Comments for Robert Reich is Correct, the NYT's Incompetent Book Reviewer Is Wrong at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 11 out of 11 comments http://www.cepr.net Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:33:24 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-reich-is-correct-the-nyts-incompetent-book-reviewer-is-wrong#comment-3306 If the Reminbi rises in value, and the dollar falls, then Chinese workers relative wages also rise since they are paid in Reminbi, and U.S. workers relative wages fall since they are paid in dollars. U.S. wages are falling relative to the rest of the world, one way or the other. If the dollar continues as the over valued reserve currency, then wage deflation and unemployment will lower the wages, but unfortunately not their debts which still have to be paid at the full, undepreciated value. - sherparick Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:33:13 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-reich-is-correct-the-nyts-incompetent-book-reviewer-is-wrong#comment-3244 I adore Robert Reich, and I really hope that Mallaby is also wrong in his characterization of Reich's comments about women's careers, as he is about so much else. My career is a source of intellectual fulfillment, not a "coping mechanism." The fact that some employers have begun to demand unreasonable hours is not the fault of women who entered professions from which they had previously been excluded. - ralston mctodd Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:22:30 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-reich-is-correct-the-nyts-incompetent-book-reviewer-is-wrong#comment-3243 [quote]Hasn't the proportion of consumption in our GDP reached unsustainable levels over the years. [/quote] Consumption has become an increasingly larger percentage of GDP because of health care costs. If you factor out health care, consumption is a smaller percentage of GDP than it was in 1960. - Joe Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:45:49 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-reich-is-correct-the-nyts-incompetent-book-reviewer-is-wrong#comment-3241 Are you saying we can write off our entire trade deficit to anomalies in currency valuations? Haven't we been on a credit binge for now three decades the likes of which has never been seen, with serial bubbles? Hasn't the proportion of consumption in our GDP reached unsustainable levels over the years. You don't have to be an economist, if you are over 40 just compare how thing were when our parents were our age to now. Mallaby makes an entirely reasonable point. I tire of the snarky, holier-than-thou, black and white commentary -- it makes for a provocative blog I guess, but doesn't suggest much thoughtfulness or intelligence. - tfg Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:08:02 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-reich-is-correct-the-nyts-incompetent-book-reviewer-is-wrong#comment-3234 "Imagine that virtually no goods or services were offered by US sources" - myxzptlk Mon, 27 Sep 2010 06:25:42 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-reich-is-correct-the-nyts-incompetent-book-reviewer-is-wrong#comment-3228 I'm no economist, but even I can imagine a simple thought experiment that would expose Mallaby's brainwashed state. Imagine that virtually no goods or services were offered in the US any longer, and that most consumption (consumer and business) involved international trade. Even if demand fell to historically low levels, we would still be running a trade deficit. Yes, dollar valuation is a major factor in our current trade deficit, but so is the shipping of US jobs out of the country. - myxzptlk Mon, 27 Sep 2010 04:10:53 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-reich-is-correct-the-nyts-incompetent-book-reviewer-is-wrong#comment-3225 The NYT has a bizarrely headlined op-ed today by Anatole Kaletsky, "Blaming China Won't Help the Economy". The piece itself seems to be saying the contrary, that international "free markets" do not exist, which implies that the US should do something to control trade with China. - skeptonomist Mon, 27 Sep 2010 03:05:11 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-reich-is-correct-the-nyts-incompetent-book-reviewer-is-wrong#comment-3224 Mr. Baker, you state: "The value of the dollar determines the relative price of foreign and domestic goods." Doesn't the relative value of wages in the two countries have a pretty huge impact on this? If China revalued its currency, wouldn't Chinese goods still be cheaper because the wages there are lower? - RBaillie Mon, 27 Sep 2010 02:16:55 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-reich-is-correct-the-nyts-incompetent-book-reviewer-is-wrong#comment-3222 "Caught between rising aspirations and stagnant wages, Reich says, middle-class Americans have gone through a series of coping mechanisms. First, women joined the workforce, giving families a second income. Then husbands and wives put in longer shifts, creating a species of family called DINS — “double income, no sex.” Finally, families went into debt. In this sense, inequality helped to stoke the credit bubble." Maybe he doesn't view "stagnant wages", families struggling to achieve a second income or wives putting in longer shifts as indicative of lack of demand. And then "Finally, families went into debt", you know, just sort of happened out of the blue so to speak, so you see, it was "inequality" (i.e. wages inadequate to support a middle class lifestyle aka lack of demand), "that helped stoke the credit bubble", because these people were, like, just basically trying to live beyond their means because they hadn't learned to sacrifice like the previous, Greatest and all, being self-indulgent moral-relativistic, me-first types who, you know, can't rise to the whole put-a-man-on-the-Moon-challenge-of-a-generation type thing because they're so self absorbed, driving their kids to soccer practice and all that, and then the Baby Einstein thing too. So they kinda deserve what they're getting, laid off of the two jobs, husband and wife both. For, like, expecting too much. No one's gonna bring those jobs back to you, so you just kinda gotta entrepreneur your own pair of bootstraps and get pullin. That's what makes this country so great. Each person is free to pull on their own bootstraps. - diesel Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:53:28 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-reich-is-correct-the-nyts-incompetent-book-reviewer-is-wrong#comment-3217 Mallaby was crap when he was at the WashPost ... Unfortunately America seems to be a dumping ground for failed Brits ... Must be their penchant for Empire worship. - mmckinl Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:07:10 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/robert-reich-is-correct-the-nyts-incompetent-book-reviewer-is-wrong#comment-3216 The disconnect between aggregate supply and demand, between aggregate production and consumption, between aggregate employment and spending that repeatedly appears in these errors reveals a blind ideology at work. They're so hell bent on washing out the public's mouth with a bar of Austerity Soap for the sins of exceeding its demand side privileges at the expense of the supply side, these austerity fetish clowns may as well don the garb of a sadistic high priest or nun complete with whips, electric prods and hot irons, line up the unemployed one at a time and have a go at some raptuous Christine O'Donnell sins until they go blind with ecstasy. It doesn't have a goddamn thing to do with economics. - izzatzo Sun, 26 Sep 2010 16:35:17 +0100