Blog: Beat the Press

The Washington Post reports this morning that the I.M.F. is telling Argentina�s president, Nestor Kirchner, that he must change his ways, if Argentina is to maintain its 9 percent GDP growth. Regardless of the specifics, the idea of the IMF giving advice to Argentina at this point is almost the dictionary definition of Chutzpah. Let�s […]

In his weekly column, David Leonhardt tells readers that the problem with the U.S. health care system is not waste, rather we are getting what we pay for. I’ll leave it to others to assess the value of good health and longer life expectancies, I’ll simply point out that everyone else seems to get much […]

Now that the data are showing that home prices are falling, news reports are again citing statements from the experts who told us that home prices would never fall. According to these experts, house prices declines are no big deal after the extraordinary appreciation of the last decade. The data indicate otherwise. People have been […]

Since many folks seem confused on the idea of free trade in doctors, let me make a few points that may help clarify the issue. First, we should think about trade in doctors like we think about trade in manufactured goods. When the Bush 1-Clinton administration wanted to increase trade in manufactured goods with Mexico, […]

NPR had a piece this morning on the possibiity that Medicare reimbursements for doctors will be cut. It told listeners that if this cut went into effect, then there may be a shortage of doctors who are willing to serve Medicare beneficiaries. In other contexts, such as supplies of farm workers, custodians, and restaurant workers, […]

The NYT has a column today reporting that people’s assessment of the economy is heavily influenced by their view of the situtaion in Iraq. While I am open to this view, the chart (sorry not linkable) accompanying the column left me unconvinced. Eyeballing the numbers, we start in May ’03 with more than 70 percent […]

The NYT had an article today on Berlin�s mayor. At one point the article discusses Berlin�s economy, telling readers that it has a 17 percent unemployment rate. It would have been helpful to point out Berlin�s unemployment rate is 17 percent using the official German measure of unemployment. This measure counts anyone who is working […]

The NYT gives us yet another crisis story about declining congestion and pollution in Italy. You guessed it — fewer children and falling population. According to the article, economists say that communities will struggle to find people for certain jobs like ambulance drivers or police officers. It sounds more like Italy has a shortage of […]

While I am reluctant to perpetuate the debate on living standards and the accuracy of the consumer price index (CPI), I just can�t resist holding economists and pundits to the things they claim to believe. My last post featured the claim that living standards had improved substantially despite the stubborn refusal of the CPI to […]

The story on middle class living standards over the last quarter century is pretty bleak. There are some gains, but most of this is attributable to an increase in the number of workers per family � women have been entering the labor market. While this is the story from the official data, many of those […]