Business Coverage

U of M, AP Falsely Blame Consumer Sentiment Drop on Stock Market Plunge
By Tom Blumer | August 28, 2015 | 10:22 PM EDT

At the Associated Press today, Christopher Rugaber appears to have played along with a game of make-believe in his coverage of the August release of the University of Michigan's Survey of Consumers.

The index dropped for the second straight month, this time from 93.1 to 91.9, a point below August's prelimnary reading of 92.9. That trailed expectations that it would come in at 93.0. The survey's director, Richard Curtin, claimed that the drop occurred "mainly due to the recent volatility in stock prices." Whatever his reason for making that claim, it doesn't pass the smell test, and Rugaber had all the information needed to figure that out (which he may have) and report it (which he didn't).

AP Drags Bush 43 Into Coverage of IG's Report on Solyndra
By Tom Blumer | August 26, 2015 | 5:39 PM EDT

Almost four years ago, solar energy manufacturer Solyndra filed for bankruptcy, leaving the federal government with a loan guarantee-related loss of up to $535 million.

The Energy Department's inspector general released a report on the debacle today. At the Associated Press, reporter Kevin Freking made sure readers knew that the loan guarantee program began under President George W. Bush, but somehow "forgot" to note, as the Weekly Standard did at the time, that the Energy Department under Bush made a "unanimous decision to shelve Solyndra's application two weeks before Obama took office."

Press Determined Not to Blame Venezuela's Social and Economic Calamity on Its Chavista Government
By Tom Blumer | August 26, 2015 | 11:44 AM EDT

As Venezuela's Chavista economy under Nicolas Maduro continues to crumble, the Associated Press and others in the media to describe its problems as if they came out of nowhere instead of originating with its statist, oppressive government.

Examples follow the jump.

Apple Gets Kid-Glove Treatment After CEO Emails CNBC's Jim Cramer About Its China Business
By Tom Blumer | August 25, 2015 | 1:01 PM EDT

It doesn't seem likely that an oil company CEO would get the benefit of the doubt Apple CEO Tim Cook received from the press yesterday after he emailed well-known financial commentator and investment adviser Jim Cramer about his company's performance in China.

In an email read over the air on CNBC, Cook reported that "we have continued to experience strong growth for our business in China through July and August." The question is whether, by providing this private disclosure, Cook violated U.S. "fair disclosure" regulations requiring that "materal information" be disclosed to the public.

Deflated: Brady Scandal Gets 5 Times More Coverage than China’s Faltering Economy
By Julia A. Seymour | August 24, 2015 | 2:11 PM EDT

The downward spiral of China’s economy has sent U.S. stocks plunging wildly. The Dow dropped 1,000 points as the market opened Aug. 24, but stocks were rebounding by midday according to MarketWatch.

MarketWatch reported that day, “Chinese equities surrendered all of their gains for 2015, and a rout in the U.S. on Friday that capped the worst week for the market in four years. Investors are worried about the global implications of a slowdown in China’s economy.”

After Stock Market's Disastrous Day, AP Pair Makes Several Wishful, Fact-Challenged Assertions
By Tom Blumer | August 21, 2015 | 11:47 PM EDT

Tonight's report at the Associated Press in the wake of Wall Street's disastrous day isn't quite an Animal House moment — "Remain Calm! All Is Well!" — but it's more than fair to say that the wire service's Matthew Craft and Bernard Condon allowed quite a bit of wishful thinking into their writeup.

In late June, I noted that the AP's Ken Sweet asked a very important question about China ("IS THERE A POINT WHERE I SHOULD GET WORRIED?"), and failed to answer it. He also claimed that "The biggest concern is whether the drop in China's stock market will cause the country's economy to slow." The headline and opening sentence in tonight's AP dispatch attempted to maintain that false appearance (bolds are mine):

Crickets: Fed Official Finds No Evidence That $4.5 Trillion in QE Accomplished Anything
By Tom Blumer | August 20, 2015 | 10:26 AM EDT

Imagine if, in 1987, a Federal Reserve official could have pointed to a poorly performing economy and said, "Gee, this supply-side economics hasn't worked out very well." The press would surely have treated the story as a front-page item and ensured that it got air time on the Big Three networks' then-dominant nightly news broadcasts. Of course, there was no such credible report, because the economy under Ronald Reagan was so obviously robust.

Fast-forwarding 28 years, the author of a July Federal Reserve white paper on the Fed's Keynesian-based "quantitative easing" program contends that "There is no work, to my knowledge, that establishes a link from QE to the ultimate goals of the Fed—inflation and real economic activity." In other words, there is no evidence that $4.5 trillion in funny money with which the economy has been saddled has accomplished anything. In the establishment press, only CNBC's Jeff Cox has covered it (bolds are mine):

MSNBC.com Trolls Believers with 'Is God Anti-Capitalist?' Headline
By Ken Shepherd | August 19, 2015 | 6:30 PM EDT

The award for trollish headline of the day should go to MSNBC.com.

AP's Boak Finds Millennials Can't Afford to Buy Homes, Cites No Policy-Driven Causes
By Tom Blumer | August 17, 2015 | 6:32 PM EDT

Several commenters at my econ-related posts during the past several months here at NewsBusters and my home blog have noted how Washington's mix of high deficits, over-regulation, and quantitative easing never seem to get any kind of blame for the economy in establishment press coverage.

One could hardly find a better example of that deliberate avoidance than Josh Boak's writeup today at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, on how "Home ownership ... is increasingly on hold for younger Americans." While he identified several symptoms which could easily be traced to Obama administration and Federal Reserve policies, Boak never tagged anyone who might be responsible, instead acting as if all these adverse conditions just sort of happened and ... oh well, here we are.

Japan's Over-'Stimulated' Economy Contracts Again, and the Supposed Solution Is More 'Stimulus'
By Tom Blumer | August 17, 2015 | 1:20 PM EDT

Japan, once a feared world economic powerhouse already at "two decades of little or no real economic growth," just reported that its economy contracted during the second quarter at an annual rate of 1.6 percent.

The common thread throughout the two-decade slump has been the alleged need for ever-increasing levels of Keynesian "stimulus." Apparently refusing to believe there are any other viable alternatives to what hasn't worked for 20 years, the world's press is expecting — and creating pressure for — even more "stimulus."

AP Changes Description of Job Growth in Report on Retail Sales From 'Seemingly Robust' to 'Solid'
By Tom Blumer | August 13, 2015 | 2:32 PM EDT

It "seems" that a bit of doubt seeped into an economy-related Associated Press report today. An hour later, it was gone.

An early report by Josh Boak with a 10:22 a.m. time stamp found at a subscribing outlet's site described job growth in the past 12 months as "seemingly robust." An hour later, in an expansion of that early report primarily covering today's government release on July retail sales, Boak, in collaboration with Anne D'Innocenzio, described it as "solid."

AP's Crutsinger Predictably Ignores All-Time One-Month Govt. Spending Record
By Tom Blumer | August 12, 2015 | 9:44 PM EDT

Records are made to be broken, but apparently government spending records are not meant to be reported. The Monthly Treasury Statement released today showed that the federal government spent a mind-boggling $374.86 billion in July. That's an all-time single-month record, surpassing the previous high of $369.39 billion "achieved" in August 2012. Yes, there was a calendar "quirk" which caused this month's report to include five Fridays of disbursements; but that happens four times a year, and a record is a record.