Why economist Dean Baker is good reading

Dean Baker has been cranking out the posts at his Beat the Press blog the last few days on the economy and the debt ceiling fiasco. Here are my summaries of several of his recent posts, the first from Data Bytes rather than Beat the Press:

Weak Consumption and Shrinking Government Slow GDP in Second Quarter 07/29/2011

While the Country Slept: Financial Industry Profits Go Through the Roof 07/30/2011: discusses the financial sector profits

The NYT Wants the U.S. to Have Slower Growth 07/31/2011: the projected future federal surpluses circa 2000 were based on an untenable assumption about private spending.

People Don't Move for Jobs When There Are No Jobs 07/31/2011: Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal makes a sloppy and unsubstanitated claim about housing values and the willingness of people to relocate for work

Conservative Tea Partiers Oppose Cuts to Social Security and Medicare, not Just Liberal Democrats 07/31/2011: the national media is willfully clueless about the popularity of Social Security and Medicare.

The NYT Wrongly Asserts That Economists Want to Cut Social Security 07/31/2011: The New York Times pulls claim about economists wanting Social Security cuts out of the air

With All the Excitement Around the Pending Debt Ceiling Deal Fox on 15th (a.k.a. the Washington Post) Gives Up All Pretext of Objectivity 07/31/2011: The Washington Post's quality of reporting is ddescending to the FOX News level.

Gretchen Morgenson Is Right: Bankers Have No Shame 07/31/2011: major banksters are still reckless about mortgage securitization; they can also be real whiners.

Another Front Page Editorial at the Washington Post 08/01/2011: calls Washington Post "Fox on 15th"; WaPo talking smack about national debt.

The Impact of the Budget Deal for Those Who Don't Carry Around the Budget in Their Pocket 08/01/2011: Obama's Big Bad Deal with the Republican leadership would hammer discretionary spending and therefore be a real kick in the stomach to faltering economic growth

Does the President's National Economic Adviser Not Know That Democrats Controlled Congress Last December? 08/01/2011: Gene Sperling justifies Obama's agreement on extending the Bush tax cuts by whining about the Republicans.

Tags: dean baker, medicare, social security, us economy