Today, they [Washington Post] tell readers that: "those calling for an additional stimulus package must explain why this is not enough."Okay, okay, I realize that the Washington Post really didn't want to know the answer. Their's was a rhetorical question. And Dean Baker knows it isn't a problem with them not being able to locate his phone number or know how to operate a phone. The media isn't really in the business of truth-telling or education. They are political broadsheets. Their business is to mold opinion the way the elites want. So they are busy telling everybody that the first stimulus failed so no other stimulus should be tried.
Wow, haven't they heard? I guess it's hard to get news in the middle of Washington.
Anyhow, it works like this. (Warning, this part uses arithmetic.) The collapse of the housing bubble led to a reduction in annual rates of construction of about $450 billion. The bubble in the non-residential sector is also in the process of collapsing, cutting annual demand by approximately $200 billion. The loss of $8 trillion in housing bubble wealth, coupled with a loss of roughly the same amount of stock wealth, is leading to a reduction in annual consumption of approximately $700 billion.
The total loss in demand is around $1,350 billion. The annual stimulus in the bill approved in February was around $300 billion. $300 billion in stimulus is not nearly enough to fill a $1,350 billion shortfall in demand.
We'll see if the Post editorial writers can follow that one.
Nobody wants to do an investigation. Nobody bothers to notice that the first stimulus was too small because Obama was hemmed in by political opposition and felt if he went small and made most of it tax cuts rather than infrastructure spending he could bring Republicans on board. Nobody in the media wants to actually do analysis or even report "the news". They are happy enough to collect paycheques keeping their masters happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment