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Znet Article Baker: The Budget Deficit Crisis Puzzle

Znet Article, February, 09 2010 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

The country faces a serious crisis in the form of a manufactured crisis over the budget deficit. This is a crisis because concerns over the size of the budget deficit are preventing the government from taking the steps needed to reduce the unemplo...

Znet Article Baker: No Way Out: The Political Constraints Obstructing a U.S. Recovery

Znet Article, February, 03 2010 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Ever since Keynes wrote The General Theory in the 30s, economists have understood the mechanism for escaping the sort of slump the economy faced in the Great Depression. The key point was to generate demand. The government had to do something - an...

Znet Article Baker: Reappointing Bernanke: We Won't Get Tarped Again

Znet Article, January, 26 2010 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

The Senate's decision on approving Ben Bernanke for a second term as chair of the Federal Reserve Board is coming down to the wire and the Wall Street crew is once again pulling out all the stops. To get the 60 votes they need for Senate approval ...

Znet Article Baker: Making the Banks Pay

Znet Article, January, 20 2010 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

President Obama proposed a tax on the country's largest banks to help recover the money lost under the TARP program. This tax is a positive step. However, it will not come close to recovering the losses incurred in the bailouts and it will do almo...

Znet Article Baker: Look for News Articles from the NRA's "Firearms Gazette" at the Washington Post

Znet Article, January, 13 2010 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Andrew Alexander, the Washington Post's ombudsman, gave an argument about the Post's use of copy produced by the Peter Peterson funded "Fiscal Times." This argument can also be used to justify the use of "news" stories generated by any "news" serv...

Znet Article Baker: Tobacco Lobbyists

Znet Article, December, 25 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Millions of people around the country have been treated to the anti-debt ads run by one-time tobacco industry lobbyist Richard Berman. Mr. Berman, who has also worked to thwart minimum wage increases and managed to get on the opposite side of Moth...

Znet Article Baker: Financial Transactions Taxes: Easy and Fun Money

Znet Article, December, 15 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

There is a growing movement in both the United States and around the world for taxing financial speculation. The logic is simple: even a very small tax on trades in stock, options, credit default swaps, and other derivative instruments can raise a...

Znet Article Baker: The Reason for 15 Million Unemployed: Poor Thinking at the Top

Znet Article, December, 08 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

The United States has more than 15 million people unemployed. This is not their fault. It is the fault of really bad policy decisions by people who get paid more than almost all of the unemployed ever did or ever will. The failure of economic poli...

Znet Article Baker: The Budget Crisis: The Blame is Bipartisan

Znet Article, November, 26 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

The country is being bombarded with stories claiming that record budget deficits threaten our children's future and jeopardize the credibility of the dollar. These stories are a serious problem - they have hugely confused the public about the natu...

Znet Article Baker: The Vampire Banks Rise Again

Znet Article, November, 24 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

There are more than 15 million people unemployed and almost 2 million people set to lose their homes to foreclosure this year. But there is good news: the Wall Street banks are as profitable as ever and set to give out record bonuses this year. Th...

Znet Article Baker: Hostage Takers in the Senate

Znet Article, November, 23 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

As most of us are preparing for the holidays, a small clique in the Senate, with their collaborators in the Washington punditry, are planning for a dramatic hostage-taking event. Their target of opportunity is a bill to increase the nation's debt ...

Znet Article Baker: An Unemployment Solution: Pay People to Work Shorter Hours

Znet Article, November, 17 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

The unemployment rate is 10.2 percent and virtually certain to rise even higher in the months ahead. Even with the prospect of extended benefits, unemployment is still a crisis for the families affected, as they struggle to pay their mortgage or r...

Znet Article Baker: Financial Transactions Taxes Must Come Before a National Sales Tax

Znet Article, November, 10 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

The deficit hawk crew, famous for missing the $8 trillion housing bubble that wrecked the economy, is now on the warpath pressing the case for a big new national sales tax. They claim that the country badly needs additional revenue to address proj...

Znet Article Baker: Massive Defense Spending Leads to Job Loss

Znet Article, November, 09 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

There is a major national ad campaign, funded by the oil industry and other usual suspects, to convince the public that measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and slow global warming will result in massive job loss. This ad campaign war...

