Dean Baker
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of several books, including Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better bargain for Working People, The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive, The United States Since 1980, Social Security: The Phony Crisis (with Mark Weisbrot), and The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer. He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.
Articles by this author
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Views Friday, November 08, 2019 A Bold Plan to Strengthen and Improve Social Security Is What America Needs The Social Security 2100 Act proposed by Connecticut Representative John Larson is getting closer to being passed by the House of Representatives. It now has more than 200 co-sponsors. If it were to be approved and become law, it would both improve the program’s benefit structure and its financial... Read more |
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Views Friday, November 01, 2019 Mark Zuckerberg Is a Rich Jerk Last week, New York Times columnist Timothy Egan had a piece headlined “Why Doesn’t Mark Zuckerberg Get It?” The piece then goes on to document how Facebook has become a medium for spreading lies and nonsense all over the world, that many ill-informed users have come to believe. This is what Egan... Read more |
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Views Saturday, October 26, 2019 Senator Warren is Exactly Right When I first saw Senator Warren refuse to acknowledge that Medicare for All will mean higher taxes, I admired her political skills, but as an economist, I was annoyed at her evasion of an obvious truth. However, on further thought, I realize that she is exactly right and is doing a public service... Read more |
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Views Monday, October 14, 2019 The Economics and Politics of Financial Transactions Taxes and Wealth Taxes This piece first appeared on Patreon. Last month, the Washington Post reported that Joe Biden is considering including a financial transactions tax (FTT) as part of his campaign for the Democratic nomination. For those of us who have long advocated such a tax, this is very good news. On this issue... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, August 28, 2019 Corporate Media Take the Trump Line on Trade The New York Times ( 8/10/19 ) ran an article this month with a headline saying that the 2020 Democratic presidential contenders faced a major problem: “How to Be Tougher on Trade Than Trump.” Serious readers might have struggled with the idea of getting “tough on trade.” After all, trade is a tool... Read more |
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Views Monday, August 19, 2019 CEOs Say They Will Stop Maximizing Shareholder Value. Would Be Better If They Stopped Maximizing CEO Compensation The Washington Post had a major front page article announcing in the headline "Group of top CEOs says maximizing shareholder profits no longer can be the primary goal of corporations." The piece refers to a statement by the Business Roundtable, a group comprising many of the country's largest... Read more |
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Views Monday, August 12, 2019 Why Would the Democrats Want to be 'Tough' on Trade, as Opposed to Smart on Trade? The New York Times has created an absurd dilemma for Democrats; "how to be tougher on trade than Trump." This framing of the trade issue is utterly bizarre and bears no resemblance to reality. Read more |
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Views Tuesday, July 02, 2019 Why Aren’t the Democrats Talking About Ending Patent-Financed Drug Research? Many of the leading Democratic candidates, especially Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have been putting forward bold progressive plans in a wide variety of areas. Sanders and Warren have both supported a quick transition to a universal Medicare program, with no premiums, co-pays, or... Read more |
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Views Friday, March 29, 2019 To Readers, $X Billion Just Means ‘a Whole Lot of Money’ Polls consistently show that the public hugely overestimates the share of the budget that goes to items like SNAP (food stamps), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and foreign aid. People will typically give answers in the range of 20 to 30 percent of the budget for these categories of... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, March 19, 2019 Trillion Dollar Wall Street Bailouts, Bernie Sanders, and the Washington Post Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post Fact Checker gave Bernie Sanders two Pinocchios yesterday for saying that the Wall Street banks got a trillion dollar bailout. Kessler raises several points of contention. First, whether the Wall Street banks actually got that much money. Second, whether it can... Read more |