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 Wednesday, June 25, 2014 Bankers Could Go To Jail Morning Edition had a strange piece discussing how regulators can punish banks for breaking the law. The piece focused on the various fines and regulatory measures that can be imposed as penalties when banks are found to have broken the law. Remarkably it never considered the underlying logic of... Read more |
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Views Friday, June 13, 2014 The Full Employment Route to Poverty Reduction Efforts to alleviate poverty are often seen as being separate from the debate on overall economic policy, with the former involving a distinct set of issues that only marginally overlap with the latter. This is unfortunate, since the health of the economy, and specifically the level of unemployment... Read more |
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Views Friday, May 30, 2014 Why Is It So Acceptable to Lie to Promote Trade Deals? It's not polite to use the "L" word here in Washington, but it's hard not to be more than a bit disgusted with the frequency with which trade pacts are sold as great engines of job creation and economic growth, when they clearly are not. The latest offender in this area is Bruce Ackerman, a Yale... Read more |
Views Tuesday, March 18, 2014 Paul Ryan Isn't the Wonk of Washington – It's Time to Listen to More Good Ideas The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) released its budget last week . As usual, it was almost completely ignored by the major media outlets. Read more |
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Views Monday, March 10, 2014 Would You Delay Buying a $30 Shirt for Months to Save 8 Cents? Me Neither The collapse of the housing bubble and the subsequent devastation to the economy caught almost the entire economics profession by surprise. Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan, along with other people in top policy positions, were left dumbfounded. They didn’t think a prolonged downturn was possible. They were wrong in a really big way. Read more |
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Views Wednesday, February 26, 2014 Washington Post Complains That Bill Gates' Riches Come at the Expense of Everyone Else The Washington Post complained that the people of San Jose California are suffering because the city has to pay higher prices for computers and software because of the patent and copyright monopolies the government has given to Microsoft and other tech companies. Read more |
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Views Saturday, February 22, 2014 Release of Fed Transcripts Show Fed Scary Ignorant in 2008, WaPo Scary Ignorant in 2014 It's great to be an economist in a top policymaking position in the United States. Unlike dishwashers, cab drivers, and most other workers, you are not held accountable for the quality of your work. We already knew that, since almost none of the people responsible for allowing the housing bubble to grow large enough to collapse the economy have paid any career price. (Ben Bernanke is praised for avoiding a second Great Depression. Talk about setting the bar low.) Read more |
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Views Wednesday, February 19, 2014 True Free Market Proponents Should Support Private-Public Competition One of the initiatives President Obama announced in his State of the Union Address was the "MyRA," an IRA that workers could sign up for at their workplace. Read more |
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Views Wednesday, February 05, 2014 CBO Findings on Obamacare (Minus the GOP Talking Points) Apparently a lot of media folks have made such a habit of repeating Republican talking points that they can't see what is right in front of their eyes. The Republicans are touting the fact that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to reduce the number of people working. Read more |
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Views Monday, February 03, 2014 Silicon Valley Billionaires Believe in the Free Market, As Long as They Benefit Read more |