Business Coverage

UPDATE, JULY 18: This post was based in an Associated Press's quote of a statement President Obama made to NBC News that "my policies ... got us out of this mess." Subsequent review of the video and transcript of that interview shows that the President really said "my policies ... are getting us out of this mess." I have prepared a follow-up post dealing with this matter and a separate…

In August 2009, much to the chagrin of leftist environmental activists, the generally liberal electorate of the city of Seattle rejected a 20-cent tax on plastic shopping bags. In fact, 58 percent of voters voted to reject the proposal, although the Seattle Post-Intelligencer sought to portray the vote as the result of the plastic industry plunking down $1.4 million in advertising opposing the…

If Newsweek magazine isn't anti-business enough for you, perhaps their list of "Business Books You Need to Read Now" will satisfy. On July 14, Newsweek published a list of ten books they described as "best business literature out there." The list of ten current titles was decidedly anti-business. Newsweek included an interview with each book's author. The list included: "War at the Wall…

While Washington lawmakers may be deadlocked over extending unemployment benefits, the liberal media are picking up the slack and helping unemployed individuals find more government help. In a July 13 story on CNNMoney.com, reporter Hibah Yousuf profiled two individuals who've been unemployed for over 99 weeks, the maximum number of weeks a person is eligible for unemployment benefits. Yousuf…

I was quite surprised to see the difference in tone between two different Associated Press reports on retail sales Thursday. The earlier article, unbylined and time-stamped at 10:43 a.m. at MSNBC (HT Hot Air), has the headline "Nation’s retailers post tepid June sales" and this subheadline: "Concerns about back-to-school shopping, health of recovery." It is decidedly downbeat. The later AP item…

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," publisher Mort Zuckerman called the Obama administration out for being "without a doubt the most hostile administration to business and to the role of business that we've had in decades."Panel members Mika Brzezinski and John Heilmann seemed shocked at the severity of the criticism, however."Where is the hostility?" John Heilmann, columnist for New York…

Those looking for evidence that there is a move afoot in the establishment press to lower the bar for whatever economic accomplishments might be accomplished during the Obama administration will be interested in how the Associated Press's report on the government's June jobs report defined "normal" unemployment. Perhaps it's valid for reporters Jeannine Aversa and Christopher Rugaber to refer to…

The Twitter "Fail Whale": An irritating part of anyone's day that regularly uses social networking in their day-to-day activities. But could this endanger the viability of Twitter as long-term business? A couple of analysts say think so. Both CNET.com senior editor Natali Del Conte and Herb Greenburg of CNBC Business News suggested Twitter's infrastructure problems could pose issues for Twitter'…

It's hard to imagine an economist being provocative, but Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner, has managed to do so. In his June 28 New York Times op-ed, Krugman argued that since governments around the world aren't willing to double-down on Keynesian policies meant to stimulate the global economy, the United States and the rest of the world are facing a third depression. But on CNBC's June 28 "…

Tough times don't last; tough people do. That's the theme of author John S. Cohoat's new book "No Thank You, Mr. President," which tells the story of 10 private companies in Elkhart County, Ind., that made their own way to economic recovery without government handouts. "My hope is that these stories provide some inspiration for you or make you remember why our capitalist economic policies and…

When it comes to the performance of the U.S.-headquartered Detroit automakers once known as the Big Three, the real news in the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 Initial Quality Study (IQS) is not what the Associated Press's Stephen Manning wrote in his Thursday coverage ("US cars top foreign brands on quality survey") of Power's pronouncement. While barely true and in a sense historic, it's not…

There several annoying aspects of today's Associated Press report on the plight of newly-hired employees at U.S. auto plants represented by the United Auto Workers. Mentioned by writers Dee-Ann Durbin and Tom Krisher, but not until their eleventh paragraph, is the fact that new workers, whose starting wage (mentioned in Paragraph 2) is "about half what veterans make under their current contract…

Wow, just wow. Never would have seen this one coming, but is one of the standard-bearers of the media elite recognizing the Obama administration's anti-business populist tone is inhibiting the U.S. economy? On the June 18 broadcast of CNBC's "Squawk Box," NBC "Meet the Press" moderator David Gregory was asked to respond to a June 18 New York Times article by David Sanger suggesting the Obama…

With the federal government - both on Capitol Hill and in the White House - beginning to take investigative and punitive action against BP (NYSE:BP), the future of the company, at least in the United States, is in peril. On CNBC's June 14 "The Kudlow Report," John Kilduff, a CNBC contributor and the vice president of MF Global was asked by host Larry Kudlow about a potential debarment from…