The Washington Post is trying to win yet another Pulitzer for bad reporting. Today’s entry is a page 4 story discussing the impact of potential cuts to the military budget. The Post told readers that the Pentagon could face $600 billion in cuts over the next decade.
That is supposed to sound really really big. But is it? It would have been helpful if the Post had bothered to tell readers the baseline level of spending. The Congressional Budget Office baseline is $7.8 trillion over the decade, putting the proposed cuts at a bit under 8 percent of projected spending.
Another useful benchmark is the pre-2001 level of spending. If spending were the same as a share of GDP as the pre 9-11 level, we would spend approximately $5.4 trillion on the military over the next decade.
The Washington Post is trying to win yet another Pulitzer for bad reporting. Today’s entry is a page 4 story discussing the impact of potential cuts to the military budget. The Post told readers that the Pentagon could face $600 billion in cuts over the next decade.
That is supposed to sound really really big. But is it? It would have been helpful if the Post had bothered to tell readers the baseline level of spending. The Congressional Budget Office baseline is $7.8 trillion over the decade, putting the proposed cuts at a bit under 8 percent of projected spending.
Another useful benchmark is the pre-2001 level of spending. If spending were the same as a share of GDP as the pre 9-11 level, we would spend approximately $5.4 trillion on the military over the next decade.
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The NYT had a great opportunity to raise this question, but for some reason chose not to. A lengthy piece discussing the possibility and implications of a downgrade never asked the fundamental question, how could the United States ever be unable to pay off its debt?
This a simple but important point. The debt is issued in dollars. That means that the U.S. government is committed to paying it off in dollars. The U.S. government also prints dollars. So does a downgrade mean that Moody’s thinks that it is possible that at some point we will forget how to print dollars?
The NYT should have asked this question in the article. We should ask why they didn’t.
The NYT had a great opportunity to raise this question, but for some reason chose not to. A lengthy piece discussing the possibility and implications of a downgrade never asked the fundamental question, how could the United States ever be unable to pay off its debt?
This a simple but important point. The debt is issued in dollars. That means that the U.S. government is committed to paying it off in dollars. The U.S. government also prints dollars. So does a downgrade mean that Moody’s thinks that it is possible that at some point we will forget how to print dollars?
The NYT should have asked this question in the article. We should ask why they didn’t.
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Fox on 15th Street had another front page editorial calling for cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It told readers:
“Foreign investors and economic analysts see further action as crucial to restoring the United States’ financial reputation.”
Without actually citing any investors or analysts it then added:
“On Tuesday, critics in China and elsewhere warned that the initial debt-reduction package, which would cut about $1 trillion from agency budgets over the next decade, is too modest. And they complained that the last-minute agreement will not tackle the dangers that national health and retirement programs pose to the government’s long-term fiscal health.”
It would have been interesting to know who these critics were. The reaction of actual investors in the market was the opposite. Interest rates on U.S. Treasury bonds have been falling for most of the last month and fell again yesterday. The investors who are putting trillions of dollars oon the line apparently have a different assessment of the country’s financial situation than the Washington Post.
Fox on 15th Street had another front page editorial calling for cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It told readers:
“Foreign investors and economic analysts see further action as crucial to restoring the United States’ financial reputation.”
Without actually citing any investors or analysts it then added:
“On Tuesday, critics in China and elsewhere warned that the initial debt-reduction package, which would cut about $1 trillion from agency budgets over the next decade, is too modest. And they complained that the last-minute agreement will not tackle the dangers that national health and retirement programs pose to the government’s long-term fiscal health.”
It would have been interesting to know who these critics were. The reaction of actual investors in the market was the opposite. Interest rates on U.S. Treasury bonds have been falling for most of the last month and fell again yesterday. The investors who are putting trillions of dollars oon the line apparently have a different assessment of the country’s financial situation than the Washington Post.
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No one expects sophisticated economic thinking from the Washington Post (a.k.a. Fox on 15th Street), but they really surprised readers with an article on the debt ceiling where they took the fall in the stock market as evidence that investors did not have confidence in the debt deal. After making assertions that investors believe the deal did not go far enough in cutting the deficit, the Post told readers:
“The lack of enthusiasm among investors for the deal was reflected in the U.S. markets. Stocks on Tuesday had their worst day in nearly a year, wiping out the gains made so far in 2011.”
