Dean Baker

Jan 10, 2025 | counterpunch.org | Dean Baker

Catherine Rampell gave a rather gloomy assessment of Biden’s economic legacy in a Washington Post column this week. Unfortunately, I am inclined to agree with much of it, but I think she missed the biggest story: the commitment to full employment. Let’s start with the topics where she is largely right. First, Biden was able to accomplish little in terms of expanding the social welfare state. He did have the expanded child tax credit, which cut child poverty in half, but ended after 2021.

Jan 8, 2025 | counterpunch.org | Dean Baker

The New York Times had a lengthy piece giving a story on how the Democrats lost the support of working-class voters over the last three decades. The essence of the argument is that working-class voters were angered by Democrats’ support of “free trade” and the bailouts of the financial industry in the financial crisis. While this story is largely true it seriously understates the working-class cause for complaint. First and foremost, our trade deals were not about free trade.

Jan 6, 2025 | cepr.net | Data Bytes |Dean Baker |Mark Weisbrot

The New York Times had a lengthy piece giving a story on how the Democrats lost the support of working-class voters over the last three decades. The essence of the argument is that working-class voters were angered by Democrats’ support of “free trade” and the bailouts of the financial industry in the financial crisis. While this story is largely true, it seriously understates the working-class cause for complaint. First and foremost, our trade deals were not about free trade.

Jan 6, 2025 | counterpunch.org | Dean Baker

It’s been a while since we’ve had Mr. Arithmetic here, but with Donald Trump coming back to the White House, we may need him around. The immediate reason for consulting his expertise is the projections for big stock market gains in 2025. It seems the median forecast is for the S&P 500 to rise by roughly 10 percent over the course of 2025 from its year-end 2024 level. Many are forecasting considerably larger gains.

Jan 5, 2025 | smirkingchimp.com | Dean Baker

— from Beat the Press One development for 2025 that can be seen clearly in the crystal ball is improving trade ties between China and Europe. The reason this is a virtual certainty is Donald Trump is doing everything he can to convince the world that, under his leadership, the United States is an unreliable trading partner. He already worked hard to establish this point in his first term when he arbitrarily slapped tariffs on various imports from Canada and the European Union.