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Dean Baker

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Meaningless Budget Numbers on Health Care

Dean BakerMar 27, 2010

How many NYT readers know how large $500 million is as a share of California's budget? How about $370 million a share of Texas' budget.

My guess is that almost no one outside of the people who live in these states (and probably not even many of them) has any clue as to how large these sums are to the state governments. This means that when the NYT tells readers that the health care reform bill will cost the state of California $500 million a year in higher Medicaid costs and Texas $370 million a year, it is giving readers no information whatsoever.

NPR Discusses Housing Market Without Talking to Anyone Who Recognized the Bubble

Dean BakerMar 26, 2010

It seems that a condition of being a source on the housing market for NPR is having missed the housing bubble. Morning Edition ran a piece on President Obama's new housing plan in which Mark Zandi claimed that a main benefit was that it could stop the decline in house prices. Since there continues to be enormous oversupply in the housing market, as shown by a record vacancy rate and falling rents, it is extremely unlikely that house prices will stabilize until they return to at least their pre-bubble levels. It is also not clear why anyone would want to make homes more expensive for future buyers as a matter of policy.

--Dean Baker

Has The Post Heard About the Housing Bubble?

Dean BakerMar 26, 2010

It seems that they haven't. When discussing the cause of foreclosures the Post told readers that the Obama administration's new housing plan takes aim at: "the major cause of the current wave of foreclosures:

"the spike in unemployment. While the initial mortgage crisis that erupted three years ago resulted from millions of risky home loans that went bad, more-recent defaults reflect the country's economic downturn and the inability of jobless borrowers to keep paying."

Helping Banks by "Helping" Homeowners?

Dean BakerMar 26, 2010

The NYT reports on a new plan from the Obama administration to help homeowners. According to the article, under the plan the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) will guarantee new loans in exchange for banks writing down some of the principle on underwater mortgages.

Exports Do Not Magically Increase Productivity

Dean BakerMar 24, 2010

That seems to be the argument of a Washington Post article that reports that firms are finding ways to increase output without hiring more workers. Of course firms are always finding ways to increase output without hiring more workers, this is called "productivity growth."

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