Banking/Finance

In a report filed at the Los Angeles Times's Politics Now blog earlier today, Washington Bureau reporter James Oliphant relayed a number of whoppers delivered by Vice President Joe Biden without anything resembling a challenge. Breaking Biden's bilge into three sections, they involve his claim about the historical origins of the Tea Party, which Biden characterized as a collection of "…

A number of Democratic members of Congress came out Wednesday throwing their support behind the protest known as Occupy Wall Street. Fox News's Neil Cavuto interviewed one of them on Your World marvelously asking Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Oh.), "So why didn’t you celebrate when Tea Partiers were running around the country and protesting all the spending and protesting the budget and the debt…

At the top of the 8 a.m. ET hour of Wednesday's NBC "Today," fill-in news anchor Tamron Hall proclaimed: "Today could be the biggest day yet for the 'Occupy Wall Street' protests in lower Manhattan." Correspondent Mara Schiavocampo followed by gushing: "Three weeks in, and no signs of slowing. The 'Occupy Wall Street' protest growing in size and scope." Schiavocampo touted how the "coalition…

As young, foolish, unemployed Americans Occupy Wall Street, liberals in the media have predictably cheered the protests. Some, like schlockumentarian Michael Moore, participated in the goings on, telling the crowd last week that the folks inside the buildings surrounding them were solely responsible for the nation’s economic woes (video follows with transcript and extensive commentary):

ABC's George Stephanopoulos lobbied President Obama Monday to "put a stop" to Bank of America's new service charge for its debit card customers. "You might have a new issue on your plate," the former Democratic political operative advised the President about the new five dollar monthly debit card fee for Bank of America customers. In the interview which aired on ABCNews.com and Yahoo.com at…

On Monday's NBC "Today," correspondent Michelle Franzen reported on the left-wing "Occupy Wall Street" protests in New York and proclaimed: "Protesters fed up with the economy and social inequality turned out en masse over the weekend....Voicing their discontent and marching for change." Touting the protest as "a movement that has taken off in the past few weeks with protests spreading to…

If you only read Thursday's coverage of Bank of America's decision to impose a $5 monthly debit card fee by Associated Press Personal Finance Writer Candice Choi, you would have no idea that last year's "Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act" triggered BofA's decision. The legislation gave the Federal Reserve the power to limit debit card interchange fees. The Fed's limit…

Sometimes, I think that we wouldn't have a useful press at all if it weren't for the British press. The big news out of the International Monetary Fund this weekend was, as reported by the UK Telegraph, that it "may need billions in extra funding." Specifically, it "may have to tap its members – including Britain – for billions of pounds of extra funding to stem the European debt crisis."…

Fareed Zakaria's desire to give power to all countries except the one he currently resides - the United States! - is nothing less than appalling. On the CNN program bearing his name Sunday, Zakaria actually said, "It might be necessary to make clear that Christine Lagarde would be the last non-Chinese head of the [International Monetary Fund]" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Part 1 on the Associated Press's September 16 evening story ("Obama admin reworked Solyndra loan to favor donor"; saved here at my web host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) by Matthew Daly and Jack Gillum criticized the reporters and the wire service for making it appear as if all the findings in the story were the result of original work. Two other paragraphs in the…

The public learned on September 3 from William McQuillen at Bloomberg (possibly earlier elsewhere) that now-bankrupt Soyndra's private investors restructured the company's finances in January by lending the company "$75 million." As a condition of doing so, they convinced the government to give the new loan senior status over all other creditors. Now taxpayers face a likely loss of hundreds of…

It appears one should never say in Christiane Amanpour's presence Barack Obama isn't ideologically flexible. When former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin did so on ABC's "This Week" Sunday, the host pushed back, "Do you think that’s true that he hasn’t shown flexibility since he's, he’s sort of come completely to the Republican tenor of the debate?" (video follows with…

Charles Krauthammer on Fox News's "Special Report" Friday offered Republicans a 2012 campaign slogan to defeat Barack Obama. "President Zero: zero economic expansion, zero jobs, zero ideas on how to cure the economy" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Two weeks ago (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), yours truly pointed out how establishment press coverage of the bankruptcy of Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar had emphasized its Bay State assistance, and only rarely brought up how it benefitted by being able to sell solar panels it otherwise would probably not have bothered to produce to projects benefitting from American Recovery and…