Binyamin Appelbaum

I write about business and economics for @nytopinion. If you like these tweets, try my book, The Economists' Hour:

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

The animating principle of the Democratic Party is that government can improve the lives of the American people. The housing crisis is manifest proof that government is failing to do so.

https://t.co/qbGyaMGc4v

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

I was under the impression that it's only an official legally binding definitely happening policy if the president tweets it. Does Truth Social have the same status? Legal scholars please weigh in.

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

Fun to think who I'd put on an American Mt. Rushmore. For me maybe Faulkner, McCarthy, Cather & Wharton.

[Russ Roberts @EconTalker]

My Mt Rushmore of Russian novelists: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, Grossman. Can any other nation come close?

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

@DawgInExileNC @EconTalker Love Middlemarch. Wouldn't put her body of work in my top four. But that's just me. Broader point is that I don't think the top four Russian novelists (any four Russian novelists) are obviously in a different weight class.

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

@mattyglesias Yeah, but to your point, it's really the only one I can think of.

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

@mattyglesias Garn-St. Germain

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

And local coverage isn't just in the local section. I have a regular appointment on Friday mornings with Tom Sietsema's weekly Q&A about local restaurants in the Weekend section.

[Alec MacGillis @AlecMacGillis]

It's important to have more than just one or two papers providing national news and commentary in a country of 335 million.

Despite all the cuts, the local section still provides essential coverage of a major metro area.

They have two of the best art critics.
#whyisubscribe

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

@peterlattman Used to be New-York atop the Times, too.

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

I subscribe to the Washington Post because it provides excellent, essential coverage of my community. DC is very lucky to still have a great local newspaper. #WhyISubscribe

[Jeff Stein @jstein_star]

I know many of you will roll your eyes at this, but that's OK; I wouldn't be in this field if I was afraid of being dunked on every now and then.

When I first came to The Washington Post in 2017, I was extremely wary it would be too establishment for me. Too corporate. Too deferential to power.

What I have instead found over the last seven years is that the paper has consistently given me a unique, awesome platform to fulfill the highest calling of journalism -- to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable. 

The Post has spared no resource in allowing me to pursue this mission. It flew me to Puerto Rico to interview hurricane victims cut off from federal food stamp aid. To Maine to cover the long-term care crisis facing the nation's elderly. To Kentucky to document the closure of a steel plant. To Las Vegas to cover the housing crisis. To Wisconsin for farmers caught in the crosshairs of a trade war. To Detroit for a story on the nation's unraveling safety net. To the Bronx to chronicle appalling public housing conditions. (OK, I took the train there.) To Ukraine to cover a war. To Indonesia for meetings of the world's most powerful financial leaders. 

Since the beginning of the year, the Post has devoted thousands of manpower hours to a series -- six parts published thus far -- on the unintended consequences of U.S. sanctions. This effort included paying me and a team to travel to northeast Guatemala to chronicle an economic calamity almost 2,000 miles away from my desk, in one of the poorest parts of the world. At least 20 people have worked on this series alone. The Post did not greenlight this series because it thought there would be huge pageviews in U.S. sanctions policy; it did so because it's important for the public to understand how the surging use of the tool is affecting the world and the nation's foreign policy. It did so because the story matters.

I fully understand the misgivings people have expressed about billionaire control over our journalism. (I published a story today -- pitched by an editor, put by editors on today's front page -- about billionaires threatened by Trump who are now hedging their bets.) But these are stories that require more than just substantial resources; they require a devotion to journalism that seeks to document how machinations in Washington affect the lives outside it.

I could try a Substack where I spout off whatever happens to be in my head that day. I could work for a publication that only caters to lobbyists and elite insiders. But there are precious few publications still doing the coverage -- however incomplete; however still in need of improvement -- aimed at serving the broader public at large. I believe The Washington Post is one of them.

I am not here to tell anyone what to do. We are imperfect. My work can suffer from negativity bias, recency bias, imperfect data, faulty assumptions, motivated sources. I get things wrong. My journalism can be flawed and you should yell at me on twitter when it is. I want to be more transparent about the decisions I make and the stories I publish.

But I promise you: I and many, many other journalists throughout this newsroom would quit The Washington Post if we ever felt our work was not in service of the public at large. That is the point of the job. That is why I hope we get to do it for as long as possible.

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

Why I'm voting
https://t.co/hMRMHS4ZjA

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

Without fear or favor.

https://t.co/iTebbM9Hfk

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

Trump is telling us what he would do. Believe him.

https://t.co/iTebbM99pM

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

@CharlesPPierce Yeah, and Teddy Roosevelt was apparently pretty fun. But best case scenario is that the Venn diagram has some overlap. We're not talking two identical circles.

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

Has there ever been an American president who would make a good or even a decent babysitter? I guess Jimmy Carter is the obvious answer and well...

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

.@Liz_Cheney: If you wouldn't hire somebody to babysit your kids, you shouldn't make that guy the President of the United States

[Michael W. Klein @MKleinEF]

About 1 month before the election, I interview @BCAppelbaum @greg_ip @HorsleyScott & @byHeatherLong for @EconoFactOrg Chats on Candidates views on #FederalReserve , #Immigrationpolicy #Tariffs #SupplyChain & more https://t.co/XZAvsAz2bv

[Acyn @Acyn]

Trump: In the 1890's, our country was probably the wealthiest it ever was because it was a system of tariffs. We had a president, you know McKinley. Remember Mount McKinley?

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

I'm not sure what a "prosperity economy" is but I do know this much: Donald Trump's economic agenda would be a disaster. https://t.co/sTbxTIPYh7

[Binyamin Appelbaum @BCAppelbaum]

The debate recap you didn’t know you needed.

https://t.co/f99EgGQlTI