Economy

The news in two government reports on the economy today was not good. One showed that initial unemployment claims last week rose to a seasonally adjusted 348,000; raw (not seasonally adjusted) claims were virtually identical to last year's comparable week. To avoid the dreaded U-word ("unexpectedly"), a pair of Bloomberg News reporters described the result as "exceeding all forecasts." In the…

This morning at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Martin Crutsinger reacted predictably to the Census Bureau's January new home sales release by commenting primarily on the forest while mostly ignoring the widely divergent health of the trees. Though he compared January to December for the country's four regions, he failed to note that three of them reported the same or…

It would be easy to dismiss the attempt by the leftist groups Credo Mobilize and Forecast the Facts to prevent the Washington Post from publishing Charles Krauthammer's February 20 column ("The Myth of 'Settled Science'") as the whining of immature children who cover their ears and say "la-la, we can't hear you, and we're going to shut you up" every time they come across inconvenient facts.…

In a complete non-surprise given their officials' reactions last week, the United Auto Workers union has filed an appeal with the National Labor Relations Board of the election they lost at Volkswagen's Chattanooga, Tennessee plant. As would be expected for an organization whose journalists are members of the News Media Guild, a Friday evening report by Associated Press reporters Tom Raum and…

  MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell on Friday openly plotted strategy with a senior Democratic adviser, complimenting him on successful efforts to convince Americans think that raising the debt ceiling wasn't "running up the credit card." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Mitchell talked to Doug Hattaway, a member of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. She praised, "You were one of…

As much as MSNBC's left-wing prime time hosts portray themselves to be on the side of the workers, none of the anchors have responded to 10,000 petitions delivered to the network on Thursday from NBC writers and producers demanding more workplace rights. Talking to TVNewser, Writers Guild of America East communications director Jason Gordon pointed out the hypocrisy of the liberal channel: "…

According to a USA Today item carried at ABC News, "Sixty percent of adults can't drink milk." In July 2012, the New York Times ran an item entitled, "Got Milk? You Don't Need It." But the last time I checked, everyone uses electricity to some extent. I'm bringing up these points because, as a friend showed me earlier today, the establishment press has run stories galore in the past several…

CNN's Carol Costello might as well have read from a Think Progress cheat sheet when she battled conservative economist Stephen Moore over wages and economics on Wednesday. Moore, for his part, gave her a lesson in economics. Starting with the recent CBO estimate that President Obama's minimum wage proposal would cost a half million jobs, Costello argued that it was just an estimate and that…

The Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, had an interesting pair of headlines near the top of its raw feed yesterday. The first headline used the typical "Republicans attack" approach any time President Obama does something objectionable, which has been quite often. The headline was "Issa Rails Against Obama's 'Imperial Presidency.'" Of course, reporter Steve Peoples didn't let…

The January 2014 New Residential Construction report released by the Census Bureau this morning was very weak. Building permits fell from December by a seasonally adjusted 5.4% (-1.3% for single-family homes). Housing starts fell by 16.0% (-15.9% single-family. The annualized single-family starts figure of 573,000 was the lowest in 17 months. Naturally, Martin Crutsinger at the Associated…

While all three broadcast networks happily promoted President Obama's crusade to hike the minimum wage following his State of the Union address, NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America only managed to provide a scant 42 seconds of coverage on Wednesday to a new Congressional Budget Office study showing such a move would cause 500,000 people to lose their jobs. Wednesday's CBS This Morning…

CNBC’s Rick Santelli recalled the five-year anniversary of the stimulus, housing bailout and blowing “a gasket” during “Squawk on the Street” today. “On Feb. 19 I blew a gasket. But basically, what was born at that point was the voice of dissension. How do we know that? Many of course still remember the IRS issues. President said maybe there wasn’t a smidgen of, of, of negativity there or…

Five years ago, CNBC’s Rick Santelli reacted to the possibility of a mortgage bailout with frustration on live television. Quickly, his speech on the trading floor became known as the “rant heard round the world.” Santelli, an on-air editor who reports live from the Chicago Board of Trade, is frequently interviewed during “Squawk Box” and “Squawk on the Street.” It was during one of those…

CBS was the only network on Tuesday evening to highlight a CBO report that President Obama's proposal to hike the minimum wage would cost 500,000 jobs. The CBO report was released Tuesday afternoon and estimated that the wage increase would boost 900,000 Americans above the poverty line but would also result in the loss of half a million jobs. CBS was the only network to report the news;…