Economy

Ever sweet on liberal Catholic nuns, CNN played up a group of nuns lambasting the Ryan budget and hosted one of the leaders, Sr. Simone Campbell, three times in three weeks for an interview. In contrast, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) appeared not once on the network to defend his budget during that time span. "You go, girls," CNN's Carol Costello cheered the "Nuns on the Bus" tour. The tour…

At the Associated Press, Christina Rexrode placed the blame for Monday's mediocre performance in the stock market squarely and obviously where it belonged: "Stocks struggled to stay out of the red in quiet holiday-week trading after a trade group said American manufacturing shrank in June for the first time in almost three years." The trade group involved is the Institute for Supply Management…

I'll bet it would shake people up to know that all of the recent and steep decline in consumer confidence has occurred in households earning $75,000 or more per year. On Friday, the June Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers told us just that. The key sentence in the U of M press release reads as follows (PDF; bold is mine): "Perhaps of greater importance was that…

Have your gas prices dropped in half in the past couple of months? Well, the geniuses over at MSNBC believe they have, for in the middle of a segment about fuel costs on the Martin Bashir show Wednesday, a chyron boldly stated, "Gas Prices Down 47% Since April and May" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

It might sound ridiculous, but Time magazine writer Michael Crowley actually grumbled in an article on Monday that the GOP presidential candidate is “One-Note Mitt” Romney, whose campaign defines this year's election as merely “a referendum on Obama's handling of the economy.” The author then noted that with “almost comical discipline,” Romney “steers virtually every topic” back to the…

Recent job cuts at Alabama newspapers have been steep. The Birmingham Business Journal, which (ahem) apparently is not among the participants, reports that "Three of Alabama’s largest daily newspapers, including the Birmingham News, will lay off about 400 employees as they cut back their printing schedules and increase their focus on digital." The other affected publications include the…

Alex Schriver, the Chairman of the College Republican National Committee, totally schooled MSNBC's new co-host Touré Neblett Tuesday on why young people in America aren't just Democrats. Schriver did such a marvelous job that you have to wonder if MSNBC's new program The Cycle will consider inviting him back on (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Obama-loving media might not want to address how bad the unemployment situation is in America under this President, but comedian Jimmie "JJ" Walker on CBS's Late Show Monday had a humorous observation about the current job market. "People are going out looking for work dressed as Mexicans" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

At the Associated Press today, trying to build an impression of momentum where there isn't very much, Martin Crutsinger, concerning today's Census Bureau release of May new-home sales data, wrote that, "Americans bought new homes in May at the fastest pace in more than two years. The increase suggests a modest recovery is continuing in the U.S. housing market, despite weaker job growth." We'…

If this were a prize fight, it would have ended at the end of the sixth round in a knockout. In a post at the American Enterprise Institute's blog this afternoon, James Pethokoukis, who previously toiled at U.S. News and Reuters, made mincemeat out of Washington Post reporter Tom Hamburger's Thursday Mitt Romney-Bain Capital hit piece ("Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that moved…

Here's an indication of just how discredited the word "stimulus" is becoming: European leaders today agreed on a $163 "growth package" of some kind. The leaders were apparently very reluctant to describe it. At a Los Angeles Times blog this morning, Sarah Delaney's coverage mostly bought into what appears to be a charade, but the headline writer at the paper's home page didn't get the memo.

A June 16-18 YouGov.com poll (at Page 25) reported that 47% of Americans in a sample of 1,000 U.S. citizens 18 and over had heard or heard about President Barack Obama's June 8 claim that "the private sector is doing fine." The reaction of John Sides, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at George Washington University, as picked up by Byron Tau at the Politico, is…

Last month’s jobs numbers were anything but encouraging.  The number of jobs that economists expected to be created was significantly lower than the actual number of jobs created.  Unemployment rose to 8.2% and underemployment rose to nearly 15%.  The Wall Street Journal reported that “U.S. job growth slowed sharply in May, the latest indication that the economy has lost momentum.”  Yet,…

The Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC Monday night featured New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. During the supportive chat, Keynesian Krugman again asserted that more federal spending would have headed off what he calls our current Depression: