Dean Baker

USA Today highlights a new measure of economic activity that is based on truckers’ use of diesel fuel. This is an interesting way to try to get an up-to-date measure of the production and sale of goods in the economy. By contrast GDP numbers only come out quarterly and are not released until a month […]

Congress is debating a jobs bill that is expected to cost around $85 billion. It would be helpful if reporters would put this number in some context. This spending would most take place over the next year and a half. GDP over that period will be approximately $20 trillion, so the projected spending in the […]

The deficit hawks apparently believe that their case is so weak that they must resort to crass jingoism to push their agenda. NBC apparently intends to run a piece on the evening news on Tuesday that talks about the portion of the government debt that is owned foreigners, highlighting the role of China. This is […]

Allan Sloan told listeners to Marketplace radio this morning that future retirees should be worried about their Social Security benefits because the program is now paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes. In fact, the program has accumulated more than $2.5 trillion on government bonds in its trust fund. The Congressional Budget […]

The Washington Post ran another appeal for congressional passage of trade agreements negotiated with South Korea and Colombia. It refers to these deals as “free trade” agreements even though an important part of both deals involves increasing protectionist barriers in the form of patent and copyright protection. This increased protection will raise costs and lead […]

I suppose that it is hard to get information about the federal budget way out in the outskirts of downtown Washington. This no doubt explains why Robert Samuelson doesn’t seem to know about the Social Security tax. In fact, he doesn’t seem to know much about the federal budget at all. Samuelson complains that the […]

The NYT and every one else keeps saying that Social Security is one of the three most rapidly growing items in the budget. This is not true. Defense spending grew more rapidly over the last decade. We spent $655.8 billion on defense in 2009 more than double the $306.1 billion spent in 2001. $By comparison, […]

The NYT argues for the need to address the deficit in the near future. Given the dominance of this debate by shrill deficit hawks, it would have been more helpful if the NYT had focused on the no reason to address the deficit now point, and emphasized the need for more stimulus as a way […]

The NYT reported that Lloyd Blankfein, the man who engineered the government’s bailout of Goldman Sach’s, will get a bonus of “only” $9 million for 2009. The use of the word “only” in the headline of this piece displays questionable judgment. Without the help of tax dollars from bus drivers and school teachers, Goldman Sachs […]

I haven’t seen that headline. Maybe we should ask why. If stocks were following their current course and Bernanke had not been approved by the Senate, there would have been no shortage of people willing to blame his rejection for the downturn. In reality of course, no one can really explain day to day movements […]