Dean Baker

Okay, it’s not quite that bad, but when someone who pretends to be serious wants his readers to celebrate the fact that: “the average American worker is nearly 10 times more productive than the average Chinese worker,” it’s getting pretty silly. (Actually it’s probably closer than 7-8 times, but this is David Brooks we’re talking […]

I don’t ordinarily use BTP for addressing items that mention me or my work, but I’ll make an exception in the hope of getting a good exchange going. Brad DeLong was good enough to begin a review of my book False Profits on his blog. After graciously giving me credit for recognizing the housing bubble […]

A front page Washington Post article told readers that: “The number of people looking for jobs rose by more than 200,000 last month compared with February, according to the Economic Policy Institute — and that’s a good sign, economists say. It means that Americans are seeing more jobs being created and that they’re optimistic about […]

In the middle of an article telling readers about Alan Greenspan’s (yes, the guy who couldn’t see an $8 trillion housing bubble) assessment of the economy, the NYT refers to the “paradox” that the Labor Department reported that the economy created 162,000 jobs in March but the unemployment rate remained fixed at 9.7 percent. This […]

Thomas Friedman has refrained from discussing economics in his columns for some time and the world was happy. But, now he’s back with a vengeance. He begins his column with today’s “fun fact”: “Between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old […]

This is the question that everyone should be asking, not just of Greenspan, but of every economist in the country. The NYT has nice column by Michael Burry on the topic. –Dean Baker

When people talk about plans to “help” homeowners they must (yes, I said “must”) ask two simple questions: 1) Are the homeowners being “helped” paying less in mortgage and other housing costs than they would to rent a comparable unit: and 2) Are the homeowners likely to end up with equity in their homes? Neither […]

To those who pay attention to the economy, it’s rather evident that the basic economic problems of the last two decades are the bubble driven growth of this era and the country’s broken health care system. But NYT columnist David Brooks apparently never allows the actual state of the economy to affect his pronouncements about […]

I leave the assessment of this USA Today headline to readers’ judgment. –Dean Baker