In his column today, which argues for responsible fracking, telling readers that there can be enormous gains from using cleaner techniques in fracking. In discussing the importance of reducing fracking related methane emissions Nocera comments:
“How big a difference will it make to the environment if industry can minimize methane leaks? A lot. … Suppose, for instance, the current leak rate turns out to be 4 percent. Suppose we then reduce it in half. That would mean an immediate reduction in overall U.S. greenhouse gases by — are you sitting down for this? — 9 percent. If the leaks are reduced to 1 percent, the decrease in greenhouse gases jumps to 14 percent.”
While Nocera does not make this point, but if cutting the methane emissions from fracking in half would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 9 percent, then the methane emissions must come to close to 18 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. If methane emissions are actually 6 percent, as indicated by a study Nocera cites, then fracking would account for more than one quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Nocera may have his numbers completely wrong, but the implication of the evidence presented in his piece is that fracking is an incredibly dirty process from the standpoint of greenhouse gas emissions. If his numbers are right, he makes a compelling case for banning fracking unless it can be done far more cleanly than is currently the case.
In his column today, which argues for responsible fracking, telling readers that there can be enormous gains from using cleaner techniques in fracking. In discussing the importance of reducing fracking related methane emissions Nocera comments:
“How big a difference will it make to the environment if industry can minimize methane leaks? A lot. … Suppose, for instance, the current leak rate turns out to be 4 percent. Suppose we then reduce it in half. That would mean an immediate reduction in overall U.S. greenhouse gases by — are you sitting down for this? — 9 percent. If the leaks are reduced to 1 percent, the decrease in greenhouse gases jumps to 14 percent.”
While Nocera does not make this point, but if cutting the methane emissions from fracking in half would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 9 percent, then the methane emissions must come to close to 18 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. If methane emissions are actually 6 percent, as indicated by a study Nocera cites, then fracking would account for more than one quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Nocera may have his numbers completely wrong, but the implication of the evidence presented in his piece is that fracking is an incredibly dirty process from the standpoint of greenhouse gas emissions. If his numbers are right, he makes a compelling case for banning fracking unless it can be done far more cleanly than is currently the case.
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It is striking that the reporters can write about recommendations from the World Bank or International Monetary Fund to China about sustaining its growth, without any comment on the irony. These institutions have been making policy recommendations for six decades that have often not resulted in much growth at all. In some cases, most notably the situation of Argentina following its default in 2001, they have been astoundingly wrong. Therefore it is impressive that Washington Post can report on a set of recommendations from the World Bank to China, whose growth has averaged more than 8 percent annually over the last three decades, without ever noting this irony.
It is also worth noting that the graphs accompanying this article show that China’s productivity growth is projected to average close to 6 percent annually over the next two decades. Many news outlets (including the Post) have argued that China will face a problem supporting a larger population of retirees as its work force ages. If this productivity growth projection proves accurate, both China’s workers and retirees will be able to see their standard of living double on the next two decades, even as the ratio of workers to retirees falls sharply.
It is striking that the reporters can write about recommendations from the World Bank or International Monetary Fund to China about sustaining its growth, without any comment on the irony. These institutions have been making policy recommendations for six decades that have often not resulted in much growth at all. In some cases, most notably the situation of Argentina following its default in 2001, they have been astoundingly wrong. Therefore it is impressive that Washington Post can report on a set of recommendations from the World Bank to China, whose growth has averaged more than 8 percent annually over the last three decades, without ever noting this irony.
It is also worth noting that the graphs accompanying this article show that China’s productivity growth is projected to average close to 6 percent annually over the next two decades. Many news outlets (including the Post) have argued that China will face a problem supporting a larger population of retirees as its work force ages. If this productivity growth projection proves accurate, both China’s workers and retirees will be able to see their standard of living double on the next two decades, even as the ratio of workers to retirees falls sharply.
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The New York Times badly misled readers by repeatedly referring to a report of the deficit reduction commission led by former Senator Alan Simpson and Morgan Stanley Director Erskine Bowles. There was no report from this commission.
