Economy

If you watched any television newscasts Friday, or read a paper Saturday, you were bombarded with claims of doom and gloom as a result of the August unemployment report showing 4,000 fewer people on American payrolls than in July. Yet, what media largely ignored were shifting sociological population dynamics indicating this summer's poor jobs gains could be caused by the smallest percentage of…

SPOILS1. a. Goods or property seized from a victim after a conflict, especially after a military victory. b. Incidental benefits reaped by a winner, especially political patronage enjoyed by a successful party or candidate.2. An object of plunder; prey.3. Refuse material removed from an excavation.4. Archaic The act of plundering; spoliation.Something about the weekend seems to bring out the…

In a subscription-only editorial yesterday, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member Stephen Moore notes that many countries in the rest of the world, including a few you'd never expect, are adopting the tax-cutting policies of Ronald Reagan, to their benefit: Earlier this year the cover of Time Magazine depicted Ronald Reagan with a tear running down his cheek -- the message being that the…

You're a liberal. You've identified a problem -- the massive loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States; a net loss of 4.6 million jobs over the last 20 years. You've even done a decent job of identifying the causes of the problem: "Companies lose market share to foreign low-cost producers . . . or move their operations overseas in search of lower wages . . . or apply production…

The week had a gusher of economic news, and most of it was favorable: Thursday, 2nd Quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was revised sharply upward to 4.0% from July's initial estimate of 3.4%; the final GDP number for the second quarter comes out in late September.The most comprehensive quarterly housing report issued, from the government's Office for Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), showed…

The Drudge Report has a front-page headline about the good news from the economy this morning. The headline links to an extensive story in Bloomberg News covering the economic news in detail. But it seems that for the majority of the media, this is not news that they wish to highlight.While the New York Times did not appear to consider this news as important as the report on the Viriginia Tech…

Most Americans understand that unemployment declining is a good thing. Yet, the folks at the Associated Press seem confused about this economic statistic as evidenced by an article published Saturday entitled "Help Wanted Ads Go Unanswered in West." In fact, contrary to a media fixated on bashing corporations and business owners as greedy little devils, Matt Gouras' piece actually elicited…

Last night, it occurred to me, as I was preparing an e-mail to notify New York Times business columnist David Cay Johnston about updates to yesterday's original posts (NewsBusters;

The powerful "manufacturing is in decline" meme won't go away soon, but it should. It apparently isn't enough that the Institute for Supply Management's Manufacturing Index has read "expansion" in 48 of the past 50 months. It has become an article of faith among reporters and opportunistic politicians that American manufacturing has been, and continues to be, in a long-term decline. The fact is…