Dean Baker

NYT reporters should know that Germany counts workers who have part-time employment, but desire full-time employment, as being unemployed. This is different from the U.S. (and international) methodology, which counts these people as being employed. This means that when the NYT tells readers that Germany had an unemployment rate in the 3rd quarter of 8.2 […]

The NYT had a piece discussing congressional actions to determine whether fees being tacked on by airlines are actually just concealed fare increases. If this is the case, then they may be allowing airlines to circumvent taxes that are based on air fares. According to the article, such an effort to conceal fee hikes could […]

Gravity causes objects to fall. However, some items will fall faster than other because something called “friction.” This would no doubt leave the WSJ hugely confused. It tells readers today that: “Recent academic research has raised questions about just how exchange rates affect trade. Suffice it to say the relationship is complex.” Yeah, the rate […]

That’s right folks. Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke somehow couldn’t see a housing bubble over the years 2002-2006 even as it grew to $8 trillion, threatening the U.S. and world economy. But, NPR goes them one better. It still hasn’t noticed the housing bubble. Morning Edition had a segment on consumer spending which never once […]

Not according to the Washington Post. The Washington Post raises the concern that Congress may exert may oversight of the fed in response to the economic crisis and therefore that there will be political interference in the Fed’s conduct. While Congress is obviously a political institution, the Fed was arguably over-responsive to the interests of […]

The NYT told readers that wages in the United States are out of line with the rest of the world. The basis for this assertion is that the U.S. has a large trade deficit. The deficit does provide evidence that prices in the U.S. are out of line, but it doesn’t necessarily tell us anything […]

Yes folks, according to the Washington Post, if the banks don’t get to call the shots, then it’s politicization. This is not a joke, that is exactly what the Washington Post said in an editorial about Senator Dodd’s plan to have the Fed’s district bank presidents approved by Congress rather than the banks in the […]

Presumably because someone at the NYT doesn’t like it. Obviously, there are pragmatic reasons for not including a public plan — like the power of the insurance industry to block reform, but it is not clear why the NYT decided that supporting a mechanism that is widely recognized as controlling costs is ideology. –Dean Baker

It is truly remarkably that in a country where the political elite is so completely committed to “free trade” that discussions of health care never include any mention of trade as a way to reduce health care costs. It would be hard to imagine more blatant class bias. With millions of seniors already retiring to […]

I’ve pointed out many occasion in which Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson has gotten things wrong, so I will give him credit for getting one right. He took issue yesterday with Nouriel Roubini’s claims that the economy is facing renewed bubbles in stocks and commodities. Samuelson looks to the fundamentals (what an extraordinary idea) and […]