Economy

Both President Obama and leading Republican candidate Mitt Romney got into hot water for supposedly making insensitive comments about the economy this week. But CNN's response offers a textbook case of media bias, as the supposedly-objective news network virtually ignored Obama's gaffe while trumpeting Romney's comment. President Obama poked fun at the ineffectiveness of his own stimulus…

Thursday morning, initial weekly unemployment claims as reported by Uncle Sam's Department of Labor came in at a seasonally adjusted 414,000. It was 16,000 lower than the previous week's upwardly revised (as usual) number, but certainly no indicator in and of itself of meaningful improvement. The housing industry data really wasn't any better. True, the seasonally adjusted figures from the…

For years America's media have been enthralled by anything that supports the theory that carbon dioxide is warming the planet leading to an imminent cataclysm if governments don't regulate this partially man-made gas. By contrast, reports that might undermine CO2's importance in global warming, like the following released Tuesday by the AAS Solar Physics Division in Las Cruces, New Mexico,…

Update (11:55 a.m. EDT): MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts just mentioned the 62% spike in Pelosi's net worth, attributing it mostly to her husband's real estate dealings. As my colleague Noel Sheppard noted today, the media have largely ignored the fact that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has seen an astonishing 62 percent spike in her net worth over last year. Yet in a June 16…

It is no longer a secret that President Obama's administration is willing to allow electricity prices to "necessarily skyrocket," in order to accomplish his green energy agenda. Although he has so far been unsuccessful at instituting cap-and-trade, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hard at work running coal companies and consumers into the ground. Not that you'd know it from…

Last week, in a much-discussed, open, live, televised forum, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, asked Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke the $64 trillion question. While most commentators focused on the apt question, it was Bernanke's answer that shocked me when I heard it — and ought to shock the nation much more than it so far has. Question: "Now we're told there are going to be…

On the June 14 edition of NBC's "Today," President Barack Obama ascribed part of the blame for the high unemployment rate to ATMs, yet most media outlets continue to ignore the gaffe. "There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers," lectured Obama in an interview with NBC's Ann Curry. "You see it…

Christy Romero, the acting Special Inspector General for the TARP bank bailout program, told the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday that the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law may not end the “too big to fail” policy and the moral hazard surrounding it. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee’s Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee, Romero said…

As has been the case virtually from the beginning, the Associated Press's Scott Bauer has been clearly unhappy with 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, commonly known even to the Wisconsin Supreme Court as the "Budget Repair Bill." Today, the court ruled that the law as enacted by the Badger State's legislature and signed by Governor Scott Walker can go into effect on July 1. Looking back at what's…

CBS hounded four Republicans from the left during a town hall on the economy which aired on Tuesday's Early Show. Bob Schieffer, Erica Hill, and Rebecca Jarvis pressed Reps. Paul Ryan and Allen West, Senator Tom Coburn, and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to consider tax hikes to deal with the deficit. Schieffer also specifically accused the three members of Congress of "doing nothing" to…

If I'd heard the following words, instead of reading them, I might have assumed they were being delivered by a President Obama impressionist on "Saturday Night Live." But the words were from Obama himself in his latest weekly radio address. "I wish I could tell you there was a quick fix to our economic problems," he said. "But the truth is we didn't get into this mess overnight, and we won't…

In an interview with President Obama on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry fretted over Republican calls for spending cuts before raising the nation's debt limit: "Do you think they're bluffing, given how financially disastrous it would be for the United States not to have the debt ceiling raised? And are you willing to make deep spending cuts?" Obama laughably claimed: "Well, keep in…

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Headline changed to "Goofy." The next time one of your liberal friends tells you there isn't any bias in the media, show him or her the following headline published Tuesday by CNN Money's senior writer Jeanne Sahadi. "Wingnut Debt Ceiling Demands" was actually placed directly above a picture of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, former Alaska governor…