Dean Baker
| Hometown: | Washington, DC |
| Interests: | An Economy for All, Health Care for All, New Energy, The Big Con, Quality Education, Real Security, Social Security, America's Future Now, Invest In America, Progressive Vision, Revitalizing Democracy |
Full Bio
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Dean's Voice
- July 21, 2011 - 9:52am
- Published Blognote in Honor of Thomas Friedman: Spending on the Commerce Department Is Going to Bankrupt the Country (Blog entry)June 22, 2011 - 2:37pm
The United States has to cut back spending on the Commerce Department or it will bankrupt the country. Okay, I have no evidence for this and it really doesn't make any sense. The Commerce Department's budget is about $10 billion a year, less than 0.3 percent of total spending, but this note is written in the spirit of Thomas Friedman.
- Published AP's "Fact Check" Distorts the Fundamentals of a Republican Plan to Reshape Medicare (Blog entry)June 2, 2011 - 9:50am
Originally published at Beat The Press
- Published Politico Has Not Heard About the Collapse of the Housing Bubble and Economic Crisis (Blog entry)May 20, 2011 - 2:10pm
- May 11, 2011 - 11:06amPeople in Washington have incredibly bad memories. The last time that the United States balanced its budget was just a decade ago.
- May 9, 2011 - 8:50pm
- March 23, 2011 - 10:21am
Showing the sort of balanced journalism that we have come to expect from the Washington Post, its oped page featured a column by Robert Pozen, a financial industry executive and proponent of Social Security privatization, telling liberals why they should support cuts to Social Security.
- Published Compromise on Social Security and Medicare? Why My Center-Left Friends are Wrong (Blog entry)November 22, 2010 - 2:49pm
The following was originally published at TPMCafe and CEPR.net
In recent days several center-left blogger/columnists have suggested that progressives should be happy to cut a deal now on Social Security and other issues related to the budget. The argument is that the cuts being put forward by the commissions are not that onerous, they don't involve privatization, and we could be facing much worse in the future.
While politics always requires compromise, this position misreads the economic and political landscape in four important ways.
- August 11, 2010 - 12:46pm
The following was originally published at Beat The Press
- May 27, 2010 - 11:36am
With the deficit hawks in high gear, people are prepared to say anything in pursuit of the goal of deficit reduction. Remarkably, the NYT is apparently willing to print almost anything. Today the deficit cutting crusade is led by hedge fund manager David Einhorn. In a lengthy column Einhorn bemoans the fact that at least some people in the Obama administration are more concerned about getting people back to work than reducing the deficit.
Einhorn is a bit more knowledgeable about basic economics than many of those who worry that the United States will be unable to find investors to buy its debt. Since he has heard of the Federal Reserve Board, he recognizes that the actual concern should be inflation, not insolvency, since the Fed can always buy up government debt.
However, since one would have to struggle to find any evidence of inflationary pressures in recent economic data, Einhorn chooses to invent his own evidence:
This post is part of our ongoing "Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck The Economy."
