Has NYT Heard of China’s or Russia’s Covid Vaccines?
A lengthy New York Times podcast on Bill Gates and his efforts to make vaccines available to the developing world never once mentioned the vaccines developed by China or Russia.
Dean Baker
The Speed of Economic Recovery Depends on How Soon We Control the Virus
The course of the recovery will depend on what happens with the progress in containing and/or treating the coronavirus, and anyone who cannot speak authoritatively on that point has no clue what the recovery will look like.
Coronavirus Is a Reason to Worry About the Economy—the Stock Market Plunge Is Not
While the spread of the coronavirus gives us very good reason to worry about the state of the economy, the plunge in the stock market does not.
For WaPo, Flourishing Elites Are a Matter of Perception
Election Focus 2020: The Washington Post gave us a major piece telling us how Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are two sides of the same populist coin.
NYT’s Look at Democratic Tax Plans Is an Orgy of Really Big Numbers
Election Focus 2020: The New York Times gives a a true orgy of really big numbers in the form of trillions of dollars of additional taxes and spending, providing readers with no context that would let them know how much impact these taxes are likely to have on the economy and/or their pocketbooks.
Moving Jobs to Mexico Was a Feature, Not a Bug, of NAFTA
No one should have been surprised by the loss of high-paying, union manufacturing jobs to Mexico; that is exactly the result that NAFTA was designed for.
Corporate Media Take the Trump Line on Trade
The fact that trade is a story of winners and losers within countries rather than between countries is especially important now that our trade conflicts are entering a new phase, especially with China.
The Dangerous Austerity Politics of the Washington Post
Millions of people who wanted jobs in the decade from 2008 to 2018 did not have them because the Washington Post and its clique of “responsible” budget types joined in calls for austerity.
Japan Facing Nightmare Scenario of Longer Lives, Low Unemployment, Less Crowding
Running out of people might seem a strange concern for a country that is ten times as densely populated as the United States.
Federal Reserve ‘Independence’ Means It’s Free to Serve the Financial Industry
While the New York Times is right to warn about filling the Fed with people with no understanding of economics, it is wrong to imagine that we have in general been well-served by the Fed in recent decades, or that it is necessarily independent in the way we would want.
To Readers, $X Billion Just Means ‘a Whole Lot of Money’
If reporters made a point of expressing program spending as a share of the federal budget, people would immediately know whether these items are a big deal or small change.
Factchecking WaPo’s Factchecker on Sanders and the Trillion-Dollar Bailout
Contrary to the Washington Post factchecker, Bernie Sanders seems on pretty solid ground when including the Fed loans in the total cost of the Wall Street bailout.
Worry About the Old, Not the Rich, HuffPost Tells Readers
There continues to be a large market for pieces saying the big conflict in the US is generational rather than class. The HuffPost made its latest contribution this week.
New York Times Provides Cover for Austerity Cranks
Incredibly, instead of pointing out that the advocates of austerity have been shown wrong, most reporting continues to treat their policies as being credible, and in fact often works to hide evidence of its failure.
CBS’s Horror Stories on National Debt Aren’t Actually All That Scary
The “economic textbooks” CBS cites in its warning on debt seem not to be very reliable.
WaPo Misses the Story: Either Scott Walker Doesn’t Understand Taxes or He Lies to Fifth Graders
Scott Walker either does not understand how our income tax system works, or is deliberately lying to advance his agenda.
It’s OK to Criticize the Fed—Even for Presidents
Political figures have every right in the world to complain if the Fed is being overly concerned about inflation at the cost of slower growth and higher unemployment.
Jeff Bezos’ Paper Tells You Not to Worry About Those Billionaires
Insofar as people get incredibly wealthy from being successful in earning rents at the expense of others in the economy, rather than generating wealth, they are very much like counterfeiters.
Can Truth Survive Trump? WaPo Fails to Ask How Well Truth Was Doing to Begin With
A Washington Post essay never considers the possibility that respect for traditional purveyors of “truth” has been badly weakened by the fact that they have failed to do so in many important ways in recent years.
Soaring Cost of Clues Leaves Thomas Friedman Apparently Unable to Buy One
In a period of record-low productivity growth, Thomas Friedman tells us the robots are taking all the jobs. Hey, no one ever said you had to have a clue to write for the New York Times.
