Blog: Beat the Press

The deficit hit another record in July. It’s now running at an $820 billion annual rate, more than 6 percent of GDP. Of course, I’m talking about the trade deficit, not the budget deficit. All the bad outcomes of large budget deficits are also true of large trade deficits, yet the media barely notice a […]

The NYT reported on Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s decision to veto an ordinance setting a higher minimum wage for large stores (e.g. Wal-Mart). After 2010, the law would have required large stores to pay workers at least $10 an hour, plus $3 an hour for benefits. The article concludes by presenting the assertion of a […]

This is what reporters are supposed to do. –Dean Baker

We are still at the early stages of the collapse of the housing bubble, but it�s not too early to start pointing fingers. This isn�t a question of vengeance, the issue is accountability. If the dishwasher breaks the dishes, she gets fired. If the custodian doesn�t clean the toilet, he gets fired. Economists think it�s […]

After getting a few things wrong in his last column, David Brooks is back to tell us his remedy for the problem of inequality: education (sorry, it�s Times Select and therefore not linkable). He proposes an agenda that would promote educational opportunity for middle class and poor kids. I question whether his route is the […]

The Fed released data for consumer debt for July on Friday. The release got little attention, and the short pieces that did cover it mostly focused on the slower rate of growth. The growth in consumer credit overall slowed from a 7.3 percent annual rate in June to a 2.8 percent rate in July. For […]

According to the New York Times reporting on wages at Delphi, the autoworkers seem to be gaining rapidly. Earlier the NYT had reported that compensation for autoworkers at Delphi averaged $65 an hour. They never gave a detailed breakdown of this figure, but they did report that wages were $28 an hour. If the wage […]

NYT columnist David Brooks weighed in on the origins of inequality in his column (sorry�it�s NYT select and therefore not linkable). While he wants to assure readers that inequality is not a serious issue, and not caused by policy, he gets almost everything in his article wrong. Briefly, here are the highlights:

Both the NYT and Post had articles this morning that warned about the 4.9 percent annual rate of growth in unit labor costs in the second quarter reported yesterday, and indicated that this could cause the Fed to raise interest rates further to combat inflation. Whatever the Fed does on interest rates, let�s hope that […]

There should be a simple rule written in huge neon signs in every newsroom: �You don�t know what politicians �think.�� The reason is simple. Politicians do not generally say what they think. They say what will advance their political careers. This is their job. (That is a bi-partisan comment.) If a reporter believes that she […]