Economy

After depicting the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ car buying program as a "runaway success" on Friday, on Tuesday’s Early Show, correspondent Nancy Cordes argued: "The Department of Transportation says the program has been great for the environment. 80% of the clunkers have been pickups or SUVs, traded in for new cars with an average mileage nearly 10 miles per gallon higher."Following that declaration…

Well, it only took them about 3-1/2 months.Yours truly and others have since April noted a precipitous and likely historic dive in Uncle Sam's monthly collections. Year-over-year declines actually began last summer. The degree of monthly fall-offs has gotten "progressively" worse since then.Yesterday, the Associated Press finally went beyond blandly reciting year-to-date comparisons to note the…

Is there a double standard in how the struggling economy is being portrayed during the Obama presidency vs. the Bush administration? While the 1% contraction in the economy reported by the Commerce Department on Friday was seen as a "hopeful sign" by the New York Times, "crystallizing expectations of a turnaround," actual economic growth of 1.9% during the Bush years was just another "arrow" seen…

Of the three network morning shows, only ABC highlighted a new study by the Heritage Foundation that reported how the federal government's massive spending will average almost $34,000 per household in 2009, up $8000 from last year. On Monday, Good Morning America news anchor Chris Cuomo also appeared amazed at wasteful, bureaucratic errors: "Seventy two billion dollars spent by our government to…

A common theme of the new administration and their media minions is that all the problems associated with the economy and the rising budget deficits are George W. Bush's fault.On Sunday's "This Week," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said (video available here, relevant section at 9:40):Remember we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. The cumulative consequences of the policies this country…

(image found at realitycheck.org)See if you think these two assertions mean the same thing:Small businesses pay up to 18 percent more per worker than large firms for the same health insurance policy..... small businesses pay up to 18 percent more per worker to provide health insurance for their employees.Of course they don't mean the same thing. But to the Associated Press's Tom Raum, they…

In today's "How's That Voodoonomics Working Out For You" segment, despite considering a 0.4 percent decline in the nation's Gross Domestic Product a calamity when George W. Bush was President, America's media applauded Friday's announcement that the GDP in the second quarter declined by one percent.Of course, this is not at all surprising, for many of these same outlets cheered when businesses…

Unless you are hopelessly liberal and/or drinking WAY too much Kool-Aid, you are fully aware that President Obama and his Democrat minions on Capitol Hill can't get enough money from the so-called rich to pay for all the programs they're proposing.On Saturday, such an inconvenient truth was actually revealed by none other than the New York Times:"This idea that everything new that government…

A year ago, when the government reported second quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) doubled from the first quarter to 1.9 percent, the CBS Evening News centered a story around what Katie Couric described as “disappointing” news while ABC and NBC didn't utter a syllable about the GDP jump. But Friday night, with a different President in office, Couric crowed a one percent decline in the 2009…

Life in the Workers' Paradise of Cuba is a bit less than perfect these days. So is the absurd headline that begins an Associated Press story by writer Will Weissert:Oh come on.

Reporting on the Obama administration’s ‘Cash for Clunkers’ car buying program running out of money, CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes offered a mixed message: "‘Cash for Clunkers’ has been such a runaway success....The program is so popular...word spread it would be suspended...because of fears that sales would soon swallow up the $1 billion for rebates the government had set aside."At the top of…

In an open letter sent today to ABC News President David Westin, NewsBusters.org Publisher Brent Bozell questioned the ethics of ABC as a "news" network and wondered "how in the world can anyone take ABC seriously" after it was announced that ABC News has hired Democratic donor Dr. Richard Besser to be their new Senior Medical Editor.The letter begins here, and continues in its entirety below the…

The zoo I'm referring to is the Franklin Park Zoo (FPZ), not the Massachusetts state legislature, although the slang version of the word's meaning likely applies there as well.As reported in a July 10 Boston Globe story, in reaction to Patrick's line-item veto of $4 million of the FPZ's $6.5 million annual subsidy, Zoo New England, which runs the FPZ's two zoo sites, ".... in a written statement…

Newsweek magazine had yesterday a web exclusive entitled "What Green Jobs?"  Subtitled:  "Washington is spending $60 billion to create the careers of the future, but not a single green job yet exists. Obama's 'green czar' explains."The Leftist publication deserves some plaudits for exploring this $60 billion gaping hole in the $787 billion "stimulus" package President Barack Obama signed into law…