Bernie Sanders: Enemy of the World’s Poor?

April 12, 2016

12 Abril 2016

A popular theme in the media in recent days is that the world’s poor would face disaster if Bernie Sanders ended up in the White House.[1] The story is that Sanders would try to protect jobs for manufacturing workers in the United States. The loss of these jobs has been a major source of downward pressure on the wages and living standards of a large portion of the working class over the last four decades. While saving manufacturing jobs here may be good for U.S. workers, the media line is that by trying to block imports from the developing world, Sanders would be denying hundreds of millions of people their route out of poverty. This story may be comforting for elites in the U.S. and Senator Sanders’ political opponents, but it defies basic economics and common sense. To see the problem in the logic, note that the essence of the Sanders as an enemy of the world’s poor story is that manufacturing workers in the developing world need people in the United States to buy their stuff. If people in the United States didn’t buy their stuff, these workers would be out on the street and growth in the developing world would grind to a halt. In this story, the problem is that we don’t have enough people in the world to buy stuff — there is a shortage of demand. But is it really true that no one else in the world would buy the stuff produced by people in the developing world if they couldn’t sell it to consumers in the United States? Suppose people in the developing world bought the stuff they produced, you know, raising their living standards by raising their consumption. That is actually the way the economics is supposed to work. In the standard theory, general shortages of demand are not a problem. Economists have traditionally assumed that economies tended toward full employment. The economic constraint was a lack of supply. The problem was that we couldn’t produce enough goods and services, not that we were producing too much and couldn’t find anyone to buy them.

• Affordable Care Act

Paul Ryan Wants to Cut Social Security and Medicare

By Dean BakerDean Baker

April 11, 2016

11 Abril 2016

Some people may have failed to realize this fact when a NYT article profiling Speaker Ryan told readers:

“Mr. Ryan is the architect of his party’s plan to rein in spending on entitlement programs.”

“Entitlement programs” is a popular euphemism used by politicians who want to cut Social Security and Medicare. The phrase is likely to mislead many readers.

The piece also asserts that:

“For example, if the Republican nominee does not provide an alternative to the Affordable Care Act — something Republicans have failed to do since it passed in 2010 — Mr. Ryan intends to do so, just as he will lay out an anti-poverty plan.”

Actually, the reporter who wrote this article has no idea what Mr. Ryan “intends.” Mr. Ryan says that he “intends” to develop an alternative to the Affordable Care Act, whether he actually does, or whether his proposal will actually pass the laugh test remains to be seen. It is important to remember that Mr. Ryan proposed a budget that would eliminate most of the federal government by 2050. This would have been a useful piece of information to provide readers when they are trying to assess his intentions.

Some people may have failed to realize this fact when a NYT article profiling Speaker Ryan told readers:

“Mr. Ryan is the architect of his party’s plan to rein in spending on entitlement programs.”

“Entitlement programs” is a popular euphemism used by politicians who want to cut Social Security and Medicare. The phrase is likely to mislead many readers.

The piece also asserts that:

“For example, if the Republican nominee does not provide an alternative to the Affordable Care Act — something Republicans have failed to do since it passed in 2010 — Mr. Ryan intends to do so, just as he will lay out an anti-poverty plan.”

Actually, the reporter who wrote this article has no idea what Mr. Ryan “intends.” Mr. Ryan says that he “intends” to develop an alternative to the Affordable Care Act, whether he actually does, or whether his proposal will actually pass the laugh test remains to be seen. It is important to remember that Mr. Ryan proposed a budget that would eliminate most of the federal government by 2050. This would have been a useful piece of information to provide readers when they are trying to assess his intentions.

Making the Federal Reserve Board Accountable

By Dean BakerDean Baker

April 11, 2016

11 Abril 2016

Professor Andrew Levin (Dartmouth College), the former special advisor to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and then-Vice Chair Janet Yellen, released a proposal for reform of the Federal Reserve Board’s governing structure in a press call sponsored by the Fed Up Campaign. The proposal has a number of important features, but the main point is to make the Fed more accountable to democratically elected officials and to reduce the power of the banking industry in monetary policy.

See the fuller story.

Professor Andrew Levin (Dartmouth College), the former special advisor to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and then-Vice Chair Janet Yellen, released a proposal for reform of the Federal Reserve Board’s governing structure in a press call sponsored by the Fed Up Campaign. The proposal has a number of important features, but the main point is to make the Fed more accountable to democratically elected officials and to reduce the power of the banking industry in monetary policy.

See the fuller story.

Fun and Games in Scaring People About Social Security

By Dean BakerDean Baker

April 10, 2016

10 Abril 2016

As we all know, one of the major recreational sports of media outlets is finding new and innovative ways to scare people about Social Security. One of my favorites is “infinite horizon accounting.” This is when you project out Social Security spending and revenue into the infinite future and then calculate the difference. It gives you a REALLY BIG NUMBER.

We got an example of the casual use of this infinite horizon accounting in a column by Wharton Business School Professor Olivia Mitchell. The column was actually on a different topic, but towards the end the piece tells readers:

“The Social Security shortfall is enormous. Actuaries have estimated that it’s on the order of $28 trillion in present value. That’s twice the size of the gross domestic product of the U.S.”

Note that there is no mention of the time horizon for the $28 trillion shortfall, so readers would have no way of knowing that it is for all future time. The comparison to current GDP is both wrong (GDP in 2016 will be over $18 trillion) and misleading. Why would we compare a deficit measured for all future time to this year’s GDP? If we compared the deficit to future GDP it would be 1.3 percent, a bit more than one-third of the annual military budget.

It’s also worth noting that the bulk of this deficit is for years after 2100. In other words, we are being cruel to children not yet born by writing down Social Security spending paths that exceed what they are projected to tax themselves. Can you envision anything so cruel? (The big problem is that the projections assume they will live longer and therefore have longer retirements.)

As we all know, one of the major recreational sports of media outlets is finding new and innovative ways to scare people about Social Security. One of my favorites is “infinite horizon accounting.” This is when you project out Social Security spending and revenue into the infinite future and then calculate the difference. It gives you a REALLY BIG NUMBER.

We got an example of the casual use of this infinite horizon accounting in a column by Wharton Business School Professor Olivia Mitchell. The column was actually on a different topic, but towards the end the piece tells readers:

“The Social Security shortfall is enormous. Actuaries have estimated that it’s on the order of $28 trillion in present value. That’s twice the size of the gross domestic product of the U.S.”

Note that there is no mention of the time horizon for the $28 trillion shortfall, so readers would have no way of knowing that it is for all future time. The comparison to current GDP is both wrong (GDP in 2016 will be over $18 trillion) and misleading. Why would we compare a deficit measured for all future time to this year’s GDP? If we compared the deficit to future GDP it would be 1.3 percent, a bit more than one-third of the annual military budget.

It’s also worth noting that the bulk of this deficit is for years after 2100. In other words, we are being cruel to children not yet born by writing down Social Security spending paths that exceed what they are projected to tax themselves. Can you envision anything so cruel? (The big problem is that the projections assume they will live longer and therefore have longer retirements.)

Protectionist Washington Post Never Mentions Role of Patent Monopolies in High Prices for Cancer Drugs

By Dean BakerDean Baker

April 10, 2016

10 Abril 2016

The Washington Post is well known as a hotbed of protectionist sentiment, at least when it comes to policies that redistribute income upward. For that reason it was not altogether surprising that the paper never once mentioned the role of patent monopolies and related protections in a front page article on the difficulties cancer patients face in dealing with the high price of drugs.

The article begins by talking about a patient, Scott Steiner, who needed the cancer drug Gleevec. The manufacturer, Novartis, charges $3,500 a month for the drug. The article tells readers that the Mr. Steiner’s insurer was unwilling to pay for the drug and there was no way that he and his family could afford this expense. Fortunately, an oncology social worker (the hero of this article) was able to negotiate a free supply of the drug from the manufacturer.

While this is good news for Mr. Steiner, what the article neglected to mention is that the only reason Gleevec costs $3,500 a month is because the government granted the company a patent monopoly. A high quality of generic version is produced by Indian manufacturers for $2,500 a year.

This difference in prices is equivalent to the United States imposing a 1,600 percent tariff on Gleevec. This patent monopoly leads to all the waste and economic distortions that economists would predict from massive tariffs. Undoubtedly many cancer patients don’t get Gleevec because they can’t afford its patent protected price and are not as lucky as Mr. Steiner in having a social worker who can work out an arrangement with Novartis.

In addition, the whole struggle to get a drug whose price is artificially inflated is a needless waste that is being imposed on people facing a potentially fatal disease. And of course the time spent by a third party is a total waste of resources that would not be necessary if Gleevec were sold at its free market price. In addition, the enormous mark-up received by Novartis gives it an incentive to oversell its drug, promoting it in cases where it may not be the best treatment. (Yes, we have to finance the research, but there are far more efficient mechanisms than this relic of the middle ages.)

While economists have written endless articles and books on the costs of protectionism, none of this information finds its way into the Post’s article. It is probably worth noting that drug companies are a major source of advertising revenue for the Post.

The Washington Post is well known as a hotbed of protectionist sentiment, at least when it comes to policies that redistribute income upward. For that reason it was not altogether surprising that the paper never once mentioned the role of patent monopolies and related protections in a front page article on the difficulties cancer patients face in dealing with the high price of drugs.

The article begins by talking about a patient, Scott Steiner, who needed the cancer drug Gleevec. The manufacturer, Novartis, charges $3,500 a month for the drug. The article tells readers that the Mr. Steiner’s insurer was unwilling to pay for the drug and there was no way that he and his family could afford this expense. Fortunately, an oncology social worker (the hero of this article) was able to negotiate a free supply of the drug from the manufacturer.

While this is good news for Mr. Steiner, what the article neglected to mention is that the only reason Gleevec costs $3,500 a month is because the government granted the company a patent monopoly. A high quality of generic version is produced by Indian manufacturers for $2,500 a year.

This difference in prices is equivalent to the United States imposing a 1,600 percent tariff on Gleevec. This patent monopoly leads to all the waste and economic distortions that economists would predict from massive tariffs. Undoubtedly many cancer patients don’t get Gleevec because they can’t afford its patent protected price and are not as lucky as Mr. Steiner in having a social worker who can work out an arrangement with Novartis.

In addition, the whole struggle to get a drug whose price is artificially inflated is a needless waste that is being imposed on people facing a potentially fatal disease. And of course the time spent by a third party is a total waste of resources that would not be necessary if Gleevec were sold at its free market price. In addition, the enormous mark-up received by Novartis gives it an incentive to oversell its drug, promoting it in cases where it may not be the best treatment. (Yes, we have to finance the research, but there are far more efficient mechanisms than this relic of the middle ages.)

While economists have written endless articles and books on the costs of protectionism, none of this information finds its way into the Post’s article. It is probably worth noting that drug companies are a major source of advertising revenue for the Post.

Dana Milbank Tells Readers He Has an Incredibly Weak Imagination

By Dean BakerDean Baker

April 10, 2016

10 Abril 2016

We know that the Washington Post editors really hate Bernie Sanders and rarely miss an opportunity to show it. Dana Milbank got in the act big time today as he once again denounced Sanders (along with Donald Trump and Ted Cruz) in his column.

There was much good stuff in the column but my favorite was when he told readers:

“MacGuineas’s group [the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget] calculates that Sanders would increase government spending to unimaginable levels: to as much as 35 percent of gross domestic product, from the current 22 percent.”

The key word here is “unimaginable.” Most western European governments have ratios of government spending to GDP of more than 40 percent and some have ratios of more than 50 percent. Apparently, Mr. Milbank finds the whole European continent unimaginable.

What is especially striking is that most of the increase in government spending would be the result of the government diverting payments for employer provided health insurance to a government-run universal Medicare system. Apparently, Milbank thinks it intolerable that the money taken out of workers’ paychecks to be sent to private insurers would instead be taken out of workers paychecks to be sent to the government, even if it would lead to savings of several hundred billion dollars a year in administrative costs and insurance industry profits. In Dana Milbank-land this is the height of irresponsibility.

