FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
According to Federal Reserve Board cultists, the Fed sets interest rate policy solely for the good of the country. Those of us who live in the reality-based community know that the Fed is hugely responsive to the interests of the financial sector.
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The stock market is not even in principle supposed to be a measure of economic activity. It is supposed to represent the present value of future profits.
“Economically, Puerto Rico is almost like a wholly owned subsidiary of the US economy, and various laws inhibit it from making decisions to develop their own economy.”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker denounced the left for not having any real ideas for workers. In his Washington Post column The Fix, Philip Bump largely endorsed this perspective.
The New York Post headline “Greek Tragedy: Nation Commits Economic Suicide” was only yelling what was spoken elsewhere: that Greek voters invited ruin with their “No” vote on an austerity referendum.
from 2010 to 2015, Greece has cut government spending from roughly 13 billion euros to 10 billion euros–a cut of 23 percent.
In the Washington Post’s eyes, though, Greece has not yet demonstrated the willingness to “trim its spending”
A New York Times headline refers to “trillions” of dollars being spent by central banks. In fact, central banks have not spent this money, they have lent this money, mostly by buying government bonds.
While the process of switching currencies will never be painless, it must be compared to the pain associated with an indefinite period of unemployment in excess of 20.0 percent, which is almost certainly the path associated with remaining in the euro on the Troika’s terms.
It is bizarre to note that low-income people spend a disproportionate share of their money on housing and then complain about low house prices.
Billionaire Pete Peterson is spending lots of money to get people to worry about the debt and deficits, and National Public Radio is doing its part to try to promote Peterson’s cause.
For political purposes, it is undoubtedly advantageous to imply that the “opportunity” progressives favored the market more than the “redistributionist progressives,” but it is not true.
You would never know, reading Greg Mankiw’s piece, that many economists in fact oppose TPP and fast track. Or that economists can and do reject the characterization of TPP and the like as “free trade” bills.
The New York Times has a post by Neil Irwin headlined “Why Americans Don’t Want to Soak the Rich.” But looking at polling over time on taxing the wealthy, what’s striking is how consistently popular it is.
The Washington Post has established itself over many decades as a major mouthpiece of elite opinion. Its editorial pages argue strongly for the interests of the wealthy, with scarcely concealed contempt for people who have to work for a living.
The question here is pretty simple, in spite of Robert Samuelson’s efforts to sow confusion. There is very little plausible benefit from raising interest rates and slowing the economy at a point where the economy is far below its potential by almost any measure.
Most of us recognize that politicians don’t always reveal their true thoughts. We know what they say their priorities are, but only a mind-reader would try to tell us what they really think.
Robert Samuelson says if we had kept up the rates of productivity growth we had until 1973, it would have mattered much more to middle-income families’ living standards than the rise in inequality since 1980. This is true in the sense of “if I were six feet five inches, I would be taller than I am,” but it’s not clear what we should make of the point.
A front-page lead New York Times story is mainly valuable for the insight it provides into what the Times considers to be a healthy economy–and who that economy is supposed to benefit.
New York Times economics columnist David Leonhardt has a new column headlined “Inequality Has Actually Not Risen Since the Financial Crisis.” This is mostly, if not entirely, BS.
