Dean Baker

The Financial Times reports that the Financial Accounting Standards Board is about to recommend that the federal government adopt “accrual” accoounting to more accurately affect its budget situation. This would mean, for example, that the projected cost of Medicare benefits for a worker who is 25 today should be listed as a government obligation. While […]

Last week it was David Broder, this time it is Sebastian Mallaby telling us that “every honest politician” knows that we have to cut Social Security. Actually, honest politicians who know arithmetic and can read, know that Social Security is projected to be able to pay all scheduled benefits fro the next 40 years, with […]

In a piece on the importance of the Portuguese language, the Times explains that one reason for increased interest is Brazil’s “dynamic economy.” Brazil’s per capita GDP growth has averaged less than 1.0 percent annually over the last decade. Add this one to the “huh” department. –Dean Baker

Steve Pearlstein often wrote thoughtful pieces when he was a reporter, and this has been the case in more recent years with his columns. For this reason, I was overcome by shock and awe (hence the 2 day delay in writing) when I read what could only be described as sycophantic praise in a column […]

That’s the question asked in a NYT article this morning. Of course, the more important question is the path of the much broader S&P 500 index. The article notes that the price to earnings ratios here are not much higher than their historic average. But the key part of the story is the path of […]

The NYT has yet another story detailing the problems of patent monopolies in the health care industry. This time the problem is a diagnostic device of questionable accuracy. Economists know that the monopoly profits created by patents give drug and medical equipment companies enormous incentives to lie about the merits of their products. But, economists […]

Projections show that the combined cost of Medicare, Medcaid, and maintaining the roads and sidewalks in front of the Washington Post will increase by more than 8 percentage points of GDP by 2050. Clearly we cannot afford to maintain the roads and sidewalks. When will politicians have the courage to cut the budget for maintaining […]

Hal Varian (my former micro professor) has an interesting piece in the NYT about the impact on the entertainment industry of the declining cost of producing and distributing video material. The basic story is that free material (e.g. YouTube) drives out costly material (e.g conventional movies). The greater the availability of free material, the less […]

The NYT reports on yet another incident in which the pharmaceutical industry has misrepresented research findings in an effort to promote one of its drugs. This is exactly the sort of corruption that economic theory predicts from a situation in which government patent monopolies give drug companies large monopoly rents. Unfortunately, almost no economists pursue […]

The Washington Post reports on France’s pro-family policies which it tells us are proving effective in combatting the “threat of zero population growth.” While I am big fan of policies that lessen the burden on families raising young children, no one is ever going to scare me with the threat of zero or even negative […]