Josh Boak

AP's Coverage of Govt's Wholesale Report Treats Bloated Inventories As a Positive
By Tom Blumer | September 10, 2015 | 11:14 PM EDT

Today's Monthly Wholesale Trade report from the Census Bureau covering July was the latest in a wave of disappointing reports on business activity this year. Wholesale inventories remained very high, while sales turned in a seventh consecutive month of year-over-year declines.

Much of that sales decline is due to the fall in oil prices during the past year. But even after factoring that out, wholesale sales are either flat or declining, leading one to wonder how the economy could have grown at all during the past year or so. Josh Boak at the Associated Press appeared to understand that there are some problems out there, but his Thursday morning report understated their seriousness, largely because he doesn't seem to understand that a high level of inventories can be a very dangerous thing:

Press Meme: August Job Growth Was Lowballed; If Revised, It Will Still Be Weak
By Tom Blumer | September 6, 2015 | 11:51 PM EDT

A popular meme in the wake of Friday's jobs report seen at many media outlets is that August's reported job growth of 173,000 seasonally adjusted jobs is a virtual lock to be revised up by 50,000, or 78,000, or perhaps even more, since such revisions during the past three years have been unusually large.

Well, since they opened that can of worms, let me make clear to everyone that even if those revisions materialize, August will still have been a singularly unimpressive month.

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.

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 and Reuters Ignore Likely Impact of Bloated Inventories on Future Growth
By Tom Blumer | August 11, 2015 | 3:31 PM EDT

Two wire service dispatches covering the government's June Wholesale Sales and Inventories release either glossed over or completely ignored what others are saying about the report's impact on near-term economic growth.

The final sentence of an unbylined Reuters report vaguely referred to future impact by indicating that current inventory balances, which are bloated by historical standards, "would weigh on manufacturing and economic growth" (i.e., have a negative impact). Both Reuters and the AP's Josh Boak completely ignored a leading GDP forecaster's estimate that inventory buildups seen during the second quarter will cause a significant third-quarter pullback which will also knock down third-quarter economic growth considerably — and that was before today's news that the June buildup was even greater than expected. Boak's report also contained an utterly unsupportable "things are getting better" statement.

As June New-Home Sales 'Unexpectedly' Dive, AP's Boak Says They're Just 'Not As Hot'
By Tom Blumer | July 24, 2015 | 6:48 PM EDT

Thanks to year-over-year declines in manufacturing orders, manufacturing shipments, and wholesale sales, along with bloated inventories, apologists for the current condition of the U.S. economy are down to three defenses supposedly demonstrating that all is still really well after yet another rough first quarter (once again excused away as due to supposedly historically awful winter weather).

One of the three is that the housing market, particularly for new homes, is in a genuine recovery. Effective today, we can scratch at least the new-home element of that claim. The Census Bureau told us today that seasonally adjusted new-home sales fell by 7 percent in June, after May's originally strong figure was also revised down by 5 percent. The raw data showed that the number of new homes sold in June — supposedly peak season for new home purchases — was the same as the number sold in February.

AP Pair: Sit Back and Accept the 'New Normal' Job Market: 'Smaller Workforce, Sluggish Pay'
By Tom Blumer | July 8, 2015 | 11:40 PM EDT

As seen in two previous posts at NewsBusters, once the Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber didn't get the job market "nearing full health" he expected and briefly thought he got in Thursday's jobs report, he quickly downgraded it to "painting a mixed picture," and took it further down to "a bleaker picture" about eight hours later.

That still left the problem, six years after the recession's official end, of explaining away yet another disappointing job-market reading in three quite visible areas. How did Rugaber and colleague Josh Boak "fix" the problem? They decided to say that "this may be what a nearly healthy U.S. job market now looks like." In other words, this is merely the end of the sixth year of the "new normal."

AP Admits: Obamacare Is a Likely Factor in 'Increasing Part-Time Employment'
By Tom Blumer | July 6, 2015 | 12:25 PM EDT

Though the Associated Press is now basically admitting it, we all knew it. Obamacare's 30-hours-per-week definition of a "full-time employee" for employer health insurance coverage purposes has been responsible for one of the fundamentally negative changes in the American workforce — a noticeable move away from full-time to part-time employment.

In a report with a current Saturday morning time stamp at the AP's national web site which originally went up on Friday, the wire service's Christopher Rugaber and Josh Boak covered the "new normal" in the job market. This writeup will receive yours truly's fuller attention later. But for now, I must note that the pair's report largely abandoned the AP's and the establishment press's years of near denial (bolds are mine throughout this post):

AP's Josh Boak Does Bogus 'Fact Check' on Jeb Bush's 4 Percent Growth Goal
By Tom Blumer | June 17, 2015 | 11:41 PM EDT

It seems as if the establishment press has ruined virtually everything connected with journalism. The whole idea of "fact-checking" is certainly no exception.

The thoroughly misnamed Politifact pioneered this particular form of disinformation. The Associated Press, apparently determined to give that web site a run for its money, devoted a writeup to "fact-checking" (i.e., virtually ridiculing) a goal, namely 2016 presidential candidate and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's belief that the U.S. economy is fully capable of achieving annual growth of 4 percent — even though it's been done before nationally, and was accomplished in the Sunshine State during Bush's own tenure.

Business Press Mostly Fails to Note that Industrial Production Has Not Advanced for Six Straight Months
By Tom Blumer | June 15, 2015 | 2:06 PM EDT

Today's release from the Federal Reserve on industrial production (including mining and utilities) told us that it declined by a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent in May. It was the sixth consecutive month showing a decline or no gain, during which time output has fallen by 1.1 percent (not annualized).

Bloomberg News, which reported that economists and analysts expected an increase of 0.2 percent, described the result as "unexpected." Reuters gave us the adverb version of the U-word: "U.S. industrial production unexpectedly fell in May." In covering the news, Associated Press reporter Josh Boak failed to note the length of the protracted slump, and even went into a light version of "Happy Days Are (Still, Probably, We Really Hope) Here Again," using a sentiment survey to argue against the hard information collected by the Fed.

Press Takes Artificially Pumped Seasonally Adjusted Retail Sales Growth As Gospel
By Tom Blumer | June 14, 2015 | 11:41 PM EDT

On Thursday, the Census Bureau's report on May retail sales said that seasonally adjusted sales came in 1.2 percent higher than April. The press almost universally cited that result as demonstrating that the economy's rough patch earlier this year is likely over.

Yours truly and the contrarians at Zero Hedge both noted that the result is highly suspect, and doesn't adequately reflect the raw data behind it. The business press won't question it, because it hardly ever bothers to look at the raw data.

Factory Orders 'Unexpectedly' Fall Again; Press Fails to Note Steep Year-Over-Year Declines
By Tom Blumer | June 2, 2015 | 12:46 PM EDT

This morning's April factory orders report from the Census Bureau showed yet another seasonally adjusted decline. This time, they fell 0.4 percent, seriously underperforming expectations that they would come in flat.

This naturally brought forth another sighting of the U-word ("unexpectedly"), this time at Reuters. Both Reuters and the Associated Press failed to note how steep the year-over-year declines in orders — and for that matter, shipments — have become: