Dean Baker

Politicians excel at creating low expectations so that they can do “better than expected.” A Post article yesterday on a new report from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services fell completely for the lowered expectations trick. The article tells readers that drug prices increased less rapidly in 2006 than had been projected, in part […]

Okay BTP fans, anyone who happens to be near San Francisco can hear me talking about my book, The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer. I’ll be at Modern Times Bookstore, 888 Valencia (in the Mission), 7:30 Wednesday evening. If you can’t make it, remember you […]

We all know that the southern states like to take a hard line on families that fall on hard times and turn to the government for support. Their payments for TANF and other benefits for low income families are far below the national average. But, if you’re a homeowner and live near the coast in […]

The NYT editorial page can always be counted on to harshly condemn protection for agriculture or manufactured goods, but when it comes to much larger economic distortions that are generated by copyright and patent protection, the NYT tells its reporters to look the other way. Today�s article on the development of new software that can […]

Economic analysts are now acknowledging the shake-up in the sub-prime mortgage market. Lenders had used ridiculously lax standards, and a high percentage of recent loans are now at some point in the foreclosure prcoess. However, the conventional wisdom assures us that this will only affect the sub-prime market, not the larger mortgage and housing market. […]

The NYT has yet another columnist (Roger Cohen) telling the fairy tale about how the market processes underlying “globalization” led to greater inequality between rich and poor. Of course, people who actually know anything about globalization, know that we have not had a market driven process, but rather one that was explicitly designed to redistribute […]

Parade Magazine had a two page spread this weekend warning their tens of millions of readers of the evils of drug counterfeiting. While the article correctly pointed out the risks, the article never discussed the obvious solution — a free market. Government patent monopolies allow the pharmaceutical industry to charge prices that can be ten […]

The headline of the Post’s article on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony before the House Financial Services Committee tells readers that “Bernanke Rebuffs Frank on Rate Cut.” According to the article, Frank had pressed Bernanke about the possibility of a rate cut, given projections from the Fed and elsewhere of slowing growth and rising unemployment. […]

The Census Bureau reported that housing starts fell 14.3 percent between December and January and now stand 37.8 percent below their year ago level. I always caution about making too much of a single month’s data and housing starts are an especially erratic number. Still, it is worth noting that the sharp declines in starts […]

Yep, that was the comment of David Lereah, the chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, and the author of the 2005 bestseller, Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust — and How You Can Profit From It. The news is that the median house sale price was down 2.7 percent in the […]