Personal Finance

Someone needs to tell me why this news about discretionary income isn't as significant as I believe it is. But first, three warnings: 1. I'm not about to spend the $250 needed to read the full report from the Conference Board that backs the story (their "about" page is here). 2. I don't feel totally comfortable with how the statistic is measured -- "Households with discretionary income, as…

What could be more timely than a study about debt? With all the networks crying about oil prices and threats to the economy, consumers are feeling squeezed. Director of the Business & Media Institute, Dan Gainor appeared on the Fox Business Channel today to talk about the Culture & Media Institute and Business & Media Institute joint study, "DEBT Who'$ responsible?" That found…

NewsBusters has been reporting for the last several years that in the midst of the media's fascination with global warming alarmism, the financial ramifications of proposed solutions to this potentially nonexistent problem have been almost universally ignored. On Tuesday, the Washington Post boldly broke with such disingenuousness by publishing a shocking front page article entitled "Climate is…

At OpinionJournal.com on Thursday ("Fair but Unbalanced -- How the media promote false pessimism about the economy"), Brian Wesbury, who has written several times on the disconnect between the strong economy and the public's perception of it (previous references here, here, here, here, and here), had another generally stellar column about what is nonetheless a relatively small piece of the…

The lesson from this post isn't bias as much as it is making sure not to get taken in by Old Media overreactions. Jim Cramer of CNBC's "Mad Money" went mad on Friday, declaring Armageddon in this video rant on Friday (watch the whole thing to see just how out-of-control he was; his declaration is at 1:40 in the vid -- "in the fixed-income markets, we have Armageddon."). The first trading day…

Here's the opening of today's Associated Press report about the July Consumer Confidence Index (bolds are mine): Consumer confidence hit a six-year high in July, a widely watched gauge of sentiment showed on Tuesday, as Americans shrugged off falling home prices to focus on a healthy jobs market, instead. The New York-based Conference Board said that its Consumer Confidence Index, rebounded to…

Expanding on Media Research Center's July 30 CyberAlert and a similar post at NewsBusters (bold is mine): Nets Barely Notice Surge in GDP as They Focus on Dow Plunge The ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts on Friday all devoted full stories to the fall in the stock market, touted as "the worst two-day point drop for the Dow in five years," but barely had time for a sentence about the 3.4 percent…

Last week's economic report couldn't have been much rosier. The economy grew at a faster-than-expected rate, faster than any time in over a year. But far from sparking runaway prices, inflation actually moderated. But that didn't stop the Axis of Gloom, AKA the New York Times and its Beantown subsidiary the Boston Globe from publishing op-ed items this morning finding the cloud on the silver…

Colorado journalists and politicians who fell in line and attempted the bogus "Food Stamp Challenge" probably didn't anticipate that a Colorado blogger would call them out, and then call their bluff. But that is exactly what happened. In June, Colorado Freedom Report's Ari Armstrong challenged those in that state's media and political class who swallowed the claim that Food Stamp recipients can't…