The NYT reported on a new government regulation that will require drug companies to disclose payments they make to doctors. The reason is to expose potential conflicts of interest that could influence their research, public statements, and prescription writing.
It would be helpful to include some comment from economists on this new regulation. The sort of corruption associated with patent protection for prescription drugs is exactly what economics predicts would result from a system of government-granted monopolies that allow drug companies to sell their product at several thousand percent above the free market price.
The NYT reported on a new government regulation that will require drug companies to disclose payments they make to doctors. The reason is to expose potential conflicts of interest that could influence their research, public statements, and prescription writing.
It would be helpful to include some comment from economists on this new regulation. The sort of corruption associated with patent protection for prescription drugs is exactly what economics predicts would result from a system of government-granted monopolies that allow drug companies to sell their product at several thousand percent above the free market price.
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That’s the question that the Washington Post is implicitly raising for readers in its discussion of Iceland’s recovery from the recession. The piece notes that Iceland’s unemployment rate is 7.0 percent. It doesn’t make the comparison to other crisis-afflicted countries which have unemployment rates well in the double-digits, with Spain leading the pack at 22 percent.
In general the piece does paint a reasonably positive picture of Iceland’s economy, but it warns readers that:
“It’s tempting to conclude that this country of 318,000 people simply handled the crisis more adeptly than others, like a pick-your-own-ending book in which Icelanders chose correctly. There is a sliver of truth in that, but the full story is more complicated. That’s partly because the circumstances in Iceland are far different than in the United States and Europe, but also because such a simple explanation ignores the anger, the angst and the struggles that remain here, hidden barely beneath the surface.
“Iceland has weathered the worst of the financial crisis, but its society has yet to solve the identity crisis that followed in its wake.”
If Post readers were informed of the situation in the other crisis-afflicted countries, they would be able to put Iceland’s identity crisis in context.
That’s the question that the Washington Post is implicitly raising for readers in its discussion of Iceland’s recovery from the recession. The piece notes that Iceland’s unemployment rate is 7.0 percent. It doesn’t make the comparison to other crisis-afflicted countries which have unemployment rates well in the double-digits, with Spain leading the pack at 22 percent.
In general the piece does paint a reasonably positive picture of Iceland’s economy, but it warns readers that:
“It’s tempting to conclude that this country of 318,000 people simply handled the crisis more adeptly than others, like a pick-your-own-ending book in which Icelanders chose correctly. There is a sliver of truth in that, but the full story is more complicated. That’s partly because the circumstances in Iceland are far different than in the United States and Europe, but also because such a simple explanation ignores the anger, the angst and the struggles that remain here, hidden barely beneath the surface.
“Iceland has weathered the worst of the financial crisis, but its society has yet to solve the identity crisis that followed in its wake.”
If Post readers were informed of the situation in the other crisis-afflicted countries, they would be able to put Iceland’s identity crisis in context.
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Thomas Edsall does the classic caricature of the debate between liberals and conservatives telling readers:
“Looked at another way, the two sides are fighting over what the role of government in redistributing resources from the affluent to the needy should and shouldn’t be.”
This is absolutely not true. The government decides how to structure the market. Its decisions in this area swamp the impact of the redistributive policies that liberals and conservatives often fight over.
For example, patent protection for prescription drugs redistributes more than five times as much money to the holders of patent monopolies as the Bush tax cuts did for the richest two percent of the population. Similarly, the protectionist barriers that limit the competition that doctors, lawyers and other highly paid professionals face from foreign competition are comparable to giving them a welfare check that averages in the neighborhood of $100,000 a year.
There are many other ways in which government policy on structuring the market have enormous impact on the distribution of income. It is understandable that conservatives would like to divert the public’s attention from the ways in which the government structures the market to redistribute income upward. It is hard to understand why liberals would ever accept this “loser liberalism” framework which reduces the policy debate to the extent to which government should redistribute money from the winners in the market to the losers.
Thomas Edsall does the classic caricature of the debate between liberals and conservatives telling readers:
“Looked at another way, the two sides are fighting over what the role of government in redistributing resources from the affluent to the needy should and shouldn’t be.”
This is absolutely not true. The government decides how to structure the market. Its decisions in this area swamp the impact of the redistributive policies that liberals and conservatives often fight over.
For example, patent protection for prescription drugs redistributes more than five times as much money to the holders of patent monopolies as the Bush tax cuts did for the richest two percent of the population. Similarly, the protectionist barriers that limit the competition that doctors, lawyers and other highly paid professionals face from foreign competition are comparable to giving them a welfare check that averages in the neighborhood of $100,000 a year.
There are many other ways in which government policy on structuring the market have enormous impact on the distribution of income. It is understandable that conservatives would like to divert the public’s attention from the ways in which the government structures the market to redistribute income upward. It is hard to understand why liberals would ever accept this “loser liberalism” framework which reduces the policy debate to the extent to which government should redistribute money from the winners in the market to the losers.
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The Washington Post has consistently used both its news and opinion pages to try to convince readers that the main threat to their well-being and that of their children came from older people getting fat Social Security checks and generous Medicare benefits. This position has become harder to maintain, both because the economic collapse has made these benefits more important than ever to middle and lower income families and also because the fact that rich are making off with the bulk of the benefits of economic growth is becoming increasingly apparent. Still, the Post labors on.
Today, the paper featured a column by political consultant Bill Knapp arguing that we should all be happy because the economy has created jobs over the last 40 years and also because people at most points along the income distribution have seen some gains in income.
This is known as “the 12-year-olds are taller than 6-year-olds” argument in reference to the claim that poor nutrition might be stunting growth. The Bill Knapps of the world would get out their yardstick and measure a representative sample of 12-year-olds and do the same for 6-year-olds. After careful analysis of the data they would find that the 12-year-olds are taller. They would then write up their findings and get a column in the Washington Post telling readers that bad nutrition is not affecting growth.
Let’s skip the idiocy. Economies grow, they add jobs, and people get on average richer. This happens everywhere barring war, natural catastrophe, or incredible economic mismanagement. The issue is the rate at which they grow and that people see improvements in their living standards. And for most people in the United States, the improvements in living standards over the last three decades have been very modest. The reason is that most of the gains have gone to the richest one percent.
Remarkably, Knapp can’t even get his numbers right on how rich the one percent are. He tells us that:
” When you adjust for family size, the top 1 percent made, on average, $335,779 a year.”
Actually, that is a cutoff for entering the 1 percent, not the average for the group. (Math is hard.) The average income for families in the top 1 percent is over $1.3 million.
After flunking the arithmetic portion of the column, Knapp then turns to the Nigerian cell phone user argument. Knapp thinks that the average Nigerian in 2012 enjoys a higher standard of living than did the average American in 1990, because Nigerians in 2012 have a higher rate of cell phone usage.
Okay, he didn’t make this argument directly about Nigeria and the United States, but he did make this sort of argument about the “telling facts about our economic growth and future,” which amounted to a rundown on the numbers for the use of cell phones, computers, and broadband. Knapp didn’t even try to put these numbers in comparative terms, for example seeing how we measure up against Europe and Japan (not especially well).
So there you have it. Don’t worry about how much money Robert Rubin and Angelo Mozilo made off the housing bubble and the difficulty that you are having finding a job, paying for your health care or your kids’ education. Just be thankful that you have an iPhone.
The Washington Post has consistently used both its news and opinion pages to try to convince readers that the main threat to their well-being and that of their children came from older people getting fat Social Security checks and generous Medicare benefits. This position has become harder to maintain, both because the economic collapse has made these benefits more important than ever to middle and lower income families and also because the fact that rich are making off with the bulk of the benefits of economic growth is becoming increasingly apparent. Still, the Post labors on.
Today, the paper featured a column by political consultant Bill Knapp arguing that we should all be happy because the economy has created jobs over the last 40 years and also because people at most points along the income distribution have seen some gains in income.
This is known as “the 12-year-olds are taller than 6-year-olds” argument in reference to the claim that poor nutrition might be stunting growth. The Bill Knapps of the world would get out their yardstick and measure a representative sample of 12-year-olds and do the same for 6-year-olds. After careful analysis of the data they would find that the 12-year-olds are taller. They would then write up their findings and get a column in the Washington Post telling readers that bad nutrition is not affecting growth.
Let’s skip the idiocy. Economies grow, they add jobs, and people get on average richer. This happens everywhere barring war, natural catastrophe, or incredible economic mismanagement. The issue is the rate at which they grow and that people see improvements in their living standards. And for most people in the United States, the improvements in living standards over the last three decades have been very modest. The reason is that most of the gains have gone to the richest one percent.
Remarkably, Knapp can’t even get his numbers right on how rich the one percent are. He tells us that:
” When you adjust for family size, the top 1 percent made, on average, $335,779 a year.”
Actually, that is a cutoff for entering the 1 percent, not the average for the group. (Math is hard.) The average income for families in the top 1 percent is over $1.3 million.
After flunking the arithmetic portion of the column, Knapp then turns to the Nigerian cell phone user argument. Knapp thinks that the average Nigerian in 2012 enjoys a higher standard of living than did the average American in 1990, because Nigerians in 2012 have a higher rate of cell phone usage.
Okay, he didn’t make this argument directly about Nigeria and the United States, but he did make this sort of argument about the “telling facts about our economic growth and future,” which amounted to a rundown on the numbers for the use of cell phones, computers, and broadband. Knapp didn’t even try to put these numbers in comparative terms, for example seeing how we measure up against Europe and Japan (not especially well).
So there you have it. Don’t worry about how much money Robert Rubin and Angelo Mozilo made off the housing bubble and the difficulty that you are having finding a job, paying for your health care or your kids’ education. Just be thankful that you have an iPhone.
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The NYT had a mostly good piece discussing the gap in competitiveness between the northern and southern European countries that lays at the heart of the debt crisis in the euro zone. One item that would have been worth adding is the fact that European Central Bank is making any potential adjustment process far more difficult by not having more expansionary policies and by refusing to act as a lender of last resort.
Forcing heavily indebted countries to meet tough deficit targets, at the same time that their interest burdens are soaring, is creating an impossible situation. This is leading to a downward spiral in which austerity measures slow growth and raise deficits, which undermines confidence in the debt. This pushes up interest rates, which makes the deficits even larger.
The NYT had a mostly good piece discussing the gap in competitiveness between the northern and southern European countries that lays at the heart of the debt crisis in the euro zone. One item that would have been worth adding is the fact that European Central Bank is making any potential adjustment process far more difficult by not having more expansionary policies and by refusing to act as a lender of last resort.
Forcing heavily indebted countries to meet tough deficit targets, at the same time that their interest burdens are soaring, is creating an impossible situation. This is leading to a downward spiral in which austerity measures slow growth and raise deficits, which undermines confidence in the debt. This pushes up interest rates, which makes the deficits even larger.
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That might have been worth mentioning in an NYT piece that reported on people turning to smaller alternatives to Amazon as a matter of principle. Some of these people object to Amazon’s labor practices. Such people would likely appreciate the opportunity to buy from a unionized bookseller like Powell’s.
That might have been worth mentioning in an NYT piece that reported on people turning to smaller alternatives to Amazon as a matter of principle. Some of these people object to Amazon’s labor practices. Such people would likely appreciate the opportunity to buy from a unionized bookseller like Powell’s.
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In an article on the richest one percent of families in the country, the NYT told readers that:
“they may prefer facing cuts to their own benefits like Social Security than paying more taxes.”
The average income among the richest one percent is roughly $1.5 million. The maximum Social Security benefit for a retired couple is around $45,000. If we assume that the everyone in the one percent gets the maximum benefit (which would certainly be an overstatement of their benefits), then completely eliminating their Social Security would be equivalent to a 3 percentage point increase in their tax.
For families with higher incomes in the one percent, the potential loss due to a reduction in Social Security benefits would be an even smaller share of their income. For this reason, it is understandable that they would prefer to go the route of reduction in benefits to tax increases.
In an article on the richest one percent of families in the country, the NYT told readers that:
“they may prefer facing cuts to their own benefits like Social Security than paying more taxes.”
The average income among the richest one percent is roughly $1.5 million. The maximum Social Security benefit for a retired couple is around $45,000. If we assume that the everyone in the one percent gets the maximum benefit (which would certainly be an overstatement of their benefits), then completely eliminating their Social Security would be equivalent to a 3 percentage point increase in their tax.
For families with higher incomes in the one percent, the potential loss due to a reduction in Social Security benefits would be an even smaller share of their income. For this reason, it is understandable that they would prefer to go the route of reduction in benefits to tax increases.
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Reporters always complain about space constraints. Therefore it is difficult to understand why they feel the need to add the word “free” when reporting on trade deals, as the Post did in a piece talking about the possible implications for trade of President Obama’s plans for restructuring the Commerce Department.
Of course the deals in question (recent pacts with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama) were not free trade agreements, since they increased barriers in some areas, most obviously intellectual property rights. They were just called “free trade: agreements by proponents, presumably because they think this will make them politically salable.
It would have been helpful to include the views of a critic of U.S. trade policy in this piece. If the restructuring makes the government less effective in promoting a trade agenda that they consider harmful, a restructuring may be viewed positively.
Reporters always complain about space constraints. Therefore it is difficult to understand why they feel the need to add the word “free” when reporting on trade deals, as the Post did in a piece talking about the possible implications for trade of President Obama’s plans for restructuring the Commerce Department.
Of course the deals in question (recent pacts with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama) were not free trade agreements, since they increased barriers in some areas, most obviously intellectual property rights. They were just called “free trade: agreements by proponents, presumably because they think this will make them politically salable.
It would have been helpful to include the views of a critic of U.S. trade policy in this piece. If the restructuring makes the government less effective in promoting a trade agenda that they consider harmful, a restructuring may be viewed positively.
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The lead Washington Post editorial noted (and excused) the Fed’s complete failure to understand the dangers posed by the housing bubble (the economy is soooo complicated) and then somehow used this failure as an argument against its housing proposals. The Fed’s main housing proposals were that Fannie and Freddie should make it easier for underwater homeowners to refinance and also that they should look to convert some of their foreclosed properties to rental units. The Fed also suggested that it might be advantageous to allow foreclosed homeowners to stay in their home as renters. (Yes, that one is my right to rent plan.)
The Post doesn’t like the plans because the government could lose money on the deals. They also say that they may not fix the housing market.
Let’s take these in turn. In answer to the first, the question is how much money does the government stand to lose by allowing homeowners who are already underwater to refinance at lower rates. Remember, we are already on the hook for the loans. The deal is simply that homeowners will now be paying lower interest to holders of mortgage backed securities, or in cases where Fannie and Freddie held the loans directly, to the government. The downside risk to the government seems pretty small and, as the Fed noted, if it reduces the default rate, then it could be a net gainer. Of all the ways in which we can conceivably help homeowners, this one should top the list as no-brainer.
The question about fixing the housing market depends on what we mean by “fixing?” There was a housing bubble. It burst. Does the Post think that we will get house prices back to their bubble-inflated levels? That is probably not possible and certainly not desirable. If the point is to get homes occupied and to allow people who are no longer homeowners to find good rental housing, then again the Fed’s proposals seem like no-brainers.
The Fed deserves tons of ridicule; letting the housing bubble grow to such dangerous levels was an act of ungodly stupidity. But its latest proposals on housing are definitely a step in the right direction.
