Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
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The Washington Post’s editorial page is notorious for refusing to own up to its mistakes. In true Trumpian spirit, the paper still has not corrected an editorial touting the success of NAFTA which absurdly claimed Mexico’s GDP had more than quadrupled between 1987 and 2007. The correct number was 84.2 percent.
Anyhow, Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor, is now complaining again about the horrible harm that will be caused by future deficits. In any plausible scenario, the potential harm from a too large deficit is dwarfed by the trillions of dollars of lost output, and the millions of people needlessly unemployed, as a result of the Post and its allies pushing for austerity following the Great Recession.
The Post’s editorial staff both lack any knowledge of economics and lack integrity.