Economy

Is the Republican party actually two parties? In a sense, believes The Washington Monthly's Martin Longman, who contended in a Monday post that the forty or so congressmen who constitute the Freedom Caucus “are best understood in the parliamentary sense as being a party in their own right. In our system, they are still called Republicans, but in any other system they would be a minor party that…

It was obvious from the start of ABC’s new drama, Blood & Oil, that Hap Briggs (the “Baron of the Bakken”) would turn out to be ruthless and conniving, no matter how charming he might seem. After all, he’s an oil man and the media just love (to hate) them. In prior episodes Briggs appeared to admire Billy LeFever’s tenacity and mind for the oil business. He even seemed to have taken Billy “…

Following Hillary Clinton’s latest flip-flop and move to the left in opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the CBS Evening News saw no interest in informing their viewers of this announcement after she strongly backed it while secretary of state in President Barack Obama’s first term. In contrast, both ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News surprisingly stepped up to the plate to cover…

Over at the Associated Press, Andrew Taylor, contrary to the wire service's usual practice, referenced a pre-official Congressional Budget Office report to tout the federal government's "improved" budget deficit. The CBO estimates that the deficit, which won't become official until the Treasury Department releases its final Monthly Treasury Statement of the fiscal year in the next week or two,…

Promoting his new car show set to premiere Wednesday night on CNBC, Jay Leno made his return to NBC’s The Tonight Show on Tuesday night to give a portion of the opening monologue. He poked fun at Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Republicans, ObamaCare, and the economy to name a few targets. 

On Sunday’s This Week, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos repeatedly hit GOP presidential frontrunner from the left over his tax plan, chastising Trump for his plan which Stephanopoulos claimed would mainly benefit the rich. Stephanopoulos demanded the Republican candidate explain why taxes should be cut at all and zeroed in on how the plan would personally benefit Trump: “Bottom line, you do accept…

Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro presides over a country which is falling apart thanks to the socialist policies of his government and that of his predecessor Hugo Chavez. The Economist describes the period since Chavez took over in 1998 as that of "authoritarian misrule" characterized by "by shortages of everything from poultry to pharmaceuticals, by inflation approaching 200% and by rampant…

In their coverage of government and other economic reports, the business press routinely tells readers that the figures they are relaying are "seasonally adjusted." That is, raw results are smoothed out to supposedly "remove normal, recurring variations" in data. There's one notable exception: The government's monthly employment report.

Although it was very disappointing, the September Employment Situation Summary, which told us that the economy added only 142,000 seasonally adjusted jobs as hundreds of thousands of Americans withdrew from the labor force, was not the worst economy-related news of the day. That dubious honor belongs to the Census Bureau's Factory Orders report. At least the employment report showed more people…

Asked to name something that stands alone, a lot of people would say, “The cheese.” To New York magazine's Jonathan Chait, another reasonable answer is “the Republican party,” at least in regard to global warming specifically and hatred of government in general. Chait’s main point is that the GOP is extremist not only in an American context but also by international standards: “Of all the major…

A few Hillary supporters just learned an important lesson about paying attention to your candidate’s policies. Following the announcement of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s  tax plan, late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel set out to find whether voters paid any attention to details.

Tuesday’s edition of the CBS Evening News used a liberal tax group, passed off as “non-partisan,” to bash, from the left, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s tax plan. Trumpeting the “non-partisan Tax Policy Center,” chief White House correspondent Major Garrett used multiple soundbites from senior fellow Howard Gleckman to hype that “an independent analysis says Trump's plan would…

August's seasonally adjusted Pending Home Sales Index value contained in the related press release from the National Association of Realtors was the lowest in the past five months, and 2 percent below April's level. Disclosing the size of the recent slump apparently wasn't considered important at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press. What was news at AP, whose Josh Boak…

Wait a second: wasn't it just this month that Hillary's handlers announced they were going to have her show a warm 'n fuzzy side, with more "heart?" So who was the genius who coached Clinton to announce that as president she would "impose much harsher restrictions" on financial institutions under Dodd-Frank? She'll "impose much harsher restrictions?" Brr! Isn't that the Stone Cold Hillary…