The report discussed in this article was exclusively the report of the co-chairs. It did not receive the necessary support of 14 members of the commission that would have made it an official commission report, a point noted only in passing toward the end of the piece.
This mis-characterization is extremely important in the context of the piece, because the main point of the article is that President Obama ignored the report of a commission he appointed. Since this commission did not approve a report, the premise of the article is wrong.
The piece also misled readers when it asserted that, “benefits for an aging population soon would increase deficits to unsustainable levels.” In fact, the main problem is rising private sector health care costs that were projected to make Medicare and Medicaid unaffordable. The increased costs due to aging alone are quite gradual and affordable.
It is also worth noting that much of the projected long-term deficit would disappear if the Affordable Care Act is as successful in containing costs as projected by the Medicare Trustees.
The New York Times badly misled readers by repeatedly referring to a report of the deficit reduction commission led by former Senator Alan Simpson and Morgan Stanley Director Erskine Bowles. There was no report from this commission.
The report discussed in this article was exclusively the report of the co-chairs. It did not receive the necessary support of 14 members of the commission that would have made it an official commission report, a point noted only in passing toward the end of the piece.
This mis-characterization is extremely important in the context of the piece, because the main point of the article is that President Obama ignored the report of a commission he appointed. Since this commission did not approve a report, the premise of the article is wrong.
The piece also misled readers when it asserted that, “benefits for an aging population soon would increase deficits to unsustainable levels.” In fact, the main problem is rising private sector health care costs that were projected to make Medicare and Medicaid unaffordable. The increased costs due to aging alone are quite gradual and affordable.
It is also worth noting that much of the projected long-term deficit would disappear if the Affordable Care Act is as successful in containing costs as projected by the Medicare Trustees.
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Correcting Thomas Friedman can keep anyone busy. Today he is excited about the prospect of the United States joining the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. That sounds like a great idea for a country that imports close to 9 million barrels of oil a day.
The basis for his excitement is that the United States is becoming somewhat less dependent on foreign energy imports. The main reason for this is the increased production of natural gas from shale deposits. However it is not clear how long these shale gas deposits will last since it seems that earlier estimates of reserves were seriously overstated. Furthermore, there is almost no plausible story in which increased natural gas supplies and domestic oil production, plus aggressive conservation measures, will cause our demand for imported oil to drop from 9 million barrels a day to zero any time in the foreseeable future.
Of course even if the U.S. miraculously became energy independent it would not free us of concern about events in the Middle East, as Friedman contends, since we are still in a global economy. This means that if war or revolution in the Middle East led to a sharp drop in world oil production it would still have an enormous impact on the U.S. economy.
To see this, imagine that there were severe droughts in Africa and Asia that caused the world price of wheat to quadruple. Guess what would happen to the price of wheat in the United States? That’s right, it would also quadruple. The reason is that wheat producers would export their wheat to take advantage of the higher prices available elsewhere in the world, so we would have to match the world price in what we paid for the wheat consumed in the United States.
Since the United States is a net exporter of wheat, the country as a whole would come out ahead in this story. However, since most people do not own wheat farms, they would end up as big losers, paying much more for their bread and other wheat products.
It would be the same story with oil if democratic revolutions temporarily stopped production in Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf monarchies. We would see the price of gas double or triple. Exxon-Mobil and the other oil companies would see corresponding gains in profits, but those of us who don’t own lots of stock in these companies would still end up as big losers. In principle the government could tax the windfalls and redistribute them — okay, we don’t have to talk about such silliness.
Anyhow, it’s still fun to see Thomas Friedman get excited. I remember an earlier energy episode back in 2006 when he had Nancy Pelosi send a letter to President Hu in China, just after she won control of the House in the November elections. The letter Friedman drafted for her was about how the U.S. would produce clean technology products and export them to China.
Correcting Thomas Friedman can keep anyone busy. Today he is excited about the prospect of the United States joining the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. That sounds like a great idea for a country that imports close to 9 million barrels of oil a day.
The basis for his excitement is that the United States is becoming somewhat less dependent on foreign energy imports. The main reason for this is the increased production of natural gas from shale deposits. However it is not clear how long these shale gas deposits will last since it seems that earlier estimates of reserves were seriously overstated. Furthermore, there is almost no plausible story in which increased natural gas supplies and domestic oil production, plus aggressive conservation measures, will cause our demand for imported oil to drop from 9 million barrels a day to zero any time in the foreseeable future.
Of course even if the U.S. miraculously became energy independent it would not free us of concern about events in the Middle East, as Friedman contends, since we are still in a global economy. This means that if war or revolution in the Middle East led to a sharp drop in world oil production it would still have an enormous impact on the U.S. economy.
To see this, imagine that there were severe droughts in Africa and Asia that caused the world price of wheat to quadruple. Guess what would happen to the price of wheat in the United States? That’s right, it would also quadruple. The reason is that wheat producers would export their wheat to take advantage of the higher prices available elsewhere in the world, so we would have to match the world price in what we paid for the wheat consumed in the United States.
Since the United States is a net exporter of wheat, the country as a whole would come out ahead in this story. However, since most people do not own wheat farms, they would end up as big losers, paying much more for their bread and other wheat products.
It would be the same story with oil if democratic revolutions temporarily stopped production in Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf monarchies. We would see the price of gas double or triple. Exxon-Mobil and the other oil companies would see corresponding gains in profits, but those of us who don’t own lots of stock in these companies would still end up as big losers. In principle the government could tax the windfalls and redistribute them — okay, we don’t have to talk about such silliness.
Anyhow, it’s still fun to see Thomas Friedman get excited. I remember an earlier energy episode back in 2006 when he had Nancy Pelosi send a letter to President Hu in China, just after she won control of the House in the November elections. The letter Friedman drafted for her was about how the U.S. would produce clean technology products and export them to China.
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Adam Davidson has an interesting piece about how many low-paying jobs have a sort of lottery component where people are willing to accept low wages for a period of time in the hope that they will end up having a very high-paying job in the future. The best example of this sort of lottery system is probably the motion picture industry in Hollywood, where many people will spend years working in low-paying jobs in the hope that at some point they will make it big as an actor or director.
The piece then points out that many other occupations have a similar, if less extreme, lottery component. For example, lawyers are expected to work very hard as associates, but then can expect much higher pay if they get promoted to partner. Similarly, non-tenured faculty can face serious pressures to produce large amounts of research, before getting to enjoy the good life as a tenured faculty member.
Taking this view more broadly, most jobs have some sort of lottery component in the sense that there is a benefit to staying with a firm for a long period of time that workers lose if they leave, either by their choice or their employers. In more mundane jobs, the benefit might just be a pension, job security, and perhaps above-market pay for workers as they near retirement. The logic is that workers might get below-market pay when they are young and energetic, but if they stay with a firm long enough the situation is reversed as they slow down and their wage rises with seniority.
This point is interesting because it implies an obvious way that firms can increase their profit, at least in the short-term: take away the lottery prize. The savings on the prize is a pure short-term gain. In the case where a firm is keeping older, less productive, workers on the payroll and paying them a premium for seniority, ending the lottery prize (i.e. firing the workers) is a pure short-term gain. (This is of course a caricature — older workers are not necessarily less productive.) In the longer term it may not be a profit maximizing strategy, since younger workers will not make a commitment to mastering firm specific skills if they do not expect to be able to stay at the firm.
An article by Larry Summers and Andre Shliefer argued that breaking commitments of this sort was at the heart of the better-than-normal profits that private equity companies were able to earn. They argued that by breaking implicit contracts with workers and other stakeholders, private equity companies could increase profit at least in the short-run. If their intention is to sell out their stake at a profit, then a short-run gain would suit their purposes, even if the strategy might be harmful to the company and the economy in the long-run.
