Dean Baker Quotations

Until the psychology starts to shift or interest rates jump up, the market will probably stay strong, ... So far we haven't seen that. We've had a lot of stories on housing bubbles lately. Maybe that will affect the psychology.

We've backed ourselves into a very dangerous situation. The economy is dependent on everyone consuming like crazy. If everyone heard my diatribe and said, 'Yeah, we better start saving,' the economy would go into a recession.

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With the housing bubble now having generated comparable levels of unsustainable wealth, the economy faces even greater dangers today than it did when the stock market crashed.

Let's imagine rates go to 7 percent, I think that would take the air out of the bubble pretty quickly,

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.

Builders will keep building as long as they can keep getting these prices. But I think there's a glut developing clearly in some markets and that clearly will put downward pressure on prices.

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.

There is a large psychological element behind current housing prices,

Hawaii's home prices suffered in the 1990s because of economic trouble in Japan, ... If home prices in California reverse, it will have ripple effects.

Historically, rent prices and sale prices have moved together.

He consciously promoted the housing bubble as a way of boosting the economy.

It could be a very big hit. I'd say there's a 10 to 15 percent chance of negative growth if we see a spike in interest rates, or a really big jump in energy prices.

I think their intention is to get people who are loyal and that does raise problems. It's clear that they're looking at this as a sales position.

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.

People are always trying to explain the lack of questions as saying there's a consensus around monetary policy, but there's anything but a consensus on monetary policy. What upsets me more than anything is no one is asking serious questions.

It does pull a lot of money out of people's pockets. Even if it doesn't go back up much, it translates to a 50-to-60-cents-a-gallon gas tax. But for the borrowing that people were willing to do, it probably would have led to recession.

We're building at a 2 million-a-year pace, which is more than demand, and we're going to keep building at that pace until home prices correct, ... It's already showing up in the rental market, oversupply is pushing down rental prices.

WE WERE shocking today and were given a lesson in finishing as they had nine chances and took six of them.

When you see it increasing quarter after quarter, there seems to be something going on here. We're building more homes than are being filled.

There has never been a run up in home prices like this.

The problem is that few people recognize it for the gamble that it is.

The optimistic scenario gives you about 2 million jobs next year -- about 180,000 a month. If I had to make my best bet, I'd say we'll have level home prices and growth of about 1.5 percent for the year. There'll be job creation of about 80,000 or 90,000 a month.

First of all, it's very expensive to administer private accounts, especially if you let people manage these accounts themselves, ... Bush is vague on how he would set it up and make it work.

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.

These monthly numbers are very erratic. It can be that this is a sign (of the bubble bursting), but I would never make too much of one month's number. Especially since the other timely data we get, the mortgage applications for home purchases, have still been pretty high.

I've always thought you'll have the movement in price before you'll see it on quantity side, ... As long as the price remains high, if you're a builder, you want to get the houses up in order to cash in.

Saving Social Security with Stock: The Promises Don't Add Up.

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.

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.

Normally when you talk about housing bubbles bursting, you're talking about a specific local market. But we've never had a nationwide run-up in home prices like this. I don't think it's realistic to think the decline won't also be national. I think a 15 percent nationwide decline is very plausible. In many bubble areas, could be looking at 20-25, maybe 30 percent declines.

It's just prudent to have a chemical safety program, ... We don't want to have a sterile leaning environment, we want kids to have a rich learning environment while keeping them safe, that's the same issue every school faces.

Does he want to see it burst on its own, or is it appropriate for the Fed to move to deflate asset bubbles?

It's clearly very strong across the board. There's no evidence of any downturn at this point.

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.

Things do seem like they're out of line, but of course I've been seeing warning bells for several years.

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.

In terms of people's lives, let's say someone had a reasonably good job in the tourism industry, they're not going to wait around a year and half or two years for their job to come back. What's there when it (the Gulf economy) comes back might be qualitatively different than what it was before.

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.

Clearly, housing is going to be a drag on the economy; the question is how much does housing slow and how quickly.

Home and rental prices will come back together by home prices falling. I don't think landlords will be in any position to raise rates too much.

Home prices are going through the roof, forcing people to turn to exotic loans and unorthodox financing. These people have no room for error.

If home prices level off, that can knock down growth by 1 or 2 percentage points, from 3.5 percent to 1.5 percent.

Gore is keeping the existing system in place because it works -- using the budget surplus to add to the Social Security trust fund. So what's the point in dismantling it,

The trustees' projections continue to show that the major threat to the economic well-being of future generations is rising health-care costs.

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.