Economy

In 2009, according to financial information at nasdaq.com, the New York Times Company's revenues fell by over 17%. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company's full-time employee count shrunk by 1,681, or over 18%. Rumor has it that more layoffs are planned for 2010. Beginning almost a year ago, the company announced corporate salary cuts of 5%, negotiated similar cuts with newspaper guild…

Two reports linked by Instapundit earlier today demonstrate at a macro and micro level how weak the claim that Toyota has deliberately jeopardized consumer safety in connection with "sudden acceleration" complaints may ultimately turn out to be. The macro piece comes from Megan McArdle (pictured at left; "How Real are the Defects in Toyota's Cars?") at her blog at the Atlantic. The magazine's…

Yesterday, Jim Taranto at the Wall Street Journal's indispensable Best of the Web took note of a report by the Washington Post's V. Dion Hayes about the state of the employment market in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, and summarized its findings thusly: So what looks to the Post like good news that looks like bad news is actually bad news that looks like good news. Even that assessment turns out to…

Back during the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for vice president said it was "patriotic" for people to pay more taxes, in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America." But what if you don't have to pay more taxes legally? Biden's reasoning was simplistic - that we all need to "jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut…

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore and CNBC's Rick Santelli couldn't be more philosophically opposite. Style of argument differs too: Michael Moore assumes the worst in people that oppose his view. In a March 12 appearance on WNYC 93.9 FM/820 AM's "The Brian Lehrer Show," Moore was asked to react to Rick Santelli's February 2009 call for action against the Obama administration proposal to offer a…

Back on Christmas Eve of 2009, Obama's Treasury Dept. said it would lift the limits on what the federal government could provide in "emergency aid" to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - without seeking Congressional permission.  Very few reporters noticed, except for The Washington Post's Zachary Goldfarb who reported the story on Christmas Day and CNBC CME Group reporter and tea party inspiration…

Is it "crossing the line" to ban salt from use in restaurant kitchens? That's what MSNBC's Tamron Hall asked of her viewers shortly before 3 p.m. on March 11. To discuss the issue, she interviewed New York State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (D) on his proposed legislation calling for a ban of salt use in Empire State restaurant kitchens. Each violation would carry a $1,000 fine.Hall failed to balance…

The sour economy has forced many Americans to tighten belts, and everyday Americans expect the same from their government. But that's practically unconscionable to the Washington Post as witnessed by its March 10 article, "Va.budget plan would shrink general spending to 2006 levels."* Here's how Post staffers Rosalind Helderman and Fredrick Kunkle launched into their lament of the pending budget…

On Tuesday's Newsroom, CNN's Tony Harris applied liberal thinking on race to the unemployment rate, speculating if the debate over jobs would change if whites were out of work like minorities were: "I wonder what the discussion about jobs in this country would be like if the rate of white unemployment in this country was, say 15, 16 percent, as it is for African-Americans."Harris brought up the…

A report released Monday says that California's new global warming law will increase unemployment in the Golden State.The announcement was in stark contrast to continual claims by the Left and their media minions that proposed cap and trade legislation at the federal level will result in an explosion in green jobs.As reported by the Los Angeles Times Wednesday, the nation's most populated state,…

Rush mentioned this on the air as his show opened. It comes from the Associated Press, in a later paragraph of an Obama cheerleading item ("Obama pitches health plan in spirited appearance"; AP picture at right is from that story) by Julie Pace and David Espo. The paragraph in question opens by giving readers the impression that either Pace, Espo, or another AP person has actually seen language…

The economics of personality? The concept defies logic not to mention the laws of finance and accounting, but according to Newsweek's Eleanor Clift it wasn't the combination of President Ronald Reagan's attack on inflation and his low tax rates on individuals and businesses - but his personality that rescued the economy from the malaise of the early 1980s. On the "The McLaughlin Group" March 7…

It's bad enough that the Obama administration ("Obama administration encouraged by steady unemployment rate") and Harry Reid (see video snippet at link) both tried to pretend that February's Employment Situation Report issued by Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed that the official unemployment rate was the same as January's 9.7% and that 36,000 seasonally adjusted jobs had been…

Perhaps President Barack Obama might have preferred New York Times columnist Tom Friedman to reserve these comments for their golf outings together, but has Friedman recognized this path toward a larger government is unsustainable? On MSNBC's March 5 "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough recounted his childhood in the early 1970s and the poor economy. He explained there was a different focus -…