What is perhaps most incredible is Milbank’s notion of irresponsible. His sole measure of responsibility is the size of the government budget deficit and debt, which are for all practical purposes meaningless numbers. (If the government puts in place patent protection that requires us to pay an extra $400 billion a year for prescription drugs, this adds zero to the budget deficit or debt and therefore doesn’t concern Milbank. However, if it borrowed an extra $400 billion a year to pay for developing new drugs, he would be furious.)

On the other hand, forcing millions of people to be out of work because of deficits that are too small apparently does not bother Milbank in the least. Since the crash in 2008 we have needlessly foregone more than $7 trillion in potential output. Millions of people have been kept out of work with their children thereby growing up in families that were in or near poverty levels. We also have the stories like the children in Flint exposed to lead, all because Milbank and his friends want to whine about budget deficits.

Many might view this set of policies as being irresponsible. But in Milbank’s worldview, which is widely shared in Washington policy circles, it doesn’t matter what you do to the country as long as you keep the deficit down.

We know that the Washington Post editors really hate Bernie Sanders and rarely miss an opportunity to show it. Dana Milbank got in the act big time today as he once again denounced Sanders (along with Donald Trump and Ted Cruz) in his column.

There was much good stuff in the column but my favorite was when he told readers:

“MacGuineas’s group [the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget] calculates that Sanders would increase government spending to unimaginable levels: to as much as 35 percent of gross domestic product, from the current 22 percent.”

The key word here is “unimaginable.” Most western European governments have ratios of government spending to GDP of more than 40 percent and some have ratios of more than 50 percent. Apparently, Mr. Milbank finds the whole European continent unimaginable.

What is especially striking is that most of the increase in government spending would be the result of the government diverting payments for employer provided health insurance to a government-run universal Medicare system. Apparently, Milbank thinks it intolerable that the money taken out of workers’ paychecks to be sent to private insurers would instead be taken out of workers paychecks to be sent to the government, even if it would lead to savings of several hundred billion dollars a year in administrative costs and insurance industry profits. In Dana Milbank-land this is the height of irresponsibility.

What is perhaps most incredible is Milbank’s notion of irresponsible. His sole measure of responsibility is the size of the government budget deficit and debt, which are for all practical purposes meaningless numbers. (If the government puts in place patent protection that requires us to pay an extra $400 billion a year for prescription drugs, this adds zero to the budget deficit or debt and therefore doesn’t concern Milbank. However, if it borrowed an extra $400 billion a year to pay for developing new drugs, he would be furious.)

On the other hand, forcing millions of people to be out of work because of deficits that are too small apparently does not bother Milbank in the least. Since the crash in 2008 we have needlessly foregone more than $7 trillion in potential output. Millions of people have been kept out of work with their children thereby growing up in families that were in or near poverty levels. We also have the stories like the children in Flint exposed to lead, all because Milbank and his friends want to whine about budget deficits.

Many might view this set of policies as being irresponsible. But in Milbank’s worldview, which is widely shared in Washington policy circles, it doesn’t matter what you do to the country as long as you keep the deficit down.

