Dean Baker

The NYT tells us that “most economists agree that the economy probably bottomed out in the first three months of the year and they have forecast a rebound.” That is a bit less reassuring that it may first sound, since these same “most economists” never expected growth to dip to 0.6 percent in the first […]

The NYT reports that President Bush wants to double the appropriation for treating AIDS in the developing world to $30 billion over the next 5 years. This is an impressive increase, if his successor follows through on it. Of course, its impact will be reduced substantially if the U.S. pushes the use of patent protected […]

The NYT took the time to point out that if you constructed a price weighted S.& P. 500, instead of the actual capitalization weighted index, it would be about 90 percent above its 2000 peak. This is interesting trivia, but not of any obvious relevance to anything. It would have been far more reasonable for […]

That’s what David Leonhardt asserted in a column that trashed Lou Dobbs for passing along ridiculous stories about how immigrants are damaging the country. While Leonhardt is right to go after mindless immigrant bashing, that should not be an excuse for a little economic slight of hand. Economists usually think that an increased supply of […]

China’s government apparently decided that the best way to take some of the air out of its stock market is raise the stock transfer tax from 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent. With the market plunging 6 percent today, it seems like they may be getting what they want. The idea that stock transfer taxes may […]

Yep, the good folks at USA Today are it again. They have yet another really scary article on the trillions of dollars of debt that the United States government has incurred. The article not only fails to put the trillions in any context that would make it meaningful to readers (e.g. express it as a […]

Ed Andrews has a very nice piece on efforts by the coal industry to win subsidies for coal liquification. The point is that increased use of coal can make the U.S. more energy independent, but it would also lead to substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions. –Dean Baker

A bit more than a decade ago, a group of politicians and economists came up with a backdoor way to cut Social Security. They claimed that the consumer price index (CPI) overstated the annual inflation rate by more than a full percentage point. This mattered for SS because after retirement, benefits are indexed to changes […]

The Washington Post had a decent article about the budget for the National Institutes of Health is being cut. The article briefly recounts the trend in NiH funding over the last decade and points out that the 2008 appropriation is $28.9 billion. It would have been far more informative to readers if the article had […]

In an editorial calling for companies to voluntarily allow non-binding shareholder votes on CEO compensation packages, the NYT warns that if companies don’t allow such votes Congress may force them. It then adds that Congress “is not the place to set corporate salaries.” Of course no one is proposing that Congress would set CEO salaries. […]