Back in the good old days newspapers used to try to keep their opinions on the editorial page and try to stick to the facts on the news page. (I know, that’s never neutral.) But the NYT didn’t look like it was trying in its profile of Emmanuel Macron, the newly appointed minister of the economy in France.
As the piece tells us, Mr. Macron is pro-business. That seems to be agreed upon by all. However it also tells us that he “is bent on modernizing the country’s social model.” It’s clear that Macron wants to make cuts in France’s social spending. Does that necessarily mean “modernizing.” If this distinction is difficult to follow, imagine someone who advocates cutting the military budget in the United States or to breaking up the large banks and taxing the financial sector in a way that treated it like other sectors (as advocated by the I.M.F.). Is it plausible the NYT would describe such a person as wanting to “modernize” defense or finance?
In a similar vein the piece makes pronouncements on economic policy for which it has no obvious justification. It told readers:
“But behind the scenes, he called on Mr. Macron as an informal adviser to assure the business community that he was also open to reforms that would help companies create jobs and lift France from moribund growth.
“Mr. Macron’s first move was to urge Mr. Hollande to drop a proposal to tax incomes above €1 million at 75 percent, warning it would damage France’s image and turn the country into ‘Cuba without the sun.'”
Is there any evidence stopping the 75 percent tax rate on very high income individuals would cost jobs? The NYT could make a major splash in the economics profession if it produced such evidence. (It is a disputed topic, but many of the countries’ top public finance economists, like Peter Diamond and Emmanual Saez, have supported tax rates this high.) While there is no doubt that this tax rate would hurt folks like Mr. Macron’s former colleagues at Rothschild, it’s economic impact is far from clear.
The piece also tried to cover up an incredible statement from someone in a high political position in France. It told readers:
“It did not help that Mr. Macron made a major faux pas right out of the gate, in a radio interview, referring to the plight of ‘illiterate’ workers at a factory that was closing in northern France, because they would have few other options. The remark, though perhaps well intentioned, deepened an impression that he was out of touch with the Socialist base.”
An important fact that the paper should have told readers is that these workers were almost certainly not illiterate. While they certainly did not enjoy the same elite education as Mr. Macron, France has a highly-educated workforce. While he is right that due to economic mismanagement these workers likely have few job options, it is unusual for a top political official to publicly and wrongly denigrate a significant segment within society.
Back in the good old days newspapers used to try to keep their opinions on the editorial page and try to stick to the facts on the news page. (I know, that’s never neutral.) But the NYT didn’t look like it was trying in its profile of Emmanuel Macron, the newly appointed minister of the economy in France.
As the piece tells us, Mr. Macron is pro-business. That seems to be agreed upon by all. However it also tells us that he “is bent on modernizing the country’s social model.” It’s clear that Macron wants to make cuts in France’s social spending. Does that necessarily mean “modernizing.” If this distinction is difficult to follow, imagine someone who advocates cutting the military budget in the United States or to breaking up the large banks and taxing the financial sector in a way that treated it like other sectors (as advocated by the I.M.F.). Is it plausible the NYT would describe such a person as wanting to “modernize” defense or finance?
In a similar vein the piece makes pronouncements on economic policy for which it has no obvious justification. It told readers:
“But behind the scenes, he called on Mr. Macron as an informal adviser to assure the business community that he was also open to reforms that would help companies create jobs and lift France from moribund growth.
“Mr. Macron’s first move was to urge Mr. Hollande to drop a proposal to tax incomes above €1 million at 75 percent, warning it would damage France’s image and turn the country into ‘Cuba without the sun.'”
Is there any evidence stopping the 75 percent tax rate on very high income individuals would cost jobs? The NYT could make a major splash in the economics profession if it produced such evidence. (It is a disputed topic, but many of the countries’ top public finance economists, like Peter Diamond and Emmanual Saez, have supported tax rates this high.) While there is no doubt that this tax rate would hurt folks like Mr. Macron’s former colleagues at Rothschild, it’s economic impact is far from clear.
The piece also tried to cover up an incredible statement from someone in a high political position in France. It told readers:
“It did not help that Mr. Macron made a major faux pas right out of the gate, in a radio interview, referring to the plight of ‘illiterate’ workers at a factory that was closing in northern France, because they would have few other options. The remark, though perhaps well intentioned, deepened an impression that he was out of touch with the Socialist base.”
