Wages & Prices

Nothing like the cheery decade of the 1970s - disco dancing, "Animal House," Farrah Fawcett and the buzz word reincarnated by the media - stagflation. After a disappointing spike in inflation, the producer price index (PPI), by 1.0 percent in January, and a rise in core inflation (with food and energy costs excluded), rising 0.4 percent on Tuesday, the media have deemed it necessary to sound…

Fear not, ye economically downtrodden: Katie Couric is looking out for you. The "CBS Evening News" broadcasts over the last few months have found a multitude of ways to frame the U.S. economy in the worst possible ways, so much so that Couric compared CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason to the grim reaper on a recent newscast. But Couric offered a solution to the pending doom and gloom you…

It isn't home foreclosures, high gas prices or even the stock market being used to show the economy is heading for hell in a hand basket. No, this time the culprit is "two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun," otherwise known as the Big Mac. And ABC's Bianna Golodryga asks, "If Americans are saying goodbye to fast food, could we be saying…

It's really frightening to imagine that people who get the bulk of their news from Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" will be making what they probably think are educated decisions at the ballot box come Election Day. Stewart, who is now a self-proclaimed economist, said on his January 23 show, "Our economy is tanking." And now you can add financial media critic to Stewart's…

This is worse than a case of calling a glass "half-empty" when it is "half-full." This is like taking the glass and pouring it out. Deirdre Bolton, an anchor for Bloomberg TV, appeared on CBS's January 9 "The Early Show" to report on a survey of economists Bloomberg conducted January 3-8 about whether or not a recession is in the immediate future of the U.S. economy. "[W]ell, as you said the…

The economy is about to dive off a cliff and it's all President George W. Bush's fault, according to The New York Times editorial board. A January 2 Times editorial was pretty pessimistic about the economy in 2008, mocking Bush and forecasting doom. "As 2008 begins, house prices are still skidding, bank losses are still mounting, oil is again flirting with $100 a barrel and consumers are…

Just how bad is the economy doing? Well, according to Reuters, it's so bad out there that illegal aliens are heading back to Mexico. Almost sounds like a joke the late night hosts would make during their monologues, doesn't it? As a result, when I first saw this last evening (thanks to whoever sent it to me with apologies for not being able to identify who it was!), I thought it had to be a…

Since the stock and credit market turbulence began in July, NewsBusters has been informing readers that media continually predict recessions that never happen.On the sad flipside, bearishness in the press can become so pervasive that an economic downturn ends up being an unfortunate self-fulfilling prophecy.NewsBusters affiliate the Business and Media Institute made this very point in a late-…