Znet Article Baker: Stimulus and Jobs: We Can Do Better

Znet Article, November, 03 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

The Obama administration came out with its first set of numbers on the jobs impact of its stimulus package. It's pretty much along the lines of what was predicted. To date, the package has created close to 1 million jobs. That is good news, but in...

Znet Article Baker: Breaking Up the Banks is Hard to Do

Znet Article, November, 02 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Those who like banks that are too big to fail will love the latest financial reform proposals circulating in the US Congress. The bill put forward by Barney Frank, the chairman of the House finance committee, does little to change the current stru...

Znet Article Baker: Why Do Bankers Need to Be Paid 1000 Times as Much as Firefighters?

Znet Article, October, 29 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Most people would have little difficulty getting by on $200,000 a year. Most people who had badly messed up on their job, and put their employer in bankruptcy, would be absolutely delighted to find themselves still earning $200,000 a year. That's ...

Znet Article Baker: People Power Matters: The Public Option Lives!

Znet Article, October, 27 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

In spite of the best efforts of the insurance industry and their followers in Congress and the media, it is still very possible that the health reform bill passed by Congress will include a robust public plan. This is a case where the simple facts...

Znet Article Baker: Wall Street Adds Insult to Injury

Znet Article, October, 27 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Most people would have little difficulty getting by on $200,000 a year. Most people who had badly messed up on their job and put their employer in bankruptcy would be absolutely delighted to find themselves still earning $200,000 a year. That's no...

Znet Article Baker: Does Citigroup Need China?

Znet Article, October, 20 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Most of the economists and pundits who could not see an $8 trillion housing bubble are telling us that the United States desperately needs for the Chinese government to keep buying its debt. This crew of failed analysts argues that without the sup...

Znet Article Baker: Debunking the Dumping-the-Dollar Conspiracy

Znet Article, October, 13 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

On Monday, the Independent reported that a number of countries are conspiring to dump the dollar as the primary oil trade currency, spelling disaster for the U.S. economy. But the United States wouldn't need to fear - even if it were true.

Znet Article Baker: Unemployment is Up, But Bernanke Saved the Banks

Znet Article, October, 06 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Friday's job report showed that most of the country is experiencing enormous economic pain, even if the economy is now in a recovery. The unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent with the unemployment rate for men hitting a new post-depression high. ...

Znet Article Baker: Medicare Buy-in: What's Wrong With Giving People a Choice?

Znet Article, September, 29 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Back in the good old days the conservatives were the folks who favored individual choice: not any more. In the current health care debate, the top priority of the so-called conservatives is to deny people choice. They want to make sure that Americ...

Znet Article Baker: The Rally Against Obamacare for the Banks

Znet Article, September, 22 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

The large number of people who protested against President Obama's health care plan last week drew an enormous amount of media attention. Clearly some of the leaders are certifiably crazy: questioning whether President Obama is an American and lik...

Znet Article Baker: Short Sellers: The Unsung Heroes of the Financial Crisis

Znet Article, September, 15 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Last year, as the collapse of the housing bubble was threatening to turn Wall Street into a pre-industrial economy, many leading financial commentators were blaming short-sellers for the meltdown. They argued that the fundamentals of the financial...

Znet Article Baker: Ben Bernanke's Bad Memory

Znet Article, September, 08 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

To combat the financial crisis set off by the collapse of the housing bubble, the Federal Reserve Board has lent out more than $2 trillion through various special lending facilities. While the Fed discloses aggregate information on the loans made ...

Znet Article Baker: Bank Profits Are Up: Did You Hear Anyone Say "Thank You"?

Znet Article, September, 01 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Most of us work for a living; the rest are bankers. These days the news is filled with great tales about how the banks are coming back.

Znet Article Baker: Owning Versus Renting

Znet Article, August, 25 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

There has long been a strong ideological bias in the United States that has pushed families toward becoming homeowners. Instead of resisting this bias, many people in the policy and advocacy community unthinkingly echoed this ideological refrain, ...

Znet Article Baker: Palin's Health Care Rant

Znet Article, August, 12 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

As a basic rule, politicians will say anything they can get away with. If an effective politician thinks that he can call his opponent a drug-dealing, serial murdering gangster and have the charge taken seriously by the media, then he will do it, ...

Znet Article Baker: The Doctor is in . . . Bangkok

Znet Article, August, 06 2009 Dean Baker
Baker's ZSpace page

Why don't we globalize American healthcare?

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