report informe
Latin America and the Caribbean
Jamaica: Macroeconomic Policy, Debt and the IMFJake Johnston and / May 04, 2011
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Steven Pearlstein Claims to Speak for Americans on the Budget: Not!Today in the Washington Post, Steven Pearlstein rather authoritatively sets out his preferred plan for a budget agreement, claiming:
If you locked 100 Americans in a room with a team of technical budget experts and told them they couldn’t leave until 60 of them could agree on a budget plan, this is what would emerge.
Hmm... that rings a bell. Has anyone brought a cross-section of Americans to meet with experts and wrangled a plan out of them?
Why yes! AmericaSpeaks brought together 3,500 Americans at sites around the country to discuss the nation’s budget last June. Participants heard from sitting members of Congress and experts via webcast "to create a true National Town Meeting." They looked at spending and tax options to reduce the deficit and worked in small facilitated groups "to learn about the issues, weigh trade offs, and express their preferences."
Despite plenty of misgivings from CEPR and others about these meetings being funded by the infamous deficit hawk Pete Peterson -- and therefore these budget exercises being played with a stacked deck -- the AmericaSpeaks participants chose items that come pretty close to what opinion polls have shown are popular with the public.
And their preferred options mostly differ from those highlighted in the Pearlstein plan. Here are some comparisons:
Pearlstein:
Social Security will be returned to long-term actuarial balance through a combination of progressive reductions to the cost-of-living formula, increases in the cap on income subject to the payroll tax and very gradual increases in the retirement age.
AmericaSpeaks participants:
No option to reduce Social Security benefits received support from a majority of participants. Raising the full retirement age received support from 39%, and lowering the cost-of-living formula (a.k.a. the measurement of inflation) was supported by only 24%.
CEPR and / May 04, 2011
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La economía China soprepasará la Estadounidense: ¿debería preocupar?Mark Weisbrot / May 04, 2011
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Sacrificing Food Sovereignty for Food AidCEPR / May 04, 2011
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Tell the Washington Post that All Non-Flat Earthers Believe that Oil Prices Are Determined in a Global MarketDean Baker / May 04, 2011
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China's Purchase of U.S. Treasury Bonds Keeps the Dollar Over-ValuedDean Baker / May 04, 2011
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Ryan Plan Raises Medicare Costs So Much that Reporters Cannot Even Understand It (Never Mind: See Note)Dean Baker / May 03, 2011
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Bin Laden provocó una “guerra en contra del terror” de Estados Unidos que fortaleció a su movimientoMark Weisbrot / May 03, 2011
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Bin Laden Provoked a U.S. "War on Terror" That Strengthened His MovementMark Weisbrot / May 03, 2011
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The U.S. Treasury Bonds Held by China are Not "Risky," They Are a Guaranteed Loss for ChinaDean Baker / May 03, 2011
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Copyright Harassment: Where are the Economists or Proponents of Small Government?Dean Baker / May 03, 2011
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Job Creation the Old Economic Textbook Way: Reducing the Value of the DollarDean Baker
TPMCafé, May 2, 2011
Dean Baker / May 02, 2011
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Why Does Senator McCaskill Want to Bankrupt Our Children?Dean Baker
Truthout, May 2, 2011
Dean Baker / May 02, 2011
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Paid Sick Days: Doomsday Predictions Are WrongEileen Appelbaum and / May 02, 2011
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If the U.S. Economy Went Off a Cliff Would Anyone Notice?Dean Baker
The Guardian Unlimited, May 2, 2011
Dean Baker / May 02, 2011