Economy

Hide the Declines: AP's Rugaber Ignores Steep Industry Group Production Drops Until Late in His Writeup
By Tom Blumer | November 18, 2015 | 2:46 PM EST

The catalog of wishful thinking technically classified as reports on the economy emanating from the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, grows with virtually each passing business day.

One of yesterday's additions to the mountainous pile came from the AP's Christopher Rugaber. Tasked with covering the Federal Reserve's report on October's industrial production, he devoted 10 of his 11 paragraphs in his dispatch to manufacturing. He didn't even tell readers that the Fed's release was about anything besides manufacturing until his ninth paragraph. The AP's headline writers also cooperated by only mentioning manufacturing. In an utterly amazing "coincidence" (no, not really), manufacturing is the only one of the Fed report's three major industry groups which turned in a positive performance:

Japan's Economy Goes Into Recession Again, So the Answer Must Be Even More 'Stimulus'
By Tom Blumer | November 16, 2015 | 12:35 AM EST

Japan's two-decade romance with Keynesian economics has led to another betrayal — and yet the press and all the supposedly smart economists and analysts seem to believe that just one more fling might bring about a different result.

The Land of the Rising Sun, aka the Land of the Two-Decade Zombie Economy, has just reported an annualized contraction of 0.8 percent in the third quarter. The decline, following a revised 0.7 percent second-quarter downturn, means that the country is once again in a recession — its second in three years (Update: And fifth since 2008). Oh, but don't worry. It's no big deal. The Associated Press insists that it's only a "technical" recession, and more Keynesian "stimulus" could set things right — even though such measures, in place to varying degrees since the 1990s, have consistently failed to bring about sustained, meaningful recoveries:

AP's Crutsinger Makes His Report on Troubling October Deficit Almost All About Other Things
By Tom Blumer | November 13, 2015 | 6:02 PM EST

The federal government kicked off fiscal 2016 yesterday by reporting that its October deficit was $136.5 billion, 12 percent higher than the $121.7 billion shortfall seen in October 2014.

Single-month comparisons can be tricky because of timing differences, but the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger noted that analyzing the results from this October and last October is an apples-to-apples proposition when he wrote that "In both years, Nov. 1 fell on a weekend, which required the government to mail out November benefit checks in October." But instead of diving into and comparing the two Octobers, the AP reporter devoted the vast majority of his writeup to virtual cut-and-paste regurgitations of previously published news about the 2015 fiscal year and projections for the next two years. He wrote just one sentence directly comparing any of the details in two October statements, and buried it at the end of his report.

AP Pair 'Fact Checks' an Achieved Goal and a Completely True Statement
By Tom Blumer | November 12, 2015 | 11:55 PM EST

The "fact-checking" press has become a parody of itself during the past several years.

It's not only because of their irritating penchant for putting statements by Republicans and conservatives under a twisted microscope while ignoring drop-dead obvious falsehoods delivered by Democrats and leftists. It's because, among other things, the fact-checkers often admit that a statement is true, but then proceed to essentially say, "So what?" They also take policy goals articulated by candidates, which may or may not come to pass, render an opinion that it can't be done, and then pretend that they've actually proven something. An example of each annoying habit was found in Tuesday evening's Associated Press "fact check" of statements made by Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush during the most recent Republican presidential candidates' debate.

AP Pair's GOP Debate 'Fact Check' Promotes Minimum-Wage Fiction
By Tom Blumer | November 12, 2015 | 10:58 AM EST

Tuesday evening, Associated Press economics writers Christopher Rugaber and Josh Boak attempted to "fact check" statements made by candidates at the just-completed Republican presidential debate.

Claiming that "The fourth Republican presidential debate was thick on economic policy — and with that came a variety of flubs and funny numbers," the two writers botched at least half of the six points they tried to make. Their most obvious economic error concerned the impact of minimum-wage increases (I will cover two others in a future post):

Megyn Kelly Slams CNBC Moderators Before FBN Debate; We’ll Hear ‘a Robust, Substantive Exchange’
By Curtis Houck | November 10, 2015 | 9:24 PM EST

Just prior to Tuesday’s main Republican presidential debate on the Fox Business Network, Kelly File host Meygn Kelly panned the moderators from October 28's CNBC debate and predicted that she’s “hoping that we are going to hear what we thought we are going to hear in the last debate, which is, you know, a robust, substantive exchange over one of the most important topics to the voters which is the economy.”

