Economy

The Fiscal Times is a generally strong and informative online publication. That said, it has occasionally exhibits symptoms of what could be seen as either serious leftist bias, quite disappointing ignorance, or both. One such example arrived in my email box early this morning. It contained the following headline and opening tease for a story about the food stamp program:

On today's Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski suffered a bad bout of PKSD: Post Kiss Stress Disorder.  After a clip was rolled of John Boehner blowing kisses at a reporter, Mika got all verklempt, exclaiming "I know a lot of dirty old men who did that to me. I'm throwing up. That brought back bad memories."   Things got so bad for poor Mika that she eventually fled the set and had to be coaxed back.

Who said: "I've always believed the decline of the middle class could be tied to the decline of unions. And when you have 7%, 8% of the work force in unions, when you have CEO pay going up to record heights, you're going to have a hollowing out of the middle class." Was it a. Elizabeth Warren; b. Robert Reich; or c. Ed Schultz? Correct answer: d. None of the above.  It was Joe Scarborough on…

In a classic example of phony political jujitsu, an MSNBC contributor has tried to turn the patriotism issue back against Republicans. Appearing on today's Ed Show, Steve Clemons attacked the "patriotism" of GOP congressional leaders, accusing them of "undermining the security of the nation."   This because Republicans have attached amendments to the DHS funding bill denying funds for President…

On Friday, Jim Kuhnhenn at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, seemed to enjoy President Barack Obama's rant against Republicans and others grossly dissatisfied with the economy's performance on his watch. He described Obama as "taunting Republicans" in his speech at the Democratic Party's winter meeting in Washington. The wire service itself seems less enamored of Kuhnhenn's…

Thursday on his Your World show, host Neil Cavuto went after the Obama administration's near obsession with the coverage it gets on Fox News. While Team Obama can count on the Big Three triumvirate of ABC, CBS and NBC to toe the line, promoting its points while generally avoiding damning information, Fox has generally remained fair and balanced, an approach which has clearly gotten under their…

On February 12, in a report on inventories, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger referred to an economist who believed, in Crutsinger's words, "that the economy expanded at a 2 percent annual rate in the final three months of the year (2014)." That result would be a fairly significant downward revision to the 2.6 percent rate the government estimated in late January. The next day,…

The American Prospect’s Paul Waldman argues that “anti-intellectualism has often been an effective way for Republicans to stir up class resentment while distracting from economic issues. It says to voters…[d]on't aim your disgruntlement at Wall Street, or corporations that don't pay taxes, or the people who want to keep wages low and make unions a memory. Point it in a different direction, at…

The federal government today reported a $17.5 billion budget deficit for January. That brings this fiscal year's shortfall through four months to $194.2 billion, up from $182.8 billion during the same period last year. As usual, the Associated Press's coverage, this time delivered by Martin Crutsinger, named the nation's "Worst Economic Writer" by National Review's Kevin Williamson two years ago…

It wasn't what CNBC hosts Simon Hobbs nor Sarah Eisen expected or wanted to hear. In stark contrast to the upbeat Federal Reserve forecasts, Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist of Mizuho Securities weighed in with a distinctly glum picture of the near future.  

On successive front pages Saturday and Sunday, the New York Times hit from the left presidential prospects from each party: liberal Democrat Hillary Clinton and Bobby Jindal, the conservative Republican governor of Louisiana.

Yesterday, in a column at his organization's web site, the head of the nation's leading polling organization called the government's official unemployment rate, currently at 5.6 percent, a "big lie." Rest assured that if Gallup Inc. Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton had written this column during a Republican or conservative administration, his words would have been picked up by the Associated Press…

On Friday, the government reported that the nation's economy, as measured in its real gross domestic product, grew at an annual rate of 2.6 percent during last year's final quarter, sharply trailing analysts' consensus predictions ranging from 3.0 percent to 3.6 percent. As is the case after the first version of every GDP report, economy watchers have been trying to estimate the effect other…

ABC's Good Morning America on Tuesday ignored the massive new budget proposed by Barack Obama (and the tax increases contained within). NBC's Today, despite four hours of air time, allowed a scant 23 seconds. But in that brief period, news reader Natalie Morales spun, "President Obama unveiling a record $4 trillion budget on Monday aimed at helping the poor and middle class."