. What an incredible waste of taxpayer dollars.

TARP Give Aways

Dean BakerMar 18, 2010

The Post discussed the extent to which banks have repaid their TARP money, noting that small banks have been much slower to pay back the government loans than large banks. At one point the article discusses the sale of warrants on bank stock that the government received as part of the package. It comments that: "the goal of requiring the warrants was to ensure that taxpayers would see a return once the banks recovered."

Pages