The NYT had an article on projections showing that China is about to pass the U.S. as the leading emitter of greenhouse gases. While the article does point out the near complete failure of the world to do anything to stem the threat posed by global warming, it is almost deliberately uninformative. For example, it […]
Dean Baker
Dean Baker is senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He is the author of several books, including Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Read more about Dean.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Reforming the Medicare Drug Plan: The Drug Industry on Drugs
I didn’t do it. Besides, it was an accident. Yes, that appears to be the drug industry’s line on allowing Medicare to offer its own prescription drug plan and negotiate prices directly with the industry. The NYT gives us the official line from the drug industry’s allies in the Bush adminisitration. Allowing Medicare to offer […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Believe the Establishment Survey
In an earlier note I referred to a Wall Street Journal article that pointed out the large gap between the employment growth reported in the Labor Department’s household survey and the job growth reported from its establishment survey. I took a quick glance at the recent data on Social Security tax collections and concluded that […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Washington Post: The Unemployment Rate is Too Low
Yes, that is what the Post had to say about yesterday’s drop in the unemployment rate. The Post article asserted that: “considering that some workers lack the education and skills to be readily employable, economists regard any unemployment rate below 5 percent as striking.” It then quoted Mark Zandi (generally a reasonable economist) as saying […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Republicans Insist that Productivity Is Lower Than the Data Show
Yesterday’s employment report showed far more growth in employment in the household survey than in the establishment survey. Most economists view the establishment survey, which is much larger, as being the better gage of employment, but there are doubters (many of whom are not Republicans). I have examined this issue in the past and generally […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Productivity Tanks, No One Notices
Okay, that’s not quite right, the Wall Street Journal came though with a front page story. But the reporting on the latest productivity data was buried near the end of a story on retail sales in the NYT and nowhere to be found in the Post or on National Public Radio. Just to get people’s […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Zero Productivity Growth: Preemptive Strike
I know that I usually comment on the news after it’s been reported, but I don’t want to have to write tomorrow about how reporters missed a big story. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that productivity growth for the 3rd quarter was zero. I am always the first one to point out that […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Post Editors Should Come to Washington
A Washington Post editorial today warns us that allowing Medicare to negotiate prices directly with the pharmaceutical industry would be “a sure way of flooding the political system with yet more pharmaceutical lobbyists and campaign spending.” Those of us who live in Washington know that the industry already floods the political system in order to […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Minimum Wage: Restaurateurs May Do the Math, but Reporters Don’t
It is hard to run a restaurant profitably. It is a crowded and heavily competitive market. This is why most new restaurants go out of business within a few years of opening. Rather than blame their failure on market conditions or their own lack of business acumen, restaurant owners would much rather blame government regulation. […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Bill Moyers Commits the Social Security and Medicare Sin (and Worse)
Some of us expect intelligent commentary from Bill Moyers. Well, we didn’t get it today. Instead Moyers gives a whole array of deceptive statistics. The worst of course is combining the projected shortfalls from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of these liabilities stem from a projected explosion of […]
