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George Will (photo: Keith Allison/flickr)
Okay, I know that picking on George Will might seem like cheap fun, but as an oped columnist for the Washington Post we are supposed to take him seriously. Today Will is beating up on states that don’t follow his pro-rich prescriptions focusing on California and my home state of Illinois.
Let me start with my favorite Will line:
“From September through December 2008, the premium that investors demanded before they would buy California debt rather than U.S. Treasurys jumped from 24 to 271 basis points (100 points equals 1 percent). The bond market, the only remaining reality check for state politicians, must be allowed to work.”
Okay, boys and girls, can anyone think of anything that might have affected spreads in the bond market in the fall of 2008? (Hint: Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson were running around screaming that the world was about to end.)
That’s right, we had the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a financial freeze-up. The yield on anything that wasn’t U.S. Treasury bonds soared in this period. In other words, Will’s statement here means absolutely nothing — but it is good enough for the Washington Post editorial page.
As far as the Illinois bashing, Will tells us that:
“The Illinois Policy Institute, a limited-government think tank, in a report cheekily titled “Another $54 Billion!?” argues that in addition to the $83 billion in pension underfunding the state acknowledges, there is $54 billion in unfunded retiree health liabilities over the next 30 years.”
Hmmm, $83 billion in unfunded liabilities? That sounds scaaaary. If the oped page imposed any standards on its writers it might have asked Will to express this number as a share of state income over this period, since no one (I mean no one) has any clue how large an expenditure $83 billion is for Illinois over the next 30 years. The answer is that it would be equal to around 0.7 percent of the state’s projected income over this period. That is not trivial, but not exactly the sort of expenditure that implies the immiseration of the population.
Projections of health care costs are highly uncertain. The one thing that we can say is that if protectionists like Will didn’t have such control over policy, we could save an incredible amount of money by purchasing more of our health care from the more efficient systems in other countries. The private health care system is a cesspool of waste and corruption. This raises costs for everyone, including public sector employers.
Will also tells us that it is unrealistic for Illinois to expect any segment of its pension fund investments to produce 8.5 percent yields. Obviously arithmetic was never Will’s strong suit.
Finally Will tells us:
“Illinois’ unemployment rate increased faster than any other state’s in 2011.”
That’s interesting. Let’s compare employment growth in Illinois in 2011 to employment growth in neighboring Wisconsin, which is run by a right-wing favorite: public sector union busting Scott Walker. Since January of 2011 Illinois has created 47,400 jobs, an increase in employment of a bit more than 0.8 percent. That’s not great, but not awful either.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
By contrast, Wisconsin lost 14,200 jobs over this period, or neary 0.5 percent of total employment.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
If the unemployment rate rose more in this period in Illinois than in Wisconsin than presumably it is because people in Illinois were out looking for work because the state was creating new jobs. By contrast, in Wisconsin workers probably gave up looking, knowing that there were no jobs available.
But the really fun part of the story is that Will had to be careful to specify that he was only talking about the unemployment rate in 2011. The reason is that Illinois’ unemployment rate has fallen by 0.9 percentage points since December of 2011 and is now 0.6 percentage points below its January 2011 level. Including this fact would be the honest thing to do, but hey, this is George Will and the Washington Post oped page.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
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Economist Dean Baker is co-founder of Center for Economic Policy and Research and writes regularly on CEPR’s Beat the Press blog, where this post first appeared.
24 Comments
What’s with the blocked image/videos?
better?
George Will has been a toady. George Will is a toady. George Will will be a toady. ‘Nuff said.
And said so much better than I had been thinking….I just kept pondering whoever is interested in anything G. Will has to say? Not wishing to be unkind….just not interested….Sort like D. Cheney.
George Will the patrician has a role to play. He wants to destroy the unions as much as Scott Walker. Over the last 50 years the unions have been reduced to nothing more that a shadow of what they once were. Their leadership made the mistake of purging the communists and socialists in their ranks, the best organizers and the ones that had an honest class consciousness, all for the promise that they too would share in the “pie.” They were suckers and George Will is merely doing what his “class” demands of him.
You are still, as you so charming put it, an asswipe, in the opinion of the 99.999% of the troops that are “Bad”. I still would really, really like to meet you.
George Will is also a horribly overrated baseball writer. Roger Angell on his worst day is better than Will on his best.
George Will is overrated in every breath he takes! As we say, bless his heart.
George is swill.
See ex-wife.
Is it true that George Will personally stole Jimmy Carter’s notes for Team Ronald Raygun?
Has George Will been caught blowing goats, yet?
Spot on. As one of the few conservative writers with the stature to have thrown the brakes on the madness that is today’s Republican Party, Will is doubly guilty.
And that interest difference is just ONE of the reasons CA is exploring having a State bank ala N.Dakota.
Will really ought to stick to baseball; he’s at least somewhat competent there.
i think one of the last times i watched ABC sunday morning talk show with Georgie the Idiot, was the episode in which Georgie talked authoritatively about the social security withholding tax, which he had completely backwards. I’m a non-accountant and it’s easy for me to grasp the numbers. None of the other idiots on the show called him out on his complete error filled diatribe, and I thought to myself “gee, everyone on this show is an idiot, maybe Georgie is the smartest one at the table.”
On Sunday mornings now at our house, we listen to an awesome Irish music show from a North Carolina public radio station. Let me know when the idiots have left television and we’ll dust it off and see if it still turns on.
But Dean, cheap fun is the best kind.
Anyway George (s)Will is what happens to a preppy who majors in totally useless subjects and now thinks people should give a wet slap what he has to say.
“. . . but as an oped columnist for the Washington Post we are supposed to take him seriously.”
One of the funniest things in US politics is that the ideas of Will are and should be taken seriously.
I’m not a native Southerner, but, “bless his heart” is reserved for those for which you have at least a LITTLE affection, regardless of their mental incapacities. As I would say, FUCK George Will and the media that allows such mediocrities to spout the same horsehit every Sunday.
He’s caught blowing goats every time he writes an op ed. Baker here is merely calling attention to his latest efforts. The funny thing is that not only is no one in a position to bring the hammer down on his goat blowing, but also that is precisely what he is paid to do (see Bluetoe2′s comment @5). :)
For a second I thought this diary was titled “George Will Makes It Go Up After Public Service Workers.” Now that would be news…
Your data from CEPR on expected returns to pension investments were given in nominal $$, not inflation-adjusted ones. Could make a difference.
Hey, Dean, thanks. Anyone who busts George Will’s pseudo intellectual bull shit is a friend of mine.
But, I have to ask a question. This one-sentence paragraph was hung out there with no preceding or following support:
So, to me, an 8.5% yield sounds very large in today’s economy and any that is likely in the next few years. So, why does that number imply that Will is aritmetically challenged?
George Will? The talentless hack famous for writing in Newsweek that the movie The China Syndrome was too far-fetched and could never happen in the same issue that the melt down at Three Mile Island was on the cover? That George Will?
Thanks, George. I have always loathed Will’s smugness, but I never knew about that incident. Thanks, again.
Before George Will, George Sokolsky inhabited the pages of right-wing mid-western newspapers. Per the Wikipedia:
Once Sokolsky stopped publishing, my hometown took up George Will.
For what it’s worth,the National Association of Manufacturers was the Heritage Foundation of its day, yet another right-wing propaganda and lobbying mill.
Thanks for your usual insightful and useful post, Mr. Baker. I always learn a lot from you.
One thing I learned today is where one of our resident rightwing trolls got his/her info: from George the (S)Will. lol… what a (dis)reputable source to use to fling your monkey poo at the Pups. Figures.