Adam Davidson has an interesting piece about how many low-paying jobs have a sort of lottery component where people are willing to accept low wages for a period of time in the hope that they will end up having a very high-paying job in the future. The best example of this sort of lottery system is probably the motion picture industry in Hollywood, where many people will spend years working in low-paying jobs in the hope that at some point they will make it big as an actor or director.
The piece then points out that many other occupations have a similar, if less extreme, lottery component. For example, lawyers are expected to work very hard as associates, but then can expect much higher pay if they get promoted to partner. Similarly, non-tenured faculty can face serious pressures to produce large amounts of research, before getting to enjoy the good life as a tenured faculty member.
Taking this view more broadly, most jobs have some sort of lottery component in the sense that there is a benefit to staying with a firm for a long period of time that workers lose if they leave, either by their choice or their employers. In more mundane jobs, the benefit might just be a pension, job security, and perhaps above-market pay for workers as they near retirement. The logic is that workers might get below-market pay when they are young and energetic, but if they stay with a firm long enough the situation is reversed as they slow down and their wage rises with seniority.
This point is interesting because it implies an obvious way that firms can increase their profit, at least in the short-term: take away the lottery prize. The savings on the prize is a pure short-term gain. In the case where a firm is keeping older, less productive, workers on the payroll and paying them a premium for seniority, ending the lottery prize (i.e. firing the workers) is a pure short-term gain. (This is of course a caricature — older workers are not necessarily less productive.) In the longer term it may not be a profit maximizing strategy, since younger workers will not make a commitment to mastering firm specific skills if they do not expect to be able to stay at the firm.
An article by Larry Summers and Andre Shliefer argued that breaking commitments of this sort was at the heart of the better-than-normal profits that private equity companies were able to earn. They argued that by breaking implicit contracts with workers and other stakeholders, private equity companies could increase profit at least in the short-run. If their intention is to sell out their stake at a profit, then a short-run gain would suit their purposes, even if the strategy might be harmful to the company and the economy in the long-run.
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The NYT told readers that a shortage of rental housing is driving up rents. This is wrong and wrong.
The NYT story is that the flood of foreclosures has forced people out of their homes and led them to look for rental housing. While this is true to some extent (homeownership rates have fallen), former homeowners would have discovered that there was a glut of rental housing.
Furthermore, ownership units can become rentals and vice-versa. This is true even for multi-family units, but 30 percent of rental properties nationwide are single family homes. These obviously can be converted very quickly to ownership units or more have been ownership units in the recent past.
So, if we look at the data on rental vacancy rates, we find that in the fourth quarter of 2011 the vacancy rate was 9.4 percent. This is down from the peak of 11.1 percent in the third quarter of 2009, but it is higher than any rate recorded in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s.
Turning to rents, the best measure to use is the Bureau Labor Statistics (BLS) measure for owner occupied housing. This measure will have some inertia, since it included all units, not just units that have been on the market. (There is more variation in price on units that are placed on the market.) However, it is more desirable than other measures because the BLS controls for quality changes and also because it only includes the rental value of the unit itself. It pulls out utilities which can have a large effect on rents, if they are included in a lease.
Year over Year Change in Owner Equivalent Rent
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As can be seen, rents are increasing somewhat more rapidly than they were at the trough of the downturn, but they are still just rising pretty much in step with the rate of inflation. In fact the current rate of increase is lower than the rate of increase at any point in the decade prior to the beginning of the recession. While there may be some cities where rents are rising especially rapidly, or some narrow markets within cities, clearly this is not generally the case.
The NYT told readers that a shortage of rental housing is driving up rents. This is wrong and wrong.
The NYT story is that the flood of foreclosures has forced people out of their homes and led them to look for rental housing. While this is true to some extent (homeownership rates have fallen), former homeowners would have discovered that there was a glut of rental housing.
Furthermore, ownership units can become rentals and vice-versa. This is true even for multi-family units, but 30 percent of rental properties nationwide are single family homes. These obviously can be converted very quickly to ownership units or more have been ownership units in the recent past.
So, if we look at the data on rental vacancy rates, we find that in the fourth quarter of 2011 the vacancy rate was 9.4 percent. This is down from the peak of 11.1 percent in the third quarter of 2009, but it is higher than any rate recorded in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s.
Turning to rents, the best measure to use is the Bureau Labor Statistics (BLS) measure for owner occupied housing. This measure will have some inertia, since it included all units, not just units that have been on the market. (There is more variation in price on units that are placed on the market.) However, it is more desirable than other measures because the BLS controls for quality changes and also because it only includes the rental value of the unit itself. It pulls out utilities which can have a large effect on rents, if they are included in a lease.
Year over Year Change in Owner Equivalent Rent
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As can be seen, rents are increasing somewhat more rapidly than they were at the trough of the downturn, but they are still just rising pretty much in step with the rate of inflation. In fact the current rate of increase is lower than the rate of increase at any point in the decade prior to the beginning of the recession. While there may be some cities where rents are rising especially rapidly, or some narrow markets within cities, clearly this is not generally the case.
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David Brooks tells readers that, if we count tax expenditures, the United States has a larger welfare state than many European countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands, and Finland. This is true, but it is important to understand what is being measured.
Brooks is looking at what we pay for social welfare expenditures, not what we get. This can be very different, as is most obviously the case with health care. As a share of its GDP, if we add in tax expenditures (e.g. the deduction for employer provided health insurance), the government in the United States commits a larger share of GDP for health care than almost anyone. (If we count government granted patent monopolies on prescription drugs and medical equipment, add in another percentage point of GDP.) Yet, unlike the European welfare states, the United States is still far from providing universal health insurance coverage.
In health care and other areas the United States is clearly paying for a welfare state. It is debatable whether it is getting one.
David Brooks tells readers that, if we count tax expenditures, the United States has a larger welfare state than many European countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands, and Finland. This is true, but it is important to understand what is being measured.
Brooks is looking at what we pay for social welfare expenditures, not what we get. This can be very different, as is most obviously the case with health care. As a share of its GDP, if we add in tax expenditures (e.g. the deduction for employer provided health insurance), the government in the United States commits a larger share of GDP for health care than almost anyone. (If we count government granted patent monopolies on prescription drugs and medical equipment, add in another percentage point of GDP.) Yet, unlike the European welfare states, the United States is still far from providing universal health insurance coverage.
In health care and other areas the United States is clearly paying for a welfare state. It is debatable whether it is getting one.
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The NYT did some heavy-duty he said/she said reporting on the issue of gas prices and energy production. It devoted an article to President Obama’s efforts to counter Republican complaints about high gas prices.
The article told readers:
“The president said that the United States is producing more oil now than at any time during the last eight years, with a record number of rigs pumping.”
President Obama did not just say this, it also happens to be true. There are reasons that people may not be happy that the United States is producing more oil (anyone hear of global warming?), but it happens to be true.
The article then went on to tell readers that:
“But Mr. Obama warned that no amount of domestic production could offset the broader forces driving up gas prices, chief among them Middle East instability and the ravenous energy appetite of China, which he said added 10 million cars in 2010.”
This is also a statement that can be verified. The United States currently produces around 6 million barrels a day. The world market for oil is a bit less than 90 million barrels a day.
It is the world market that determines prices, not domestic production. We’re going to say that a few more times just in case any reporters are reading this.
It is the world market that determines prices, not domestic production. It is the world market that determines prices, not domestic production. It is the world market that determines prices, not domestic production.
The point is that we can only affect the price of gas in the United States if we can affect world prices. See, if we had lower prices in the United States than the rest of the world, oil companies like Exxon Mobil and British Petroleum would export oil from the United States to the rest of the world.
This is known as “capitalism.” Companies try to make as much money as possible, which means that you sell your products where they can get the highest price. This means that the price of oil in the United States can only fall if the price of oil in the world also falls.
Okay, so now let’s get back to domestic production. Suppose we drill everywhere — underneath Yellowstone, the Capitol building, your backyard and favorite place of worship. Let’s say we can increase domestic production by 2 million barrels a day, or roughly one third. This would increase the world supply by approximately 2.2 percent.
Under normal assumptions of elasticity of supply and demand, this would lead to a drop in prices of around 6 percent. That might be nice, but it won’t get us from $4.00 a gallon gas to Newt Gingrich’s $2 a gallon.
Furthermore, we will not be able to sustain this higher pace of production for long. The Energy Information Agency estimates that total U.S. reserves are around 20 billion barrels of oil. At the current production rate of roughly 6 million barrels a day, this stock will last around 10 years. If we upped production to 8 million barrels a day then we have around 7 years supply. That would mean that production would have to slow sharply before the end of President Drill Everywhere’s second term.
In short, President Obama was making assertions about gas prices and energy that are true and can be proven. The NYT obviously assumed that readers have more time than its reporter to go to the web and look these things up, but that may not always be true.
Addendum:
The Post committed the same sin, telling readers:
“Obama’s position reflects the White House’s belief that gasoline prices are subject to cyclical spikes due to forces largely outside its control, including the rise in Chinese and Indian oil demand.”
Yes, the White House believes that, “gasoline prices are subject to cyclical spikes due to forces largely outside its control, including the rise in Chinese and Indian oil demand,” in the same way that it probably believes that the earth goes around the sun and gravity causes things to fall down. This happens to be true.
The NYT did some heavy-duty he said/she said reporting on the issue of gas prices and energy production. It devoted an article to President Obama’s efforts to counter Republican complaints about high gas prices.
The article told readers:
“The president said that the United States is producing more oil now than at any time during the last eight years, with a record number of rigs pumping.”
President Obama did not just say this, it also happens to be true. There are reasons that people may not be happy that the United States is producing more oil (anyone hear of global warming?), but it happens to be true.
The article then went on to tell readers that:
“But Mr. Obama warned that no amount of domestic production could offset the broader forces driving up gas prices, chief among them Middle East instability and the ravenous energy appetite of China, which he said added 10 million cars in 2010.”
This is also a statement that can be verified. The United States currently produces around 6 million barrels a day. The world market for oil is a bit less than 90 million barrels a day.
It is the world market that determines prices, not domestic production. We’re going to say that a few more times just in case any reporters are reading this.
It is the world market that determines prices, not domestic production. It is the world market that determines prices, not domestic production. It is the world market that determines prices, not domestic production.
The point is that we can only affect the price of gas in the United States if we can affect world prices. See, if we had lower prices in the United States than the rest of the world, oil companies like Exxon Mobil and British Petroleum would export oil from the United States to the rest of the world.
This is known as “capitalism.” Companies try to make as much money as possible, which means that you sell your products where they can get the highest price. This means that the price of oil in the United States can only fall if the price of oil in the world also falls.
Okay, so now let’s get back to domestic production. Suppose we drill everywhere — underneath Yellowstone, the Capitol building, your backyard and favorite place of worship. Let’s say we can increase domestic production by 2 million barrels a day, or roughly one third. This would increase the world supply by approximately 2.2 percent.
Under normal assumptions of elasticity of supply and demand, this would lead to a drop in prices of around 6 percent. That might be nice, but it won’t get us from $4.00 a gallon gas to Newt Gingrich’s $2 a gallon.
Furthermore, we will not be able to sustain this higher pace of production for long. The Energy Information Agency estimates that total U.S. reserves are around 20 billion barrels of oil. At the current production rate of roughly 6 million barrels a day, this stock will last around 10 years. If we upped production to 8 million barrels a day then we have around 7 years supply. That would mean that production would have to slow sharply before the end of President Drill Everywhere’s second term.
In short, President Obama was making assertions about gas prices and energy that are true and can be proven. The NYT obviously assumed that readers have more time than its reporter to go to the web and look these things up, but that may not always be true.
Addendum:
The Post committed the same sin, telling readers:
“Obama’s position reflects the White House’s belief that gasoline prices are subject to cyclical spikes due to forces largely outside its control, including the rise in Chinese and Indian oil demand.”