An important fact that the paper should have told readers is that these workers were almost certainly not illiterate. While they certainly did not enjoy the same elite education as Mr. Macron, France has a highly-educated workforce. While he is right that due to economic mismanagement these workers likely have few job options, it is unusual for a top political official to publicly and wrongly denigrate a significant segment within society.
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics came out with new projections of consumption driven employment. This seems to have created serious confusion at the NYT. Contrary to what the article seems to imply, this study is not making projections of macroeconomic growth. It is assuming a growth rate (2.6 percent annual average over the next decade) and then indicating how it will be divided. By contrast, the article seems to be asking whether the growth assumption is plausible.
Even for this latter purpose the article is badly off. It never once mentions the saving rate. If we want to assess the rate of consumption growth we really do need to know the saving rate. If it is very low, as was the case at the peak of the bubble, it means that it is unlikely that consumption growth will keep pace with income growth and extremely unlikely that it will exceed the rate of income growth. (Some of the discussion seems to imply that there is a question as to whether consumption will increase, as opposed to the rate of increase. There is no question on the former. It will be higher ten years from now than it is today.)
Finally, the piece never discusses the trade deficit. This must be a reflection of the ban on discussing the trade deficit in elite circles. This is unfortunate since graduates of intro econ classes everywhere know that net exports are one of the components of demand. Currently they are a large drain on demand since the country has an annual trade deficit of around $500 billion a year (@ 3 percent of GDP). This has the same impact on demand as if consumers were spending $500 billion less a year (actually more, since much of that spending would go to imports). It is incredible that a piece discussing job growth over the next decade would never mention the trade deficit.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics came out with new projections of consumption driven employment. This seems to have created serious confusion at the NYT. Contrary to what the article seems to imply, this study is not making projections of macroeconomic growth. It is assuming a growth rate (2.6 percent annual average over the next decade) and then indicating how it will be divided. By contrast, the article seems to be asking whether the growth assumption is plausible.
Even for this latter purpose the article is badly off. It never once mentions the saving rate. If we want to assess the rate of consumption growth we really do need to know the saving rate. If it is very low, as was the case at the peak of the bubble, it means that it is unlikely that consumption growth will keep pace with income growth and extremely unlikely that it will exceed the rate of income growth. (Some of the discussion seems to imply that there is a question as to whether consumption will increase, as opposed to the rate of increase. There is no question on the former. It will be higher ten years from now than it is today.)
Finally, the piece never discusses the trade deficit. This must be a reflection of the ban on discussing the trade deficit in elite circles. This is unfortunate since graduates of intro econ classes everywhere know that net exports are one of the components of demand. Currently they are a large drain on demand since the country has an annual trade deficit of around $500 billion a year (@ 3 percent of GDP). This has the same impact on demand as if consumers were spending $500 billion less a year (actually more, since much of that spending would go to imports). It is incredible that a piece discussing job growth over the next decade would never mention the trade deficit.
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Andrew Ross Sorkin tells us that the fact the AIG bailout was about helping Goldman Sachs and other big banks is not news because we knew it all along. This is one that gets the blood flowing early in the morning.
This brings to mind the old line, what’s this “we” jazz, white man? Yes, it was knowable that the AIG bailout was about saving the banks and many of us argued that at the time. But this money was not generally included on the list of handouts to Goldman Sachs and its CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who takes home $20 million a year. (That’s roughly equal to what 12,700 food stamp beneficiaries receive.) So yes, many of us did call the AIG bailout a backdoor handout to the banks, but that was not something generally conceded in policy circles.
It matters because if everyone understood that the $192 billion injected into AIG was largely about keeping big banks from failing then there might have been more political support for breaking up the big banks and in other ways restricting their conduct. Conceding this point now that the debate over financial reform is largely in the past seems more than a bit dishonest.
If I can be allowed a brief digression, back in the mid-1990s the Washington Post ran a major front page article that bemoaned the fact that U.S. soldiers who had died in the civil war in El Salvador had not received proper military honors. The problem was that the Reagan administration was trying to conceal that we had troops in combat situations, so it couldn’t acknowledge the true fate of these soldiers. Incredibly, the piece only discussed the plight of the soldiers and their families. It acted as though we all knew that the Reagan administration had lied about the involvement of U.S. troops in combat.
Of course many people did believe that the Reagan administration was lying back in the 1980s, but there had never been any major stories in the Washington Post, or any other major newspaper, that told readers that the Reagan administration was lying. In the same vein, it has not been the generally accepted backdrop in reporting that the AIG bailout was about rescuing the big banks, even though many of us did know this at the time.
