Manufacturing deficit fear

Pursuing a plan to kill social security, politicians are relying on a credulous public and compliant media to ramp up debt panic

Dean Baker
guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 July 2011 15.09 BST

The conventional wisdom among the current generation of school reformers is that bad teachers are to blame for the failure of many of our children to learn. Applying this logic to the current debates over the budget and the economy, we should be pointing a big finger of blame at the media.

As survey after survey shows, the vast majority of the public are incredibly ignorant of the most basic facts about the budget and the economy. If we treated their teachers in the media the way the educational reformers treat public school teachers, few economics and budget reporters would have jobs.