The lead Washington Post editorial noted (and excused) the Fed’s complete failure to understand the dangers posed by the housing bubble (the economy is soooo complicated) and then somehow used this failure as an argument against its housing proposals. The Fed’s main housing proposals were that Fannie and Freddie should make it easier for underwater homeowners to refinance and also that they should look to convert some of their foreclosed properties to rental units. The Fed also suggested that it might be advantageous to allow foreclosed homeowners to stay in their home as renters. (Yes, that one is my right to rent plan.)
The Post doesn’t like the plans because the government could lose money on the deals. They also say that they may not fix the housing market.
Let’s take these in turn. In answer to the first, the question is how much money does the government stand to lose by allowing homeowners who are already underwater to refinance at lower rates. Remember, we are already on the hook for the loans. The deal is simply that homeowners will now be paying lower interest to holders of mortgage backed securities, or in cases where Fannie and Freddie held the loans directly, to the government. The downside risk to the government seems pretty small and, as the Fed noted, if it reduces the default rate, then it could be a net gainer. Of all the ways in which we can conceivably help homeowners, this one should top the list as no-brainer.
The question about fixing the housing market depends on what we mean by “fixing?” There was a housing bubble. It burst. Does the Post think that we will get house prices back to their bubble-inflated levels? That is probably not possible and certainly not desirable. If the point is to get homes occupied and to allow people who are no longer homeowners to find good rental housing, then again the Fed’s proposals seem like no-brainers.
The Fed deserves tons of ridicule; letting the housing bubble grow to such dangerous levels was an act of ungodly stupidity. But its latest proposals on housing are definitely a step in the right direction.
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Arguably the main reason that France and the rest of the euro zone countries are facing recession and debt downgrades is the failure of the European Central Bank (ECB) to act as a lender of last resort and promise to back up the debt of its member states. This failure, coupled with its obsession to curb inflation even at the expense of growth, would seem to be the main source of the euro zone’s economic problems at the moment.
However the NYT sees it otherwise. In an article on Standard & Poor’s downgrade of French debt it told readers:
“France will have to work to restore its financial luster, especially if it is subsequently downgraded by other ratings agencies. French officials say their priority now is to demonstrate that the euro area is solid, while also showing that France is working to improve its own finances.
Mr. Sarkozy’s austerity programs, including higher taxes on items like some food and beverages that kicked in across France recently, are aimed at whittling the country’s budget deficit to 3 percent of G.D.P. by 2015.”
Austerity is of course one route, although if it leads to further weakness in the French economy, it is not clear that it will be a successful route. Another possible route would be for France to pressure the ECB to adopt sounder policies.
The NYT seems to have ruled this path out for France, but the French people might see changing ECB policy as preferable to tax increase and spending cutbacks that will have an uncertain impact on the deficit and France’s financial standing.
Arguably the main reason that France and the rest of the euro zone countries are facing recession and debt downgrades is the failure of the European Central Bank (ECB) to act as a lender of last resort and promise to back up the debt of its member states. This failure, coupled with its obsession to curb inflation even at the expense of growth, would seem to be the main source of the euro zone’s economic problems at the moment.
However the NYT sees it otherwise. In an article on Standard & Poor’s downgrade of French debt it told readers:
“France will have to work to restore its financial luster, especially if it is subsequently downgraded by other ratings agencies. French officials say their priority now is to demonstrate that the euro area is solid, while also showing that France is working to improve its own finances.
Mr. Sarkozy’s austerity programs, including higher taxes on items like some food and beverages that kicked in across France recently, are aimed at whittling the country’s budget deficit to 3 percent of G.D.P. by 2015.”
Austerity is of course one route, although if it leads to further weakness in the French economy, it is not clear that it will be a successful route. Another possible route would be for France to pressure the ECB to adopt sounder policies.
The NYT seems to have ruled this path out for France, but the French people might see changing ECB policy as preferable to tax increase and spending cutbacks that will have an uncertain impact on the deficit and France’s financial standing.
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