Dean Baker

“Determined to banish their image as shameless fearmongers who constantly raise the threat of terrrorism for political purposes, the Republicans are planning a new approach to foreign policy.” Well, the Washington Post didn’t write that sentence, instead the lead story in today’s paper began “Determined to banish their old tax-and-spend image, Democrats want to shrink […]

The country’s private pension system is broken, so there is nothing wrong with creating new systems of private accounts in addition to Social Security. However, there are grounds for suspicion about the motives of people who propose such accounts using public funds, esepcially when they make up numbers. As part of its ongoing Jihad against […]

Well, they certainly seem to have lost the ability to talk about it coherently. The peaceful disintegration of the Soviet Union and the subsequent course of Russian history is a remarkable story. Unfortunately, one gets very little of the real picture in the Washington Post’s piece marking the 15th anniversary of the collapse. For most […]

The BBC had a short article on the possibility that Venezuela will shift from trading its oil in dollars to trading in euros. This article gives me an opportunity to trash two common myths about the meaning of such a shift among producers. The first issue is the importance of the shift to the value […]

While we still may have some surprises in the December data, it looks like 4th quarter GDP growth is likely to come in at under 2.5 percent, driven down by declines in both residential and non-residential construction, as well as a drop in equipment investment. Hours are on track to grow at about a 1.6 […]

No one can be happy about the situation in Iraq, but the media do the public a serious disservice when they misrepresent the choices available. The Wall Street Journal commits this sin today when it quotes a senior fellow at a “liberal think tank” as saying “whatever you think should happen in Iraq, the fact […]

The NYT has a good piece showing the inefficiencies associated with the “Clean Development Mechanism” that some misguided geniuses included in the Kyoto agreement. The premise is reasonable: it’s generally cheaper to reduce emissions in poor countries than rich countries, therefore why not allow polluters in rich countries to pay to reduce emissions in poor […]

The Washington Post writes again on Social Security, describing the system as the “fiscally imperiled Social Security system.” For the facts, CBO says that if nothing is done, the program first faces a shortfall in 40 years. It’s too bad the Washington Post doesn’t give the same attention to the problems (e.g. global warming, rising […]

The producer price index showed that the core finished goods index jumped 1.3 percent in November, more than reversing a 0.9 percent decline reported for October. Much of the story was passenger cars and light trucks. They rose by 2.2 percent and 13.7 percent, respectively after showing October declines of 2.3 percent and 9.7 percent. […]

The Wall Street Journal reported today on the split between the Wall Street oriented Rubinite/Hamiltonian wing of the Democratic wing and the more working class oriented populist wing of the party. There is little doubt which side the WSJ is on. The article comes right out swinging, telling readers that Robert Rubin �redefined the formerly […]