Economy

The press is good at putting the most positive spin possible on the monthly job-market news. But at the same time, many of its members still claim that food stamp enrollment remains as high as it is because of the lingering effects of the (Bush did it) recession. On Friday, following the release of August's employment numbers, Obama administration Labor Secretary Tom Perez celebrated how "…

The Obama administration-prepared koolaid delivered to the Associated Press's economics writers on Monday must have been extraordinarily concentrated. How else can you explain how the AP's Christopher Rugaber could have written the following — "The U.S. job market has steadily improved by pretty much every gauge except ... Pay" — without doubling over with laughter? No, Chris. The reason pay…

Joe Scarborough scoffs at Thomas Friedman's suggestion that the way to confront ISIS is for the US to adopt a carbon tax and permit oil exports.

On Wednesday, the New York Post reported that in addition to Matt Lauer's $20 million annual salary, NBC News recently agreed to start flying the Today co-host back and forth from work to his lavish estate in the Hamptons. Such details of Lauer's one percent lifestyle stand in stark contrast to the common-man image he projects on the morning show. In fact, Lauer has frequently used his media…

If reform-conservative pundit Reihan Salam gets his way, Mitt Romney will join Ronald Reagan on the list of Republican governors of coastal states who were elected president of the United States on their third try. In a Friday column for Slate, Salam wrote that he’s “delighted” about “speculation” that Romney “is at least considering another presidential run.” Salam argued that if Romney does…

In a Wednesday report on the Congressional Budget Office's downward revision of this year's predicted gross domestic product growth to a dismal 1.5 percent, the Associated Press's Andrew Taylor acted as if the Obama administration's prediction of 2.6 percent still has a realistic chance of occurring. While one never wants to absolutely say never, the administration's higher prediction would…

The news media think that because gas prices have fallen to an average of $3.43-a-gallon there is room to rejoice, even as the record streak of gas prices above $3-a-gallon continues. By Labor Day that record will stand at 1,349 days. ABC’s “Good Morning America” praised the “nice surprise” of lower gas prices on Aug. 26, just in time for Labor Day weekend.

Ever since fast food chain Burger King announced its desire to purchase Canadian coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons, CBS has done its best to play up the supposed backlash the company will face as it moves its headquarters overseas to lower its tax burden.  On Wednesday morning, following the news that billionaire investor Warren Buffett is helping finance the merger, CBS This Morning made…

Former Florida Republican Governor Charlie won the state's Democratic gubernatorial primary tonight. In his writeup on Crist's defeat of an overmatched challenger, the Politico's James Hohmann wrote that "Only four years ago Crist was a governor who had run for office as a rock-ribbed conservative." That wording is a bit too clever. One might argue that Hohmann is merely claiming that Crist…

Don’t look now, but there may be a Paul Ryan scandal, or at least a scandalette, and in this context New York magazine blogger Jonathan Chait is both Woodward and Bernstein. In a Monday post, Chait related that Ryan, in the newsmagazine The Week, had named his “six favorite books about economics and democracy,” and that the “huge omission” from the list was Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which…

On Tuesday's CNN Newsroom, Carol Costello refreshingly complimented Burger King's planned merger with Canadian restaurant chain Tim Hortons as a "very smart business move" that will "save the company money." Costello turned to CNN correspondent Christine Romans, who spotlighted how "corporate taxes are lower in Canada than they are in the U.S.," and that "the stock is up because everyone on…

For the second day in a row, CBS did its best to hype opposition to fast food chain Burger King after it announced plans to purchase Canadian coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons and relocate to Canada to lower its tax burden.  On Tuesday, CBS This Morning fill-in anchor Anthony Mason introduced a segment by boosting how “Main street and some in Washington are fuming about the fast food…

Someone must have slipped the wrong data to the Associated Press's Josh Boak yesterday before he composed his dispatch on the Census Bureau's latest report on new home sales. Boak got the current month's news right, though likely by accident (like almost everyone else in the business press, he relies on seasonally adjusted figures, and rarely goes to the unadjusted data), telling readers that…