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U.S. Health Care Costs: Billions, Trillions, Who Can be Bothered?Dean Baker / July 29, 2013
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AP's Economist Sources Are Wrong: Business Investment Will Contribute to Growth in the Second QuarterDean Baker / July 27, 2013
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It Is Not Good News That Obamacare Will Create Lots of Jobs to Steer People Through the SystemDean Baker / July 27, 2013
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George Osborne's Description of the Economy is Near-OrwellianHa-Joon Chang
The Guardian Unlimited, July 26, 2013
CEPR and / July 26, 2013
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UN’s Own Independent Experts Now Say MINUSTAH Troops “Most Likely” Caused Cholera EpidemicCEPR / July 26, 2013
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Post Chart on Corporate Taxes as a Share of GDP is DeceptiveDean Baker / July 26, 2013
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Tracking Middle Class Family Income: Wonkblog versus the PresidentDean Baker / July 25, 2013
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Latin America and the Caribbean
Friends for the Week: Members of Congress Critique the OASThe Hill is reporting that “A House panel unanimously voted Wednesday to limit the U.S. share of the Organization of American States [OAS] regular budget to 50 percent or less.” Does this mean that members of Congress have come to realize the OAS’s role in arbitrarily changing the result of Haiti’s 2010/2011 elections? Do they want to limit the U.S.’s enormous influence over parts of the OAS?
Nope. Members of Congress have introduced this and other bills to limit U.S. support for the OAS precisely for the opposite reason: they believe that the OAS is no longer an effective tool for “defending U.S. interests abroad,” and this is only the latest attempt to punish deviation from Washington’s objectives. Here is an excerpt from research prepared for Congress that shows the limits of “bipartisan” debate on this topic:
U.S. policymakers have responded to the United States’ declining ability to advance its policy preferences within the OAS in a number of ways. Some Members of Congress allege that the OAS has allied itself with anti-U.S. regimes, and is weakening democracy in Latin America. Accordingly, they maintain that support for the OAS runs counter to U.S. objectives in the hemisphere, and that the United States should withhold funding from the organization. Others disagree, arguing that OAS actions continue to closely align with U.S. priorities in many cases, and that defunding the OAS would amount to the United States turning its back on the Western Hemisphere. They maintain that weakening the one multilateral forum that includes every democratic nation of the hemisphere would strengthen the hands of hostile governments while further weakening U.S. influence in the region.
In other words, the debate seems to be whether the goal of defeating our government’s official enemies would best be served by maintaining funding or reducing funding to the OAS. Few in Congress question why we are making enemies with democratic countries in Latin America, or countries that pose no threat to the U.S., such as Cuba.
CEPR / July 25, 2013
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CEPR's New Budget Calculator Takes a Quick Trip Over to the Chronicle of PhilanthropyDean Baker / July 25, 2013
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Why Do We Think That If There Is Sharp Upward Pressure on Wages, Workers Will Not be Able To Support Retirees?Dean Baker / July 25, 2013
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Is the Affordable Care Act a Hidden Jobs Killer?Opponents of the ACA have labeled the health care bill a “jobs killer.” It is unlikely, however, that the bill could have much impact on employment except among the relatively small number of firms that are near the 50-worker cutoff. In a post for the Roosevelt Institute's Econobytes, economists Helene Jorgensen and Dean Baker respond to the claim that firms will reduce the number of hours per week that employees work to below thirty so that they fall under the cutoff, thereby incurring a penalty under the ACA:
An analysis of data from the Current Population Survey shows that only a small number (0.6 percent of the workforce) of workers report working just below the 30 hour cutoff in the range of 26-29 hours per week. Furthermore, the number of workers who fall in this category was actually lower in 2013 than in 2012, the year before the sanctions would have applied. This suggests that employers do not appear to be changing hours in large numbers in response to the sanctions in the ACA.
There have been numerous accounts of employers claiming to reduce employment or adjust hours in order to avoid the obligations of the ACA.
Dean Baker and / July 24, 2013
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Buy American: A Counter to Anti-Deficit BiasDean Baker
Al Jazeera English, July 24, 2013
Dean Baker / July 24, 2013
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No Matter How You Look At It, the Minimum Wage is Much Too LowCEPR and / July 24, 2013