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 Tuesday, November 24, 2009 The Budget Deficit Crisis: The Blame Is Bipartisan The country is being bombarded with stories claiming that record budget deficits threaten our children's future and jeopardize the credibility of the dollar. These stories are a serious problem -- they have hugely confused the public about the nature of the country's economic crisis. And both parties share the blame. Read more |
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Views Tuesday, November 10, 2009 Making Wall Street Pay The deficit hawk crew, famous for missing the $8tn housing bubble that wrecked the economy, is now on the warpath, pressing the case for a big, new, national sales tax . They claim that the United States badly needs additional revenue to address projected budget shortfalls . Read more |
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Views Monday, November 02, 2009 Breaking Up the Banks is Hard to Do Those who like banks that are too big to fail will love the latest financial reform proposals circulating in the US Congress . The bill put forward by Barney Frank , the chairman of the House finance committee, does little to change the current structure of the financial system. Read more |
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Views Monday, October 05, 2009 Banks 1, America 0 Last Friday's job report showed that most of the US is experiencing enormous economic pain, even if America's economy is now in a recovery. Overall unemployment rose to 9.8% , with the unemployment rate for men hitting a new post-depression high. The economy shed another 260,000 jobs in September and the previous figure for jobs lost in the recession was revised up by more than 800,000. The average workweek continues to shorten. Read more |
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Views Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Progressives and the Budget Deficit The budget situation today looks hugely worse than it did two years ago. The reason for the deterioration is not that the country has suddenly embarked on a massive new round of social spending, undertaken another major military adventure or even emptied the coffers through tax breaks. The reason that the deficit situation looks hugely worse than it did two years ago is that the $8 trillion housing bubble that had been driving the economy finally collapsed and threw the country into the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Read more |
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Views Monday, September 28, 2009 The Public Option Is Nothing To Fear Back in the good old days, the conservatives were the folks who favoured individual choice. Not any more. In the current healthcare debate, the top priority of the so-called conservatives is to deny people choice . Read more |
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Views Monday, September 21, 2009 Break Up America's Banks The large number of people who protested against Barack Obama 's healthcare plan in Washington last week drew an enormous amount of media attention . Clearly some of the leaders are certifiably crazy, questioning whether Obama is an American and likening him to Hitler. Read more |
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Views Tuesday, September 08, 2009 What Exactly Did the Fed Do with $2 Trillion? To combat the financial crisis set off by the collapse of the housing bubble, the Federal Reserve Board has lent out more than $2tn through various special lending facilities. While the Fed discloses aggregate information on the loans made through each of the facilities, it will not disclose how much money it lent to specific banks or under what terms. Read more |
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Views Tuesday, July 28, 2009 How to Solve the Housing Crisis Winston Churchill supposedly said: "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have tried everything else." This may prove to be an accurate description of the response to the foreclosure crisis that has followed the collapse of the housing bubble. The folks in Washington have developed a series of complex mortgage modification schemes designed to keep people in their homes. George Bush put forward the first plan in the summer of 2007. It was entirely voluntary for lenders and came with no government money. Read more |
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Views Tuesday, July 21, 2009 Seance on Wall Street There is a long history of mediums who claim to communicate with the dead. They sell their services to people anxious to talk to relatives or great figures of the past. Such exercises can be dismissed as harmless entertainment – people spend a few dollars to be treated to tall tales. Read more |