Yes, the White House believes that, “gasoline prices are subject to cyclical spikes due to forces largely outside its control, including the rise in Chinese and Indian oil demand,” in the same way that it probably believes that the earth goes around the sun and gravity causes things to fall down. This happens to be true.
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A front page article on President Obama’s plan to cut the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 35 percent, with offsetting eliminations of loopholes told readers in the second paragraph:
“Obama released a long-awaited plan to overhaul the nation’s corporate tax code that plays directly to his base.” [This line only appeared in the article that appears on-line as the print edition.] The bulk of Democrats have not been clamoring for a cut in the corporate tax rate, although many people in corporations have.
Later in the piece the article tells readers that the plan should increase corporate tax revenue by $250 billion over the course of the decade. Since most readers do not know how much the baseline shows for tax revenue over this period, this number does not provide any real information.
The current projections from the Congressional Budget Office show the government collecting $4,360 billion in corporate taxes over the decade. This means that the proposed increase would raise projected revenue by less than 6 percent.
A front page article on President Obama’s plan to cut the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 35 percent, with offsetting eliminations of loopholes told readers in the second paragraph:
“Obama released a long-awaited plan to overhaul the nation’s corporate tax code that plays directly to his base.” [This line only appeared in the article that appears on-line as the print edition.] The bulk of Democrats have not been clamoring for a cut in the corporate tax rate, although many people in corporations have.
Later in the piece the article tells readers that the plan should increase corporate tax revenue by $250 billion over the course of the decade. Since most readers do not know how much the baseline shows for tax revenue over this period, this number does not provide any real information.
The current projections from the Congressional Budget Office show the government collecting $4,360 billion in corporate taxes over the decade. This means that the proposed increase would raise projected revenue by less than 6 percent.
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Germany, like many other countries, restricts the ability of businesses to operate on Sunday and holidays. One of the main reasons for such restrictions is to ensure that workers will have the opportunity to spend time on these days with their families.
The New York Times is very unhappy about such policies. It devoted a major news article to criticizing this sort of “overregulation” in the German economy.
While it is arguable that Germany would be better off without restrictive hours for business operation and some of the other regulations cited in the article, these regulations do serve a purpose. Remarkably the article did not include the views of a single person defending these regulations. This is especially strange, since obviously the regulations all have a substantial base of support within Germany, otherwise they would not still exist.
This article also misled readers about Germany’s unemployment rate, reporting it as 7.3 percent. This is the unemployment rate using a German government measure that counts part-time workers as being unemployed.
The OECD publishes a harmonized unemployment rate that is calculated along the same lines as the unemployment rate in the United States. According to the OECD measure, the unemployment rate in Germany is 5.5 percent.
There is no excuse not to use the OECD measure when reporting on Germany’s unemployment rate. Using the German government measure without an explanation of the difference in methodology is grossly misleading and should never be done.
Germany, like many other countries, restricts the ability of businesses to operate on Sunday and holidays. One of the main reasons for such restrictions is to ensure that workers will have the opportunity to spend time on these days with their families.
The New York Times is very unhappy about such policies. It devoted a major news article to criticizing this sort of “overregulation” in the German economy.
While it is arguable that Germany would be better off without restrictive hours for business operation and some of the other regulations cited in the article, these regulations do serve a purpose. Remarkably the article did not include the views of a single person defending these regulations. This is especially strange, since obviously the regulations all have a substantial base of support within Germany, otherwise they would not still exist.
This article also misled readers about Germany’s unemployment rate, reporting it as 7.3 percent. This is the unemployment rate using a German government measure that counts part-time workers as being unemployed.
The OECD publishes a harmonized unemployment rate that is calculated along the same lines as the unemployment rate in the United States. According to the OECD measure, the unemployment rate in Germany is 5.5 percent.
There is no excuse not to use the OECD measure when reporting on Germany’s unemployment rate. Using the German government measure without an explanation of the difference in methodology is grossly misleading and should never be done.
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