That is what can be concluded from its decision to call the Treasury bonds held by the Social Security trust fund "IOUs."
This is not the normal term applied to government bonds in the New York Times or anywhere else. This is a pejorative term that has the effect of undermining the credibility of the trust fund. That is the sort of comment that is usually reserved for its opinion pages.

An AP story in the Washington Post on the IMF's warnings about debt levels told readers that: "Japan's debt is proportionately even bigger -- about twice its GDP -- but the impact is cushioned because most is held by Japanese households." Actually the fact that the debt is mostly held by Japanese households by itself is of little consequence. If Japan had been running large trade deficits and foreigners had bought private assets but not government bonds, then Japanese households and its economy would be in the same situation as if foreigners had bought its debt.

The NYT article on the passage of the health care reform package noted that the pharmaceutical industry had agreed to reduce their charges by $85 billion over the next decade. It would have been helpful to tell readers that this is a bit more than 2 percent of projected revenues over this period for the industry. The patent monopolies granted by the government on prescription drugs give them about three times as much money every year.

--Dean Baker

The NYT reported that in a speech before the Independent Community Bankers of America Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke lashed out against the risks created by giant too big to fail banks. It would have been worth mentioning that Bernanke had helped to engineer several mergers that made very large banks even larger during the financial crisis in 2008.

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

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.

The NYT article on the jobs bill passed by the Senate yesterday included the views of economists Timothy Bartik and John Bishop as to why the bill will likely create few jobs. It would have been helpful to include the fact that the private sector adds roughly 4 million jobs a month, most of which are replacing jobs lost due to either workers quitting or being laid off.