Finally, Sorkin again makes the annoying assertion on the AIG bailout that, “we got our money back — with more than $22 billion in profit.”
This one deserves derision. Access to liquidity back in 2008-2009 carried an enormous premium. We gave $192 billion to AIG at a time when other companies were dying for cash. We would have made an enormous profit if we had invested government cash almost anywhere. For example, if we lent $192 billion to Dean Baker’s Excellent Hedge Fund, which used it to invest in the S&P 500 and then split the gains with the government, the country would have pocketed over $100 billion from the deal. So would Dean Baker’s Excellent Hedge Fund.
Saying that the government made a profit on the bailout deals is irrelevant in any meaningful sense. The people who make this assertion are either showing their ignorance or being dishonest.
Andrew Ross Sorkin tells us that the fact the AIG bailout was about helping Goldman Sachs and other big banks is not news because we knew it all along. This is one that gets the blood flowing early in the morning.
This brings to mind the old line, what’s this “we” jazz, white man? Yes, it was knowable that the AIG bailout was about saving the banks and many of us argued that at the time. But this money was not generally included on the list of handouts to Goldman Sachs and its CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who takes home $20 million a year. (That’s roughly equal to what 12,700 food stamp beneficiaries receive.) So yes, many of us did call the AIG bailout a backdoor handout to the banks, but that was not something generally conceded in policy circles.
It matters because if everyone understood that the $192 billion injected into AIG was largely about keeping big banks from failing then there might have been more political support for breaking up the big banks and in other ways restricting their conduct. Conceding this point now that the debate over financial reform is largely in the past seems more than a bit dishonest.
If I can be allowed a brief digression, back in the mid-1990s the Washington Post ran a major front page article that bemoaned the fact that U.S. soldiers who had died in the civil war in El Salvador had not received proper military honors. The problem was that the Reagan administration was trying to conceal that we had troops in combat situations, so it couldn’t acknowledge the true fate of these soldiers. Incredibly, the piece only discussed the plight of the soldiers and their families. It acted as though we all knew that the Reagan administration had lied about the involvement of U.S. troops in combat.
Of course many people did believe that the Reagan administration was lying back in the 1980s, but there had never been any major stories in the Washington Post, or any other major newspaper, that told readers that the Reagan administration was lying. In the same vein, it has not been the generally accepted backdrop in reporting that the AIG bailout was about rescuing the big banks, even though many of us did know this at the time.
Finally, Sorkin again makes the annoying assertion on the AIG bailout that, “we got our money back — with more than $22 billion in profit.”
This one deserves derision. Access to liquidity back in 2008-2009 carried an enormous premium. We gave $192 billion to AIG at a time when other companies were dying for cash. We would have made an enormous profit if we had invested government cash almost anywhere. For example, if we lent $192 billion to Dean Baker’s Excellent Hedge Fund, which used it to invest in the S&P 500 and then split the gains with the government, the country would have pocketed over $100 billion from the deal. So would Dean Baker’s Excellent Hedge Fund.
Saying that the government made a profit on the bailout deals is irrelevant in any meaningful sense. The people who make this assertion are either showing their ignorance or being dishonest.
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Kevin Carey had a good piece in Upshot on the college programs training people as “medical assistant.” The point of the piece is that the market for people with this training is saturated, so that most of the people coming out of these programs are not able to find full-time work. It notes that almost a third of the students who graduated the program in one school ended up defaulting on their loans.
The blame here clearly rests with schools that are deceptive about the job prospects of graduates. This is especially the case with the for-profit colleges that thrive off government loans and then leave students and taxpayers with the bill.
However the part that many may find disturbing is that the ostensible pot of gold here is the median annual wage currently earned by medical assistants is just $29,100. While Carey’s point is that most new grads can’t hope to earn anything like this sum, earning $29,100 hardly seems like hitting the jackpot. If this is based on a full-time full-year job it comes to roughly $14.50 an hour. If the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity growth over the last 45 years it would be around $17 an hour.
Carey is right that the government should crack down on colleges that rip off both students and taxpayers, but it speaks volumes about the current state of the labor market that a job paying $14.50 an hour is something that young people would aspire to get.
