Blog: Beat the Press

It is appropriate for reporters to call attention to statements by politicians are that strange or wrong. Reporters had no problem going on at great length about then Senator Obama’s reference to “bitter” white working class voters. In the same vein, the NYT should have pointed out that Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty was not making […]

One might think that the mass unemployment caused by the collapse of the housing bubble might lead people to be concerned about restructuring the financial sector: not at the Washington Post. Robert Samuelson tells us that the meltdown shows that the welfare state is no longer viable. Actually, he has a pretty good case. With […]

Thomas Friedman told readers that: “But now it feels as if we are entering a new era, ‘where the great task of government and of leadership is going to be about taking things away from people,’ said the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum.” Unfortunately, Mr. Friedman apparently doesn’t talk to anyone who […]

The NYT has a good article on how millions of workers are likely to face prolonged joblessness as a result of the current recession. The article implies that there has been a change in the relationship between economic growth and employment in recent decades as it has taken longer for the economy to recovery the […]

While tens of millions of ordinary workers pay taxes at a 25 percent marginal rate, many of Wall Street’s highest paid dealmakers get to pay tax at just a 15 percent rate. They get this lower rate because of the special treatment of “carried interest,” also known as the fund managers’ tax break. The Washington […]

The NYT has an analysis this morning of the Fed’s “exit strategy” from its quantitative easing policy that was designed to support the economy after the collapse of the housing bubble. It seems that the Fed is pursuing an exit strategy, so it is reasonable for the NYT to report on the policy. However, this […]

Our greatest economic minds were too out to lunch to notice an $8 trillion housing bubble and it just keeps getting worse. The NYT tells us how Hungary is giving lectures to Greece about how it should just suck it up, cut its spending, and then celebrate the wonders of the euro, offering its own […]

The Labor Department reported an increase of 31,000 initial claims for unemployment insurance last week. The weekly data are always erratic, but there has been a clear upward movement since December numbers. The four-week average was 467,500, which is considerably higher than a level consistent with job growth (@400,000). Also, last week’s numbers were almost […]

Alan Blinder did a pitch for a business tax credit for hiring new workers in the Post today. He briefly mentions some of the routes for gaming the credit, but misses the most obvious one for the credit as he has proposed it — increasing hours. If firms can get a tax credit for higher […]

The Post reported on the administration’s mortgage modification program. At one point it presents an estimate Credit Suisse on the number of foreclosures that would need to be prevented this year to stabilize house prices. (The article put Credit Suisse’s estimate at 3.2 million. This is obviously wrong since that is close to twice the […]