Personal Finance

Confirmed, After 3 Sets of Searches: Relative Media Mentions of 'Christmas Shopping Season' at a 10-Year Low
By Tom Blumer | December 24, 2015 | 10:57 AM EST

Merchants haven't been the only ones discouraging those who work for them from using the word "Christmas" during the Christmas shopping season. The press has been at it for years, and those efforts have brought regrettable results.

This is the eleventh year of an effort I began in 2005. Each year has involved three sets of Google News searches on "Christmas shopping season" and "holiday shopping season" (both terms in quotes) done a few days before Christmas, two weeks earlier, and four weeks earlier. In late November, after doing the first round, I reported that the percentage of "Christmas shopping season" mentions came in "at the lowest level in all of the years I have been tracking." Sadly, with all three rounds now completed, the raw percentage increased a bit from the first round, but the overall result hasn't changed.

CBS Pushes Report on Income Inequality, Decline of Middle Class; No Mention of Obama’s Policies
By Curtis Houck | December 9, 2015 | 11:00 PM EST

In the middle segment of Wednesday’s CBS Evening News, the newscast promoted a new Pew Research Study that illustrated the decline of the middle class in the years since the Great Recession to the point that, as anchor Scott Pelley highlighted, “[t]he middle class is no longer the majority in America.” Of course, as the liberal media naturally does, they neglected to include any placement of blame on why the erosion has taken place and placed no blame on the Obama administration and its policies (including ObamaCare).

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. 

Tim Allen, Sean Hannity Slam Feds on Debt, Political Correctness, Spending
By Curtis Houck | September 26, 2015 | 10:07 AM EDT

Promoting the new season of his ABC sitcom Last Man Standing, actor and Republican Tim Allen joined Thursday’s Hannity on Fox News Channel (FNC) to blast the federal government over reckless spending, the national debt, and a culture of political correctness that he tries to rebuke on the show where he plays “a very smart Archie Bunker.”

AP, Covering Latest Government Report, Hides the Obama Era's Poverty Rise, Household Income Decline
By Tom Blumer | September 16, 2015 | 5:21 PM EDT

From its "Don't read this story, it's boring" headline to its obfuscating content, today's coverage at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, of the Census Bureau's 2014 report on income and poverty in the United States was all about ensuring that readers know as little as possible about the declining incomes and disheartening increases in officially-defined poverty seen during the Obama administration.

I'll focus on just two of the many shortcomings in Jesse J. Holland's AP report.

Delusional AP Report on Retail Sales Celebrates 'Surges' in Spending
By Tom Blumer | September 15, 2015 | 10:17 PM EDT

Shortly after its release this morning, Josh Boak at the Associated Press posted his coverage of the Census Bureau's August retail sales report. On a seasonally adjusted basis, August's sales came in a very mediocre 0.2 percent greater than July.

It's almost too kind to say that Boak's writeup was delusional. The AP reporter celebrated "surges" in spending, "fed ... by solid and steady job gains" that will "sustain U.S. economic growth." He missed an important clue, downplaying the significance of "a possible pullback in the housing sector's momentum" — not that there has been all that much momentum anyway.

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'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.

Andrea Mitchell Turns to Left-Wing Activist to Fact-Check GOP
By Kyle Drennen | August 13, 2015 | 2:23 PM EDT

On her MSNBC show on Wednesday, host Andrea Mitchell brought on Heather McGhee, president of the left-wing group Demos, to “sort all this out” when came to the debate over student loan debt in the 2016 race: “...student debt 101. The presidential candidates are put to the test on what to do about the rising cost of college.”

Maddow Producer: ‘Baffling’ That GOP Doesn’t Understand It’s Dumb to Play Up Hillary’s Wealth
By Tom Johnson | July 16, 2015 | 6:00 PM EDT

The New York Times reported last weekend that one line of attack American Crossroads and other Republican-leaning groups are likely to use against Hillary Clinton is that she’s far too wealthy to relate to average Americans. Regarding such criticism, Steve Benen says, in effect: Bring it on.

Benen, a producer for MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show and the primary writer for the TRMS blog, argued in a Monday post that the rich-and-out-of-touch charge won’t stick to Hillary the way it did to Mitt Romney because “Romney was extremely wealthy while pushing a policy agenda that would benefit people like him,” whereas Hillary’s economic program would help those nowhere near as well-off as she is.

ABC Neglects to Mention Flat Wages, Record Low Labor Participation Rate in June Jobs Report
By Curtis Houck | July 2, 2015 | 10:20 PM EDT

All three major broadcast networks covered on their Thursday evening newscasts the June 2015 jobs report, but it was ABC’s World News Tonight that neglected provide any further details and/or context beyond the unemployment rate and number of jobs added and omitted how hourly wages remained flat and the labor force participation rate sunk to its lowest level in 38 years. While CBS and NBC chronicled the numerous pitfalls to varying degrees, neither chose to look at why the numbers remained sluggish or assign blame for the state of the economy.

Dear NY Times: Who Has Been in Charge All This Time? After 8 Years of 'Financial Downturn,' Far More Americans Delay Major Life Events
By Tom Blumer | June 26, 2015 | 8:40 PM EDT

There may no better illustration of how much harm the economy has inflicted on the American people during the Obama era than a March 2015 Harris survey commissioned by American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The AICPA's Thursday press release reported that "a majority of American adults (51 percent) have delayed at least one important life decision in the last year due to financial reasons ... an increase of 20 percentage points from a similar survey conducted in 2007."

Covering the survey's results, Ann Carrns at the New York Times, in an item carried at CNBC (also found at the Times's web site), waited seven paragraphs to note a particularly damning statistic about a situation Obamacare advocates like to claim has already been solved.