Kevin Carey had a good piece in Upshot on the college programs training people as “medical assistant.” The point of the piece is that the market for people with this training is saturated, so that most of the people coming out of these programs are not able to find full-time work. It notes that almost a third of the students who graduated the program in one school ended up defaulting on their loans.
The blame here clearly rests with schools that are deceptive about the job prospects of graduates. This is especially the case with the for-profit colleges that thrive off government loans and then leave students and taxpayers with the bill.
However the part that many may find disturbing is that the ostensible pot of gold here is the median annual wage currently earned by medical assistants is just $29,100. While Carey’s point is that most new grads can’t hope to earn anything like this sum, earning $29,100 hardly seems like hitting the jackpot. If this is based on a full-time full-year job it comes to roughly $14.50 an hour. If the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity growth over the last 45 years it would be around $17 an hour.
Carey is right that the government should crack down on colleges that rip off both students and taxpayers, but it speaks volumes about the current state of the labor market that a job paying $14.50 an hour is something that young people would aspire to get.
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That is perhaps an unfair headline for a comment on a generally interesting and useful piece on the sources of future job growth by Jim Tankersley, but the general pattern of reporting in the Post and elsewhere seems to demand it. Tankersley’s piece is asking what we should expect to be the drivers of job growth in the decade ahead. He notes that in the past increased consumption had been the main driver of growth. The piece argues that the consumption share of GDP is unlikely to rise further in the future (safe bet), but then says that the changing composition of consumption may be a force driving job growth. Specifically, a turn away from purchases of goods, many of which are imported, to services like education and health care may mean that more people are employed in the United States.
The essential part missing from this discussion is any mention of the trade deficit. One of the reasons that consumption grew so rapidly in the prior twenty years was that the United States had a large trade deficit. This was in turn made possible by an over-valued dollar, which was the result of explicit government policy both here (Robert Rubin touted his “high dollar” policy) and abroad (think of countries like China buying up hundreds of billions of U.S. government bonds).
For those who never had any economics or are in high level policy positions, an over-valued dollar has an enormous effect on the balance of trade. If the dollar is over-valued by 20 percent it has roughly the same impact as imposing a 20 percent tariff on all U.S. exports and providing a 20 percent subsidy on imports. There is nothing in policymakers’ bag of tricks that can come close to having the same impact on trade as a reduction in the value of the dollar. Anyone who argues otherwise (think of people pushing the TPP or TTIP) are either showing their ignorance or not telling the truth.
Furthermore, the trade deficit is the main reason the economy is below its potential and we are not at full employment. We currently have a trade deficit of more than 3 percent of GDP (@ $520 billion a year). This is money people in the United States are spending that is creating demand in other countries, not in the United States. That creates a huge gap in demand. If we count the multiplier effects, it would come to around 4.5 percent of GDP ($780 billion a year), which would translate into more than 6 million jobs. This gap can be filled with more government spending, more investment, or bubble driven housing construction, but as a practical matter it is not easy to raise these other components of demand. (The obstacle to increased government spending is political not economic.)
This is all basic national income accounting. In other words, it is definitional, it can’t be wrong. The only problem is that people don’t understand it. And it seems that many of the people who don’t understand it are in policymaking positions.
That is perhaps an unfair headline for a comment on a generally interesting and useful piece on the sources of future job growth by Jim Tankersley, but the general pattern of reporting in the Post and elsewhere seems to demand it. Tankersley’s piece is asking what we should expect to be the drivers of job growth in the decade ahead. He notes that in the past increased consumption had been the main driver of growth. The piece argues that the consumption share of GDP is unlikely to rise further in the future (safe bet), but then says that the changing composition of consumption may be a force driving job growth. Specifically, a turn away from purchases of goods, many of which are imported, to services like education and health care may mean that more people are employed in the United States.
The essential part missing from this discussion is any mention of the trade deficit. One of the reasons that consumption grew so rapidly in the prior twenty years was that the United States had a large trade deficit. This was in turn made possible by an over-valued dollar, which was the result of explicit government policy both here (Robert Rubin touted his “high dollar” policy) and abroad (think of countries like China buying up hundreds of billions of U.S. government bonds).
For those who never had any economics or are in high level policy positions, an over-valued dollar has an enormous effect on the balance of trade. If the dollar is over-valued by 20 percent it has roughly the same impact as imposing a 20 percent tariff on all U.S. exports and providing a 20 percent subsidy on imports. There is nothing in policymakers’ bag of tricks that can come close to having the same impact on trade as a reduction in the value of the dollar. Anyone who argues otherwise (think of people pushing the TPP or TTIP) are either showing their ignorance or not telling the truth.
