Dean Baker
Dean Baker
Dean Bakeris an American macroeconomist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, with Mark Weisbrot. He has been a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an assistant professor of economics at Bucknell University. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan...
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People are willing to pay them because there is an expectation that prices will continue to rise. Once people don't have that expectation, things will change.
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People are really stretched. They are banking on everything turning out right for them. That they won't lose their jobs, that they won't run into unexpected expenses. They're betting that the housing market will continue to appreciate.
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They can't continue to spend beyond their income indefinitely. If people are building up large amounts of debt, you reach a point where they can't continue.
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The trustees' projections continue to show that the major threat to the economic well-being of future generations is rising health-care costs.
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I think Alan and really played a unique role here. He certainly expanded the power of the Fed, in the sense that he came to be the all purpose authority on economic matters -- he was commenting on trade policy, tax policy.
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Home prices are going through the roof, forcing people to turn to exotic loans and unorthodox financing. These people have no room for error.
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Clearly, housing is going to be a drag on the economy; the question is how much does housing slow and how quickly.
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He was the one who had the courage to let the unemployment rate fall. Very few people thought the unemployment rate could fall that low.
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If Medicare could negotiate directly with drug companies it could save the federal and state governments hundred of billions of dollars and cut insurance premiums.
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Things do seem like they're out of line, but of course I've been seeing warning bells for several years.
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On this policy, the district is already in compliance with the requirements and has been for a couple of years, ... This policy just formalizes it.
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The idea that we have to make cuts imminently because of the Baby Boomer generation is simply not true. We knew about Boomers and adjusted the program accordingly. Greenspan is really off the mark.
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I wouldn't necessarily predict this would be a trigger, but I wouldn't rule it out either. It wouldn't surprise me if you see money leaving the secondary mortgage market, leading housing prices to fall.
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is kind of (the oil companies') good luck. They didn't do anything to earn it. And we're sitting here with a $150 billion bill from Katrina.