Economy

Yesterday, the initial one-sentence squib from the Associated Press on the Census Bureau's monthly housing construction release stated that "(A) Surge in apartments offsets weak single-family homes, pushing housing starts up 1.5 percent" (the headline reads the same). By the time AP real estate writer Derek Kravitz turned it into a full-blown report, the headline became "US housing starts…

According to CNN's Soledad O'Brien, the auto bailout led to a "pretty incredible resurgence" in the American auto industry. She grilled Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on Thursday morning over candidate Mitt Romney's previous opposition to the bailout, saying that his opposition and the auto industry's eventual success could become a "huge, huge problem" for the candidate. "[H]e was…

Seeing little hope for Republican chances against Obama in November on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer put this question to Donald Trump: "Isn't any Republican nominee going to have a problem, and that is, by all indications, the economy is getting stronger. So if you're the Republican nominee, how do you run against a recovering economy? How do you say, 'I'm not up with that'?"

At the top of Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams pleaded: "Why now? In a tight economy with so many Americans living on the financial edge, why are they being asked to pay so much more for gas?" Moments later, he warned: "...there's still one thing that could crush it all and ruin any hope for a real recovery right now, and that's the price of gas." Compare that sentiment to…

Today, President Obama visited Master Lock, a company he cited in his State of the Union speech on January 24 using the following words: "But right now, it's getting more expensive to do business in places like China. Meanwhile, America is more productive. A few weeks ago, the CEO of Master Lock told me that it now makes business sense for him to bring jobs back home. Today, for the first time…

On Monday, Calvin Woodward, with help from Martin Crutsinger and Pete Yost, produced a "Fact Check" on the budget proposal the White House released earlier that day. After properly criticizing the administration's plan to use "about $850 billion in savings from ending the wars and steers some $230 billion of that to highways" (and actually quoting someone knowledgeable, who pointed out that "…

It appears there's nothing MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski loves more than deficits as far as the eye can see. On Tuesday's Morning Joe, the perilously liberal co-host proudly displayed her Valentine's Day gift - Barack Obama's debt exploding budget proposal with lipstick kisses all over it (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Everybody, including yours truly, makes mistakes. But a major news organization should be able to catch whoppers like the ones readers will see shortly, or at least fix them in short order if they get posted. A Google search on the title of an ABC report on gas prices ("Bumpy Ride Ahead: Gas Prices May Soon Hit $4 a Gallon") at about 8:10 a.m. ET indicates that the story went up at about 6 p.…

On February 2, Blake Ellis at CNN Money (HT to a NewsBusters tipster), in an item which treated minor regulatory changes relating to annuities as some kind of "rescue plan" for retirees, gave President Obama credit for "measures ... (he) has put in place to help Americans save for retirement, including automatic enrollment in 401(k)s." There's no word on whether Ms. Ellis also believes that…

As NewsBusters reported earlier, CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Sunday was in full Barack Obama campaign mode. Before asking guest George Soros if he was going to create a Super PAC to help the current White House resident, Zakaria questioned the billionaire about whether or not Republicans "want the economy to stay weak in an election year" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

According to the Heritage Foundation Barack Obama’s policies, in just two years, have resulted in the number of Americans who rely on a federal program spiking by 23 percent to 67 million. Yet there was no mention of this grim figure on the Big Three network (ABC, CBS and NBC) evening or morning news programs. Since the study was released on Wednesday only Fox News and CNN have mentioned the…

Sometimes you read the most interesting things in those supposedly boring trade publications. One such item of interest comes from an article in Manufacturing News (HT to an emailer) written by Richard A. McCormack which is primarily about the Mainland China's designs on the worldwide auto parts industry, including the U.S. Some of the larger American unions are demanding that the…

National Journal's Ron Brownstein challenged the assumption that the Bush tax cuts created much economic growth, noting that they failed to stem the rising number of Americans living in poverty. Brownstein made his liberal points Thursday morning on CNN to guest Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.). "What in that record gives you confidence that extending those tax cuts will produce better economic…

On Monday (appearing in the print edition on Tuesday, New York Times op-ed columnist Joe Nocera gave President Barack Obama a pass for rejecting the Keystone Pipeline. In the process, he also complained about "the way our poisoned politics damages the country," and, in a revelation which shouldn't but did surprise him, learned that far-left environmentalists want to stop all tar sands…