The most obvious explanation for the fall in the stock market would be a series of weak economic reports. If the issue is confidence in the ability of the U.S. government to pay its debt than the relevant market would be the bond market. Interest rates on U.S. debt fell on Tuesday hitting extraordinarily low levels, suggesting that investors have no concern whatsoever about the ability of the U.S. government to repay its debt.
The article also includes a very confused discussion about the status of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It gets most of the basic wrong.
First it implies that it would be a bad thing for the United States if the dollar stopped being the world’s leading reserve currency. It is difficult to see why this would be the case. The demand for dollars by foreign central banks pushes up the value of the dollar thereby making U.S. goods less competitive in world markets. The high dollar is the cause of the U.S. trade deficit.
A trade deficit also logically implies negative national saving. If we have a trade deficit of 5 percent of GDP (as we did before the collapse in 2008), then we must have negative net national savings. This logically implies (i.e. there is no damn way around it) that we will either have negative public savings (big budget deficits) or negative private savings (households spend their entire income).
For this reason, it is not clear why we would want foreign central banks to buy and hold large amounts of dollars. In fact, a newspaper like the Post, which has been crusading for deficit reduction forever, should be especially anxious to see foreign central banks reduce their holdings of dollars. (This is all the standard economics that business reporters should have learned in their intro econ classes.)
The article also implies that central banks have to hold dollars as reserves because there is no good alternative currency. Actually, the amount that central banks hold in reserves is not a fixed amount. The amount of money that central banks held as reserves soared in the years following the East Asian financial crisis in 1997.
The IMF treatment of the crisis countries was deemed so harsh by the countries in the region and elsewhere in the developing world that they began to accumulate massive amounts of reserves in order to avoid ever having to be in the same situation. Central banks don’t need to find an alternative currency to park their reserves. They can just decide that they no longer need to hold so much money as reserves. If this happened, they could unload dollars. This would allow the dollar to fall and bring the trade deficit closer to balance.
No one expects sophisticated economic thinking from the Washington Post (a.k.a. Fox on 15th Street), but they really surprised readers with an article on the debt ceiling where they took the fall in the stock market as evidence that investors did not have confidence in the debt deal. After making assertions that investors believe the deal did not go far enough in cutting the deficit, the Post told readers:
“The lack of enthusiasm among investors for the deal was reflected in the U.S. markets. Stocks on Tuesday had their worst day in nearly a year, wiping out the gains made so far in 2011.”
The most obvious explanation for the fall in the stock market would be a series of weak economic reports. If the issue is confidence in the ability of the U.S. government to pay its debt than the relevant market would be the bond market. Interest rates on U.S. debt fell on Tuesday hitting extraordinarily low levels, suggesting that investors have no concern whatsoever about the ability of the U.S. government to repay its debt.
The article also includes a very confused discussion about the status of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It gets most of the basic wrong.
First it implies that it would be a bad thing for the United States if the dollar stopped being the world’s leading reserve currency. It is difficult to see why this would be the case. The demand for dollars by foreign central banks pushes up the value of the dollar thereby making U.S. goods less competitive in world markets. The high dollar is the cause of the U.S. trade deficit.
A trade deficit also logically implies negative national saving. If we have a trade deficit of 5 percent of GDP (as we did before the collapse in 2008), then we must have negative net national savings. This logically implies (i.e. there is no damn way around it) that we will either have negative public savings (big budget deficits) or negative private savings (households spend their entire income).
For this reason, it is not clear why we would want foreign central banks to buy and hold large amounts of dollars. In fact, a newspaper like the Post, which has been crusading for deficit reduction forever, should be especially anxious to see foreign central banks reduce their holdings of dollars. (This is all the standard economics that business reporters should have learned in their intro econ classes.)
The article also implies that central banks have to hold dollars as reserves because there is no good alternative currency. Actually, the amount that central banks hold in reserves is not a fixed amount. The amount of money that central banks held as reserves soared in the years following the East Asian financial crisis in 1997.