Matthews Still Thinks Blockbuster Around, Intros Woman as 'Haley Barbour'
By Mark Finkelstein | November 10, 2015 | 8:18 PM EST

You'd think that back in April when, as Ken Shepherd noted, Chris Matthews talked about Blockbuster being about all that's left in Rust Belt towns, one of his assistants would have gently taken him aside and explained that Blockbuster shuttered its stores some time ago. But on this evening's Hardball, there was Chris committing the exact same gaffe. 

And in the very next segment, Matthews introduced MSNBC reporter Hallie Jackson, who is youthful and female, as . .  "Haley Barbour," who for all his great qualities is neither. But, hey, look at the bright side. The guest in the next segment was Republican lawyer Ben Ginsberg. At least Matthews didn't introduce him as . . . Ruth Bader Ginsburg!

AP's Crutsinger Treats Increase in Already-Bloated Inventories As Positive
By Tom Blumer | November 10, 2015 | 7:54 PM EST

Today's "I'm just making stuff up on the fly" award nominee is Martin Crutsinger at the Associated Press.

The AP reporter, named by National Review's Kevin Williamson as America's "Worst Economics Writer" in 2013, lived down to his designation in a Tuesday report on the Census Bureau's September Monthly Trade Inventories and Sales release. He described a sales increase which didn't come close to offsetting the previous month's decline as "robust," failed to note that the reported increase in inventories will likely increase third-quarter GDP while perhaps depressing the fourth quarter, and described a "major effort to work down an overhang" in inventories not found in the report he was covering. His most important miss, though, was failing to note that trade inventories remain dangerously bloated.

Morning Joe Throws Hardballs at Bill Nye, Climate Panic Guy
By Michael McKinney | November 10, 2015 | 12:21 PM EST

Morning Joe Tuesday featured a discussion with Bill Nye, known as the Science Guy from his television days, and his new book, “Unstoppable.” The book is about getting America to lead on fighting Climate Change, particularly in transitioning from fossil fuels to wind and solar energy. Scarborough on Climate Change, threw to Nye, about the signficance of China and other developing countries on carbon emissions, and how America can affect their contributions, not just our own.

Morning Joe: No Evidence Marco Rubio’s Finances Show He Went 'Wild'
By Michael McKinney | November 9, 2015 | 3:20 PM EST

Even Joe Scarborough, who according to the National Review's Elaina Plott has a "vehement" dislike of Marco Rubio, thinks there's nothing to the Florida Republican Senator's credit card issue. 

Hey Wall Street Journal: Open Borders-Amnesty is the Hugest Cronyism of All
By Seton Motley | November 9, 2015 | 1:04 PM EST

The political definition of Cronyism is: government policy that favors one or more specific beneficiaries - at the expense of everyone else.  To wit: $80 billion of the 2009 “Stimulus” was wasted on “green energy” companies - 80% of whom were Barack Obama donors.  Amongst the parade of horribles contained therein: the government took money from energy companies - to fund competitors to their energy companies.  

Sadly, a $3.5-trillion-a-year federal government budget is filled to the rafters with nigh-endless Cronyism.  There’s so much to undo - one must triage and prioritize.  And while we work to reduce and eliminate, we most certainly should not create a whole new Cronyism - that will dwarf all the others combined. 

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) late last week gave us a quintessential example of aiming at the tiny - while they have for years championed the huge.  Behold:

Maher Hits Carson with Uncle Ben's, GOPers 'Cheat a Lot,' White Drug Addicts for Trump
By Brad Wilmouth | November 8, 2015 | 5:02 PM EST

On Friday's Real Time on HBO, host Bill Maher aimed venom at a number of conservative public figures as he referred to Uncle Ben's rice in a racially tinged joke about Dr. Ben Carson, and asserted that it is President Reagan's fault that many middle aged white Americans have personal problems that lead them to drunkenness, heroin addiction, and early death, as the HBO host tagged them "Trump voters."