Dumping on Trump: Tariffs Aren’t Part of the Apocalypse

By Dean BakerDean Baker

April 08, 2016

08 Abril 2016

Let me start this one by saying that I think Trump’s threats of a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports are a bad idea. We should take steps to lower the value of the dollar against the yuan, but the public threat of large tariffs is probably not the best way to go. The route is obviously through negotiations where we would have to give up things, like protections for Microsoft’s copyrights and Pfizer’s patents. But that aside, the fact that a particular policy is unwise should not be a license for the media to say absurd things to discredit it. The NYT seems to take this path in an Upshot piece by Michael Schuman that purports to tell readers, “how a tariff on Chinese imports would ripple through American life.” The piece tells readers: “But if there were a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods, at least part of that would probably be passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices. Americans would end up buying fewer Chinese things, and fewer things from anywhere else. ... “For this reason and others, quite a lot of the money spent on Chinese goods actually ends up in the wallets of Americans. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco figured that 55 cents of every $1 spent by an American shopper on a “Made in China” product goes to the Americans selling, transporting and marketing that product. Suppressing Chinese imports would harm shopkeepers and truck drivers. “In fact, making Chinese-made goods more expensive would ripple through American shopping malls. An extra $20 for, say, children’s clothing from China is $20 not spent on a new baseball glove for a child, or a birthday gift for a grandmother. A tariff on China would dent the sales of all kinds of products, even those made in the United States.” Note what is being argued here. Higher prices on imports from China will lead to less consumption in the U.S. economy. That means an increase in the savings rate. (This is definitional. If you don’t consume you save.) Many economists have been troubled by the low savings rate in the United States. I have never seen any models that try to explain low savings as the result of cheap imports from China and other countries, but apparently this is what Mr. Schuman and the NYT would have us believe. I look forward to article writing up this theory linking savings rates to import prices. If it’s not clear, this argument is silly. People will likely spend the same with the tariffs as they did without the tariffs. They will buy fewer goods imported from China, end of story. No need for the truck drivers to fear mass layoffs.

There is No Problem of Deflation, Just Low Inflation (see addendum)

By Dean BakerDean Baker

April 08, 2016

08 Abril 2016

The problem of deflation just refuses to go away. I don't mean the problem of weak economies with very low inflation rates, I mean the media's obsession with the idea that something really bad happens if the rate of price change crosses zero and turns negative. We got another example of this strange concern in the NYT this morning. The piece noted the European Central Bank's (ECB) concern: "Still, the central bank acknowledged its deep concern about the risk that the eurozone’s economic doldrums, characterized by a worrisomely low rate of inflation, could devolve into outright deflation, a vicious circle of falling prices and demand that can undercut corporate profits and cause unemployment to soar. ... "Deflation sets in when falling prices prompt people to delay purchases because they expect prices to fall even further. Consumer spending and investment collapse, companies dismiss workers, and spending falls even further as people lose their jobs and incomes. Central bankers fear deflation because once it sets in, it is notoriously difficult to reverse." To see the silliness of this line of argument, consider first what falling prices literally mean. Suppose that the price of shoes is declining at a 0.5 percent annual rate. How long will you put off a purchase of a $100 pair, knowing that it you wait a year it will save you 50 cents?

The Elite's Comforting Myth: We Had to Screw Rich Country Workers to Help the World's Poor

By Dean BakerDean Baker

April 05, 2016

05 Abril 2016

Roger Cohen gave us yet another example of touching hand-wringing from elite types about the plight of the working class in rich countries. The gist of the piece is that in Europe and the U.S. we have seen growing support for candidates outside of the mainstream on both the left and the right. Cohen acknowledges that there is a real basis for their rejection of the mainstream: they have seen decades of stagnating wages. However, Cohen tells us the plus side of this story, we have seen huge improvements in living standards among the poor in the developing world. In Cohen's story, the economic difficulties of these relatively privileged workers is justified by the enormous gains they allowed those who are truly poor. The only problem is that these workers are now looking to these extreme candidates. Cohen effectively calls for a more generous welfare state to head off this turn to extremism, saying that we may have to restrain "liberty" (he means the market) in order to protect it. This is a touching and self-serving story. The idea is that elite types like Cohen were winners in the global economy. That's just the way it is. Cohen is smart and hard working, that's why he and his friends did well. Their doing well also went along with the globalization process that produced enormous gains for the world's poor. But now he recognizes the problems of the working class in rich countries, so he says he and his rich friends need to toss them some crumbs so they don't become fascists. We all should be glad that folks like Cohen support a stronger welfare state, but let's consider his story. The basic argument is that poor countries have only been able to develop because their workers were able to displace the workers in rich countries. This lead to unemployment and lower wages in rich countries. Let's imagine that mainstream economics wasn't a make-it-up-as-you-go-along discipline. The standard story in economics is that capital is supposed to flow from rich countries to poor countries. The idea is that capital is plentiful in rich countries and therefore gets a low rate of return. It is scarce in poor countries and therefore gets a high rate of return.