Furthermore, the trade deficit is the main reason the economy is below its potential and we are not at full employment. We currently have a trade deficit of more than 3 percent of GDP (@ $520 billion a year). This is money people in the United States are spending that is creating demand in other countries, not in the United States. That creates a huge gap in demand. If we count the multiplier effects, it would come to around 4.5 percent of GDP ($780 billion a year), which would translate into more than 6 million jobs. This gap can be filled with more government spending, more investment, or bubble driven housing construction, but as a practical matter it is not easy to raise these other components of demand. (The obstacle to increased government spending is political not economic.)
This is all basic national income accounting. In other words, it is definitional, it can’t be wrong. The only problem is that people don’t understand it. And it seems that many of the people who don’t understand it are in policymaking positions.
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In her Washington Post column Catherine Rampell raises an obvious but generally neglected point in discussions of Uber and Lyft. Many cities strictly regulate the number of taxis on the road with a medallion system. The cost of these medallions, which license someone to operate a taxi, typically run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Economists are prone to see this system as a form of protectionism, which is designed to increase the profits of the cab companies and perhaps to raise the wages of drivers.
This view is correct, however it doesn’t follow that we should necessarily want as many cabs on the road as possible. As I noted earlier this week, we may want to ensure that drivers can at least earn the minimum wage, which likely would involve some restriction on supply.
However there also is a very important environmental issue. The more cabs we have sitting around waiting for passengers, or worse driving through the streets, the more will be the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). The effect will amplified by the fact that cabs will add to congestion, slowing down traffic and causing other cars to emit more GHG. Also, as Rampell notes, lower cost and more readily available cabs will encourage people to use taxis instead of taking public transit, walking, or riding a bike.
These externalities can be addressed with appropriate carbon taxes and subsidies for public transportation, but we don’t have appropriate carbon taxes and subsidies for public transportation, nor are we likely to have them for the foreseeable future. Therefore, regulation of taxi services like Uber needs to take these externalities into account.
Failing to take these externalities into account is just bad economics, no matter how many prominent economists say otherwise.
In her Washington Post column Catherine Rampell raises an obvious but generally neglected point in discussions of Uber and Lyft. Many cities strictly regulate the number of taxis on the road with a medallion system. The cost of these medallions, which license someone to operate a taxi, typically run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Economists are prone to see this system as a form of protectionism, which is designed to increase the profits of the cab companies and perhaps to raise the wages of drivers.
This view is correct, however it doesn’t follow that we should necessarily want as many cabs on the road as possible. As I noted earlier this week, we may want to ensure that drivers can at least earn the minimum wage, which likely would involve some restriction on supply.
However there also is a very important environmental issue. The more cabs we have sitting around waiting for passengers, or worse driving through the streets, the more will be the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). The effect will amplified by the fact that cabs will add to congestion, slowing down traffic and causing other cars to emit more GHG. Also, as Rampell notes, lower cost and more readily available cabs will encourage people to use taxis instead of taking public transit, walking, or riding a bike.
These externalities can be addressed with appropriate carbon taxes and subsidies for public transportation, but we don’t have appropriate carbon taxes and subsidies for public transportation, nor are we likely to have them for the foreseeable future. Therefore, regulation of taxi services like Uber needs to take these externalities into account.
Failing to take these externalities into account is just bad economics, no matter how many prominent economists say otherwise.
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Bloomberg News did a thing of simple and rare beauty. It went to the 23 economists who signed a letter to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke in November of 2010 warning of inflation and other dire consequences from its policy of quantitative easing. It urged him to reverse course.
In fact, not only did Bernanke not reverse course, he doubled down with two subsequent rounds of quantitative easing. And four years later the inflation rate is still below the Fed’s 2.0 percent target. So Bloomberg decided to ask the 23 signers whether they had been mistaken. While most of the signers declined to comment, the ten who did all insisted that they had been right. Obviously these folks have no intention of letting reality influence their views about the world.
I was reminded of this issue when I read Michael Gerson’s column on the need of low-income children for attention from adults who care. Gerson notes that most low-income parents are overwhelmed with the struggles of making ends meet and it’s not reasonable to expect more from them.
