Economy

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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. 

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…

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…

Add Arizona's Meritus Health Partners to the growing list of Affordable Care Act co-op failures. The Daily Signal reports that this makes 11 of 23 such state Obamacare co-ops which will have closed their doors by the end of 2015 after three or fewer years in operation. The Associated Press, which, along with most of the rest of the establishment press, has been playing aggressive defense on…

The heyday of patent medicine, medicine shows, and related phenomena has been over for more than a century, right? Yes and no, implied Esquire's Pierce in a Thursday post. While it’s true that (for example) Coca-Cola no longer is sold as a cure for impotence, political snake oil, Pierce asserted, has become the chief product of the Republican party. Pierce’s peg was Ben Carson’s involvement with…