Dean Baker

Give the Washington Post credit, in its article on Ben Bernanke’s reappointment as Fed chair, it did point out that Mr. Bernanke bears considerably blame for getting us into this economic crisis in the first place. While all the other reporting emphasized his efforts to prevent a financial collapse over the last year, only the […]

That seems the unifying theme from his column today, since his arguments against high speed rail do not make a lot of sense. Samuelson tries to tell us that trains might be useful in Japan and Europe, but they won’t work in the United States. He tells readers that: “Densities are much higher, and high […]

The NYT had a bizarre piece in which it reported on the FBI’s arrest of a former Goldman Sachs employee because he allegedly stole software from Goldman Sachs which the article says a federal prosecutor claims: “could be used to ‘unfairly manipulate’ stock prices.” The article is peculiar because it focuses on the intellectual property […]

The NYT attributed an inaccurate assertion to the Treasury that: “debt as a percentage of G.D.P. is rising and nearing a postwar high.” Even counting the debt held by trust funds, the debt to GDP ratio is only around 70 percent of GDP. It was near 120 percent of GDP ($18 trillion in the current […]

The NYT ran a “he said, she said” article on health care today in which it repeated several blatantly untrue statements by opponents of health care reform, alongside statements by proponents. The most obvious falsehood was a comment, attributed to Senator John McCain that: “the language in some bills would have created boards to decide […]

A Reuters article on the new budget projections that will be issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Tuesday told readers that: “new deficit projections pose risks to Obama’s agenda.” The article reports that the projections will likely show an increase in the projected 10-year deficit of $2 trillion (about 1 percent of projected […]

Congress included an $8,000 first-time home buyers tax credit in the stimulus package. This credit expires at the end of November. The Post discussed the prospects of its being renewed. While the Post included the realtors inflated claims about the economic benefits of the credit, it left out two important points. First, the vast majority […]

The White House’s 10-year economic projections show that the economy will be in considerably worse shape than the previous set. As a result, the cumulative deficit over this period will be $2 trillion larger. One might think that the prospect of millions more workers being unemployed would be news in the Washington Post. Nope, they […]

That would be the world’s central bankers who are convened at their annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Four years ago this same group had a Greenspan retrospective in which they debated whether Alan Greenspan was the greatest central banker of all time. It might have been worth noting the track record of this group […]

The NYT gives the incorrect impression that Medicare’s designated funds will be used to pay for President Obama’s health care reform. An article discussing the attitude of the elderly toward reform reports: “Knowing that Medicare itself faces a financial crisis, many older Americans object to Congress’s tapping the program to help pay for coverage of […]