Dean Baker

“I’m for cutting costs where it makes sense. … If the net effect is destroying thousands of good-paying jobs, then that’s a different story. Cut the fat, yes, but when it gets to the bone, that’s something else.” Those were the words of Indiana Senator Evan Bayh in the context of arguing against placing any […]

That’s right, the old-fashioned way. They get the money from Washington. –Dean Baker

That’s what millions of readers of this front page NYT article, headlined “Deficit Hits $1.4 Trillion, Complicating Stimulus Plans,” are asking. As the article itself notes, the recent numbers on the deficit are $200 billion below the August projection from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and $400 billion below the projection from the Office of […]

The headline writer apparently didn’t read a good article on wages very closely. Wages are not about to fall to an 18 year low, as the headline asserts. The point was that real wages are likely to see their sharpest drop in 18 years. That’s different. –Dean Baker

Why do reporters feel the need to editorialize? They should be given oped columns so that they can tell readers how much they like a trade pact, but their affections can’t make a trade deal that increases patent and copyright protections and leaves most protection for highly-paid professionals unchanged a “free trade” agreement. –Dean Baker

NPR may have misled readers with a report on the jobs created by the stimulus. The report followed a White House report documenting the jobs created through the government contracts in the stimulus. While the report mentioned that this spending is just a small portion of the stimulus, it gave credence to Republican claims that […]

The New York Times told readers that offering people the option to buy into a Medicare type public plan: “has become a proxy for a larger debate over where Mr. Obama is taking the country.” Is that so? Many people might have just thought it was a way to ensure that people had the option […]

Actually they are considering something much stupider. Congress is proposing to extend the $8,000 tax credit for buying a home and to have it apply to all homebuyers, not just first-time buyers. From an economic standpoint, there is no more reason to want people to buy homes than to want them to buy pizzas. In […]

The WSJ headlined a piece “Geithner Says Stimulus Still Needed.” Given that the unemployment rate is 9.8 percent and still rising (higher than in any post-World War recession except the 1981-82 recession), why would anyone think that stimulus is not still needed? This is not really a serious issue. –Dean Baker

Somehow the world got turned upside in a Vanity Fair excerpt of a book on the financial crisis by NYT reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin. Sorkin, in outlining the dimensions of the financial breakdown following the collapse of Lehman, tells readers: “Treasury bills were trading for less than 1 percent interest, as if they were no […]