Give the NYT credit, it is trying to write about the budget in a way that doesn't just bury people in really big numbers. Its main article on President Obama's budget included several references that indicated how large various items were relative to the size of the economy and used other comparisons to place them in a context that could make them understandable to readers. This is a good start, but it could be better.

One item that readers would miss in this piece is any sort of historical comparison. This is important because the piece notes Obama's proposed increases in spending, but readers may not realize this is against a baseline of large cuts. The key area for increases is discretionary spending, both domestic and military. Obama proposes to increase spending in each area by less than 0.3 percentage points of GDP. This implies that spending in both areas will fall to close to 2.5 percent of GDP by the end of the 10-year horizon.

By comparison, spending in both areas had always been far higher as a share of GDP. Military spending had averaged well over 5.0 percent of GDP in the 1970s and 1980s during the cold war years, but declined to 3.0 percent by 2000 before again being ramped up as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Domestic discretionary spending averaged 3.9 percent of GDP in the 1980s and 3.4 percent in the 1990s and well over 4.0 percent in the 1970s. Before the downturn the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was projecting that domestic discretionary spending would be close to 2.8 percent of GDP by the end of this decade. This means that even with the increases proposed by President Obama he would still be spending less than the baseline path that CBO envisioned when President Bush was in the White House.

Dean Baker
Al Jazeera America, February 2, 2015

Mark WeisbrotMakedonia, 2 ???????????, 2015Últimas Noticias, 1 ???????????, 2015Kathimerini , 31 ??????????, 2015VICE News, 28 ??????????, 2015In English | En español

The Commerce Department reported that GDP grew at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, roughly a half point below most forecasts. This brought growth for the year (fourth quarter to fourth quarter) to 2.5 percent, a modest slowing from the 3.1 percent rate in 2013. Since GDP is the broadest measure of overall economic activity, the weak quarter and weak year-round performance might seem to fly in the face of all the upbeat news we've been hearing on the economy recently. But, most news coverage seemed determined not to let the data spoil the story.

For example, the Post told readers:

"For all of 2014, the U.S. economy grew at a 2.4 percent pace — a relatively dreary number much in line with the previous years of a long recovery. But that number is somewhat misleading: A brutal winter in the northeast led to a sharp contraction in the first quarter. Since then, the nation has seen its best nine-month stretch of growth since 2003 and 2004."

Actually, instead of the 2.4 percent (I get 2.5 percent) pace being misleading, the comment about the next 9 months is misleading. The economy shrank a 2.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter, a drop that was clearly in large part due to the weather. However the strong growth reported for the next two quarters was in large part due to the first quarter shrinkage.

To see this point, assume that the actual rate of growth in the economy is 2.8 percent annually, or 0.7 percentage points a quarter. Now suppose that the economy goes into reverse in a quarter due to weather so that we show that it shrank 0.5 percentage points (2.0 percent annual rate). If the economy returns to its trend path in the following quarter, then it will grow by 1.9 percentage points (0.7 percentage points for the quarter's trend growth, 0.7 percentage points for the first quarter, and 0.5 percentage points to make up for the drop). This 1.9 percentage point quarterly growth translates into roughly a 7.6 percent annual rate. 

This exercise is overly simplistic, but that is basically the story of the rapid growth in the second and third quarters. This growth cannot be understood without reference to the decline in GDP in the first quarter.

The NYT seemed to largely ignore the data altogether, with a lead paragraph telling readers:

"Powered by healthy spending from increasingly optimistic consumers, the American economy is emerging as an island of relative strength in the face of renewed torpor and turmoil elsewhere in much of the world."

Wow, 2.5 annual growth! That should embarrass China with its 7.4 percent growth. Those interested in comparisons with our own past recoveries should know that growth averaged 5.2 percent over the three years 1976-1978 and 5.4 percent over the years 1983-1985. Still feel like celebrating?

January 2015, Nicole Woo, Cherrie Bucknor, and John Schmitt

January 30, 2015

January 30, 2015

Okay folks, get out those umbrellas, we are about to showered with all sorts of garbage as the corporate interests pushing for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Pact ((TTIP) go into overdrive to get Congress to approve their deals. We are entering the logic-free zone where ostensibly serious people say any sort of nonsense imaginable to advance these trade deals (not free-trade deals).

Today's entry is a piece by David Ignatius in the Washington Post pushing the merits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Ignatius' big punch line is:

"The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates that the market-opening features of the TPP will boost U.S. exports by about $123 billion annually by 2025 and add 600,000 jobs."

Hey, 600,000 jobs sounds pretty good. What sort of troglodyte could be opposed to that?

There are a few points that are worth noting on this. First, the comment on exports is a big giveaway. No serious person would talk about exports. Exports do not create jobs in an underemployed economy, net exports create jobs. To see the distinction, suppose that GM shuts a car assembly plant in Ohio and instead ships the parts to Mexico to be assembled. The finished cars are then imported back into the United States.

Exports have risen in this story by the value of the car parts. If you think GM's move of the assembly plant to Mexico was a job creator in the United States, then think more carefully. Anyone who understands basic economics knows that exports by themselves don't create jobs, you have to look at net exports (exports minus imports). Someone who just discusses exports is either ignorant of economics or not being honest.

The next point is that standard trade models are full employment models. This means that everyone who wants a job at the prevailing wage has a job. (Ignatius does not provide a link so it's not clear where he got his numbers.) This means that they create jobs through increasing efficiency. The job creation effect will almost invariably be small and it results from an increased supply of labor. Greater efficiency means higher wages (in these models) and therefore more people want to work.

Mark WeisbrotÚltimas Noticias, February 1, 2015Makedonia (Greece), February 2, 2015Kathimerini (Greece), January 31, 2015VICE News, January 28, 2015 ???? ???????? ?????? | en español

We're still down close to five million jobs from our trend employment path. Or, to put this in generational terms, millions of kids are being raised by parents who can't find work. We have endless needs for infrastructure, health care, child care, and education, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions which are not being met because of concerns over budget deficits. Given this situation, Ruth Marcus would naturally use her column in the Washington Post to warn about the government debt.

She bemoans the fact that President Obama barely even mentioned the debt in his State of the Union address:

"Oh, the debt. Yawn. How passe. How 2009.

"Once, President Obama held a summit on fiscal responsibility (2009). Once, he gave an entire speech devoted to the subject (2011). Once, his State of the Union addresses (2010, 2011, 2013) were studded with double-digit references to the problem of sky-high deficits and lingering mountains of debt.

"Now, the topic receives just a glancing mention, a clause ('shrinking deficits') in a series of presidential back-pats and a refutation of warnings of Apocalypse Soon."

While Marcus is clearly terrified by the deficit and debt, the column gives no reason why we should be more concerned about debts and deficits (yes, big numbers) than the number of trees in the United States (a number I do not know offhand, but I'm sure it's also big).

The best we get is a quote from an earlier State of the Union that is both wrong and arguably appealing to racist sentiments:

"Even after our economy recovers, our government will still be on track to spend more money than it takes in throughout this decade and beyond. That means we’ll have to keep borrowing more from countries like China. That means more of your tax dollars each year will go toward paying off the interest on all the loans that we keep taking out."

The budget deficit actually does not mean that we have to borrow from countries like China. We have to borrow from countries like China because we run a trade deficit. This in turn is the result of an over-valued dollar. The over-valuation of the dollar is the result of countries like China buying up large amounts of U.S. assets, including U.S. government debt. (This is how they "manipulate" their currency.)

If countries like China stopped buying U.S. debt and other dollar denominated assets then the value of the dollar would fall and we would move towards balanced trade. This would increase employment and also, by the way, reduce our budget deficit.

Marcus later tells readers, quoting in part from the Congressional Budget Office:

"Another is that, unlike at the start of the financial crisis, when debt amounted to just (!) 43 percent of GDP, the overhang of already huge debt could 'restrict policymakers’ ability to use tax and spending policies to respond [exclamation mark in original].'"

January 2015, Alan Barber and Dean Baker

Yesterday, Radio Kiskeya made public a letter from leaders of the station to Lucien Jura, spokesperson of the presidency, alleging that President Martelly had personally given cash to journalists at a meeting in December. The letter begins:

Radio Tele Kiskeya hereby wishes to protest - to the president of the Republic and to you [presidential spokesperson Lucien Jura] in particular - the ignoble act of corruption that you were both responsible for last December 23 when, following a reception which you invited journalists with National Palace accreditation to, you delivered envelopes to them containing fifty thousand gourdes (50,000.00 Gdes) and forty thousand gourdes (40,000.00 Gdes). 

According to the information received from the concerned parties, the president of the Republic, Michel Joseph Martelly, personally offered them "a little gift that's so modest that it's not worth mentioning." Subsequently, he referred them to his spokesperson, Lucien JURA, and to Esther FATAL, head of the communication office of the Presidency, who personally delivered to each one of them the ignoble seal [envelope with presidential seal] beneath the glare of the palace cameras.

The letter reports that 3 Radio Kiskeya journalists received the payment and have been “severely sanctioned.” The letter continues, writing that the actions at the National Palace reflect “the general level of deterioration of moral values at both the state level and within all of society, including the press unfortunately.”

Today, Shearon Roberts, an assistant professor of Mass Communication at Xavier University of Louisiana, writes about the situation facing Haitian journalists, five years after the earthquake:

Haiti’s media landscape had been divided before the earthquake along political lines. The disaster brought media factions together as news organizations faced limited resources, ongoing political-socio-economic crises and a strong adversary in the government of President Michel Martelly.

“The Haitian state does not want freedom of the press that is not in their interest,” said Liliane Pierre-Paul, president of the Association National de Médias Haïtiens (ANMH), Haiti’s largest media organization. “They do no wish to respect transparency. They do no want to have awareness among the population, and they do not approve of our reporting that denounces their behavior in government.”

Dean Baker
Truthout, January 26, 2015