While Gerson’s realism on this point should be appreciated, there has been an important change in this area that deserves attention. There has been a sharp increase in the percentage of young parents who voluntarily work part-time. The obvious explanation is the availability of insurance through Obamacare. These parents can now either get insurance through the exchanges or the expansion of Medicaid.
Now that parents don’t need to work full-time to get insurance many appear to be choosing to work part-time so they can spend more time with their kids. That would seem to be good news from almost anyone’s perspective. After all, as Gerson reminds us, it isn’t just liberals who think that it’s a good thing that parents have the time to look after their kids.
So now that we are getting evidence that Obamacare is not just extending insurance coverage and helping to contain health care costs, but also making it easier for parents to balance the demands of work and family, will we see the opponents changing their minds?
Note: Typo in headline corrected, thanks L.ol.
Bloomberg News did a thing of simple and rare beauty. It went to the 23 economists who signed a letter to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke in November of 2010 warning of inflation and other dire consequences from its policy of quantitative easing. It urged him to reverse course.
In fact, not only did Bernanke not reverse course, he doubled down with two subsequent rounds of quantitative easing. And four years later the inflation rate is still below the Fed’s 2.0 percent target. So Bloomberg decided to ask the 23 signers whether they had been mistaken. While most of the signers declined to comment, the ten who did all insisted that they had been right. Obviously these folks have no intention of letting reality influence their views about the world.
I was reminded of this issue when I read Michael Gerson’s column on the need of low-income children for attention from adults who care. Gerson notes that most low-income parents are overwhelmed with the struggles of making ends meet and it’s not reasonable to expect more from them.
While Gerson’s realism on this point should be appreciated, there has been an important change in this area that deserves attention. There has been a sharp increase in the percentage of young parents who voluntarily work part-time. The obvious explanation is the availability of insurance through Obamacare. These parents can now either get insurance through the exchanges or the expansion of Medicaid.
Now that parents don’t need to work full-time to get insurance many appear to be choosing to work part-time so they can spend more time with their kids. That would seem to be good news from almost anyone’s perspective. After all, as Gerson reminds us, it isn’t just liberals who think that it’s a good thing that parents have the time to look after their kids.
So now that we are getting evidence that Obamacare is not just extending insurance coverage and helping to contain health care costs, but also making it easier for parents to balance the demands of work and family, will we see the opponents changing their minds?
Note: Typo in headline corrected, thanks L.ol.
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Christopher Ingraham had a piece in the Post’s Wonkblog in which he reports on a Pew poll showing the public has no idea where their tax dollars are going. The poll found that one third of respondents thought foreign aid was the biggest item in the budget. In fact, it accounts for less than one percent of spending.
While we can decry the ignorance of the American people, the media deserves much of the blame in the same way that teachers are held responsible for the poor performance of their students. (Actually, there is a far better case against the media.) News outlets like the Post routinely report on budget items in millions and billions of dollars. Often the sums refer to multi-year expenditures, sometimes not even making the time period covered clear to readers.
For the vast majority of readers these numbers are completely meaningless. Even well-educated people have no idea what it means when they see that we are going to spend $190 billion on transportation over the next six years.
The media could be far more informative in their reporting if they made a point of putting these numbers in some context, most obviously expressing them as a share of the total budget. Most people would understand what it meant if an article said that we were spending 1.0 percent of the budget on transportation over the next six years.
In effect, the Post is the bad teacher making fun of their student for not knowing anything. It ain’t pretty.
Christopher Ingraham had a piece in the Post’s Wonkblog in which he reports on a Pew poll showing the public has no idea where their tax dollars are going. The poll found that one third of respondents thought foreign aid was the biggest item in the budget. In fact, it accounts for less than one percent of spending.
While we can decry the ignorance of the American people, the media deserves much of the blame in the same way that teachers are held responsible for the poor performance of their students. (Actually, there is a far better case against the media.) News outlets like the Post routinely report on budget items in millions and billions of dollars. Often the sums refer to multi-year expenditures, sometimes not even making the time period covered clear to readers.
For the vast majority of readers these numbers are completely meaningless. Even well-educated people have no idea what it means when they see that we are going to spend $190 billion on transportation over the next six years.
The media could be far more informative in their reporting if they made a point of putting these numbers in some context, most obviously expressing them as a share of the total budget. Most people would understand what it meant if an article said that we were spending 1.0 percent of the budget on transportation over the next six years.
In effect, the Post is the bad teacher making fun of their student for not knowing anything. It ain’t pretty.
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