The IMF treatment of the crisis countries was deemed so harsh by the countries in the region and elsewhere in the developing world that they began to accumulate massive amounts of reserves in order to avoid ever having to be in the same situation. Central banks don’t need to find an alternative currency to park their reserves. They can just decide that they no longer need to hold so much money as reserves. If this happened, they could unload dollars. This would allow the dollar to fall and bring the trade deficit closer to balance.
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Politicians don’t always tell the truth. Most school kids know this, but apparently the NYT believes otherwise. That explains why it tells us that:
“the reason that many conservative Republicans refused to vote for the [debt] agreement” was that the debt to GDP ratio would still rise even with the proposed cuts. Actually, this is what many conservative Republicans said. That is how it should be reported, as in “many conservative Republicans said ……”
The NYT also said that this is the reason the bond rating agencies are considering a downgrade of U.S. debt. Again, a newspaper reports this as “this is the reason that the bond rating agencies have given …”
The bond rating agencies do not have a great deal of credibility at the moment, having rated hundreds of billions of dollars of subprime mortgage backed securities as investment grade, and getting paid tens of millions of dollars in the process. No one can accept their claims at face value, especially since it is not even clear how they think the U.S. could ever default on its debt. (The debt is owed in dollars. The U.S. prints dollars. How could we be unable to pay our debt, apart from deliberate non-payment through failing to raise the debt ceiling?)
The piece also wrongly asserts that Social Security contributes to the debt. This is not true. Under the law, Social Security can only spend the money in its trust fund and not a penny more. If it runs short of money then payments would not be made. This is a very serious error that the NYT should not make. (It is clear that the article is referring to the on-budget budget, since it reports that CBO projects that the debt to GDP ratio will exceed 100 percent of GDP in 2021. This is only true if we look at the on-budget budget and add in the debt held by the Social Security trust fund.)
It would also have been useful if the article found at least one source who was not a deficit hawk. There are no shortages of economists, policy analysts and elected officials who fall into this category.
Politicians don’t always tell the truth. Most school kids know this, but apparently the NYT believes otherwise. That explains why it tells us that:
“the reason that many conservative Republicans refused to vote for the [debt] agreement” was that the debt to GDP ratio would still rise even with the proposed cuts. Actually, this is what many conservative Republicans said. That is how it should be reported, as in “many conservative Republicans said ……”
The NYT also said that this is the reason the bond rating agencies are considering a downgrade of U.S. debt. Again, a newspaper reports this as “this is the reason that the bond rating agencies have given …”
The bond rating agencies do not have a great deal of credibility at the moment, having rated hundreds of billions of dollars of subprime mortgage backed securities as investment grade, and getting paid tens of millions of dollars in the process. No one can accept their claims at face value, especially since it is not even clear how they think the U.S. could ever default on its debt. (The debt is owed in dollars. The U.S. prints dollars. How could we be unable to pay our debt, apart from deliberate non-payment through failing to raise the debt ceiling?)
The piece also wrongly asserts that Social Security contributes to the debt. This is not true. Under the law, Social Security can only spend the money in its trust fund and not a penny more. If it runs short of money then payments would not be made. This is a very serious error that the NYT should not make. (It is clear that the article is referring to the on-budget budget, since it reports that CBO projects that the debt to GDP ratio will exceed 100 percent of GDP in 2021. This is only true if we look at the on-budget budget and add in the debt held by the Social Security trust fund.)
It would also have been useful if the article found at least one source who was not a deficit hawk. There are no shortages of economists, policy analysts and elected officials who fall into this category.
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Casey Mulligan seems to believe that because some groups (i.e. older workers) can increase their employment in a downturn, that the problem is one of supply and not demand. As I noted in my past exchange, a recession does not mean that some demographic groups will not be preferred to others. In the downturn there has been an increase in employment for college grads also.
There is nothing inconsistent with the idea that demand is a constraint on employment yet some individuals may be able to beat out others for the jobs that are available, either because they have more experience in the case of older workers or they have better skills in the case of college educated workers. This is very different from saying that if only all our workers had these advantages (being more experienced or college educated) that we would not have a problem of unemployment.
In fact, even among these groups unemployment has risen substantially in the downturn. If we snapped our fingers and suddenly our whole workforce had the experience of the over 55 population or the skills of a college graduate then we would see many more experienced and college educated workers unemployed. I don’t see anything in Mulligan’s story suggesting otherwise.
(As another example, Mulligan shows us that employment has increased in Texas. Is this a surprise? There has been a huge increase in oil and gas prices that has both increased demand in these industries and led to a substantial increase in the money flowing into the state for royalties. Also, Texas did not have as large a housing bubble as states like Nevada and California. Therefore, it suffered much less damage when the bubble burst.)
Finally, Mulligan insists that us Keynesian types have no evidence that lack of demand explains the downturn. Actually, there are a number of macroeconomic models that have been built up over the years based on evidence of firm and individual behavior. These do support the view that the downturn is attributable to a lack of demand. Also, there was a study (Feyrer and Sacerdote, 2011 and my comment) of the state by state effects of the stimulus that found multipliers that were very much consistent with the ones predicted by these macroeconomic models. So, we have the standard Keynesian theory, which is largely embedded in macroeconomic models based on years of data collection, that is now supported by a careful analysis of the impact of the stimulus.
That seems pretty good in the evidence department, what does Professor Mulligan have?
Casey Mulligan seems to believe that because some groups (i.e. older workers) can increase their employment in a downturn, that the problem is one of supply and not demand. As I noted in my past exchange, a recession does not mean that some demographic groups will not be preferred to others. In the downturn there has been an increase in employment for college grads also.
There is nothing inconsistent with the idea that demand is a constraint on employment yet some individuals may be able to beat out others for the jobs that are available, either because they have more experience in the case of older workers or they have better skills in the case of college educated workers. This is very different from saying that if only all our workers had these advantages (being more experienced or college educated) that we would not have a problem of unemployment.
In fact, even among these groups unemployment has risen substantially in the downturn. If we snapped our fingers and suddenly our whole workforce had the experience of the over 55 population or the skills of a college graduate then we would see many more experienced and college educated workers unemployed. I don’t see anything in Mulligan’s story suggesting otherwise.
(As another example, Mulligan shows us that employment has increased in Texas. Is this a surprise? There has been a huge increase in oil and gas prices that has both increased demand in these industries and led to a substantial increase in the money flowing into the state for royalties. Also, Texas did not have as large a housing bubble as states like Nevada and California. Therefore, it suffered much less damage when the bubble burst.)
Finally, Mulligan insists that us Keynesian types have no evidence that lack of demand explains the downturn. Actually, there are a number of macroeconomic models that have been built up over the years based on evidence of firm and individual behavior. These do support the view that the downturn is attributable to a lack of demand. Also, there was a study (Feyrer and Sacerdote, 2011 and my comment) of the state by state effects of the stimulus that found multipliers that were very much consistent with the ones predicted by these macroeconomic models. So, we have the standard Keynesian theory, which is largely embedded in macroeconomic models based on years of data collection, that is now supported by a careful analysis of the impact of the stimulus.
That seems pretty good in the evidence department, what does Professor Mulligan have?
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Joe Noccera and Paul Krugman both see President Obama as having been taken for a ride by a Tea Party gang who were prepared to blow up the house if they didn’t get their way. This is one possibility, but there is another way to interpret recent events.
President Obama had other options all along the way. As Krugman notes, he could have insisted last December that the debt ceiling was part of the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts. After all, contrary to what his National Economic Adviser seems to think, the Democrats did still control Congress at the time.
In the context of the debt ceiling being hit, he could have taken the 14th amendment route that a substantial number of legal scholars believe to be kosher. It probably passes the laugh test better than the non-war in Libya. He was prepared to challenge Congress for the latter, why not the former?
He could have also tried the stand tough approach. As we know, in the meltdown scenario Wall Street is on the front line. The J.P. Morgan-Goldman Sachs gang would be pretty damn furious at the Republicans if they actually put them out of business. It’s very hard to believe that Boehner and company don’t buckle in this scenario.
Finally, the whole debate has hugely misrepresented the Tea Party. Poll after poll shows that they are not really against what government does. In fact, they are huge supporters of Social Security and Medicare and other programs that support the middle class. And, after we pull out the military, this is in fact the vast majority of the government.
The Tea Party is against some nonsense notion of massive government waste that does not exist. Like President Reagan, they want to eliminate the Department of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse.
President Obama could have insisted that he would protect the core middle class programs that enjoy support across the political spectrum. And he could have said that the Republicans want to gut them.
Instead, he contributed to the nonsense. He made up a false story about the origins of the deficit, wrongly telling the country that the huge deficit came about from the Bush tax cuts, the cost of the wars, and the Medicare drug benefit. This implied that we had large deficits before the downturn, that large deficits were a chronic problem.
In fact, the numbers are clear as day and it’s impossible to believe that President Obama and his advisers do not know them. The large deficits of the past few years came about because of the collapse of the housing bubble, end of story.
So we can believe that President Obama is just a really bad poker player, as Paul Krugman suggests, or we can believe that he is getting what he wants. I report, you decide.
Joe Noccera and Paul Krugman both see President Obama as having been taken for a ride by a Tea Party gang who were prepared to blow up the house if they didn’t get their way. This is one possibility, but there is another way to interpret recent events.
President Obama had other options all along the way. As Krugman notes, he could have insisted last December that the debt ceiling was part of the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts. After all, contrary to what his National Economic Adviser seems to think, the Democrats did still control Congress at the time.
In the context of the debt ceiling being hit, he could have taken the 14th amendment route that a substantial number of legal scholars believe to be kosher. It probably passes the laugh test better than the non-war in Libya. He was prepared to challenge Congress for the latter, why not the former?
He could have also tried the stand tough approach. As we know, in the meltdown scenario Wall Street is on the front line. The J.P. Morgan-Goldman Sachs gang would be pretty damn furious at the Republicans if they actually put them out of business. It’s very hard to believe that Boehner and company don’t buckle in this scenario.
Finally, the whole debate has hugely misrepresented the Tea Party. Poll after poll shows that they are not really against what government does. In fact, they are huge supporters of Social Security and Medicare and other programs that support the middle class. And, after we pull out the military, this is in fact the vast majority of the government.
The Tea Party is against some nonsense notion of massive government waste that does not exist. Like President Reagan, they want to eliminate the Department of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse.
President Obama could have insisted that he would protect the core middle class programs that enjoy support across the political spectrum. And he could have said that the Republicans want to gut them.
Instead, he contributed to the nonsense. He made up a false story about the origins of the deficit, wrongly telling the country that the huge deficit came about from the Bush tax cuts, the cost of the wars, and the Medicare drug benefit. This implied that we had large deficits before the downturn, that large deficits were a chronic problem.
In fact, the numbers are clear as day and it’s impossible to believe that President Obama and his advisers do not know them. The large deficits of the past few years came about because of the collapse of the housing bubble, end of story.
So we can believe that President Obama is just a really bad poker player, as Paul Krugman suggests, or we can believe that he is getting what he wants. I report, you decide.
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Okay boys and girls, this stuff about a credit downgrade has gone far enough. We know that all the important people in Washington and on Wall Street are warning us about the possibility that the credit rating agencies will downgrade the U.S. government if we don’t reduce the debt to their standards. But what could this possibly mean?
The U.S. debt is denominated in dollars. The government issues dollars. Do Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s think that there will be some point in the future where the government will not be able to issue dollars?
Let’s say this so that even a reporter with an elite news outlet can understand it. Suppose I issue IOUs that are payable in Dean Baker IOUs. What is the likelihood that I will ever default on my IOUs?
That’s right, unless I lose the ability to write, the probability is zero. There is a possibility that at some point that Dean Baker IOUs will lose some of their value (i.e. inflation) because I have issued so many of them. However the credit rating agencies are not in the business of making inflation predictions. They certainly don’t have any obvious expertise in this area.
Furthermore, if a debt downgrade for the U.S. is simply a forecast for higher inflation, then the debt downgrade must apply to every debt issue denominated in dollars. In other words, if U.S. debt loses 30 percent of its value because of higher than expected inflation, then so will dollar denominated debt issued by General Electric, AT&T, or the government of Israel.
In other words, if the concern really is higher inflation, then the credit rating agencies must be considering downgrading all debt denominated in dollars. But, they have not threatened every issuer of dollar denominated debt with a credit downgrade, so this must not be what they mean.
So, what does the threat of a credit downgrade mean? The reporters should be asking this question and giving us the answer. This is their job.
Okay boys and girls, this stuff about a credit downgrade has gone far enough. We know that all the important people in Washington and on Wall Street are warning us about the possibility that the credit rating agencies will downgrade the U.S. government if we don’t reduce the debt to their standards. But what could this possibly mean?
The U.S. debt is denominated in dollars. The government issues dollars. Do Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s think that there will be some point in the future where the government will not be able to issue dollars?
Let’s say this so that even a reporter with an elite news outlet can understand it. Suppose I issue IOUs that are payable in Dean Baker IOUs. What is the likelihood that I will ever default on my IOUs?
That’s right, unless I lose the ability to write, the probability is zero. There is a possibility that at some point that Dean Baker IOUs will lose some of their value (i.e. inflation) because I have issued so many of them. However the credit rating agencies are not in the business of making inflation predictions. They certainly don’t have any obvious expertise in this area.
Furthermore, if a debt downgrade for the U.S. is simply a forecast for higher inflation, then the debt downgrade must apply to every debt issue denominated in dollars. In other words, if U.S. debt loses 30 percent of its value because of higher than expected inflation, then so will dollar denominated debt issued by General Electric, AT&T, or the government of Israel.
In other words, if the concern really is higher inflation, then the credit rating agencies must be considering downgrading all debt denominated in dollars. But, they have not threatened every issuer of dollar denominated debt with a credit downgrade, so this must not be what they mean.
So, what does the threat of a credit downgrade mean? The reporters should be asking this question and giving us the answer. This is their job.
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Yes, it was just a throw away line. But serious newspapers do not say in front page story that:
“Over the long term, the deal could help free the nation from what is fast becoming a crushing debt.”
Lines about a “crushing debt” should appear in quotations or left to the opinion pages. They should not be assertions of fact to readers.
Yes, it was just a throw away line. But serious newspapers do not say in front page story that:
“Over the long term, the deal could help free the nation from what is fast becoming a crushing debt.”
Lines about a “crushing debt” should appear in quotations or left to the opinion pages. They should not be assertions of fact to readers.
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In a front page news article the Post told readers that the debt ceiling battle was really a battle over “the size and role of government.” Is this something their mother told them?
I didn’t see anyone in this debate arguing for “big government.” If there is anyone in the country who supports big government as a matter of principle, they have a seriously losing electoral position.
In the real world the battle is over specific programs. And, apart from the military, there is overwhelming support for most of what the government spends money on — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment benefits — across the political spectrum. Everyone from liberal Democrats to Tea Party Republicans strongly supports these programs.
In fact, there is only a small minority that really wants to see these programs cut back in a major way. Of course this minority is extremely powerful since it includes much of Wall Street and major news outlets, like the Washington Post.
It helps to advance the agenda of those who want to cut the major social programs to mischaracterize the issue as a debate over the size and role of government. This can create serious divisions among the programs’ supporters. However, if the debate is more accurately described as one between people who support social programs and those who oppose them, then the Washington Post’s position has much less chance of succeeding.
In a front page news article the Post told readers that the debt ceiling battle was really a battle over “the size and role of government.” Is this something their mother told them?
I didn’t see anyone in this debate arguing for “big government.” If there is anyone in the country who supports big government as a matter of principle, they have a seriously losing electoral position.
In the real world the battle is over specific programs. And, apart from the military, there is overwhelming support for most of what the government spends money on — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment benefits — across the political spectrum. Everyone from liberal Democrats to Tea Party Republicans strongly supports these programs.
In fact, there is only a small minority that really wants to see these programs cut back in a major way. Of course this minority is extremely powerful since it includes much of Wall Street and major news outlets, like the Washington Post.
It helps to advance the agenda of those who want to cut the major social programs to mischaracterize the issue as a debate over the size and role of government. This can create serious divisions among the programs’ supporters. However, if the debate is more accurately described as one between people who support social programs and those who oppose them, then the Washington Post’s position has much less chance of succeeding.
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