Bloomberg: Yale Endowment-Targeting Connecticut Is 'Cash-Strapped'
In a variation on a popular saying in real estate — "The three most important factors are location, location and location" — the State of Connecticut, since Democrat Dannel Malloy became Governor five years ago, has employed three strategies to balance its budget: raising taxes, raising taxes, and raising taxes.
The Nutmeg State's next planned round of tax increases includes a proposal pushed by…
Press, Reacting to Dismal Consumer Spending News: Better Days Ahead
For the past month, the conventional wisdom about the U.S. economy has been that consumer spending and "(not really) robust" job growth will continue to prop up the economy, even as weaknesses in manufacturing, trade and other areas continue to present problems. President Obama bragged in early March that the economy is "pretty darned good now."
Today, the first of those two pillars got pulled.…
Press Ignores Bibi's Truth: 'Terrorists Have No Resolvable Grievances'
If we had today's establishment press covering America just before the Revolution, few would have learned of Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me to death!" If they had been covering the Revolutionary War itself, there would have been a blackout on Nathan Hale's "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
Today's establishment press does anything and everything it can…
Feb. Home Sales Dive: Press Ignores Realtors' Concerns About Economy
Ridicule by media critics has apparently made some headway against the business press's annoying habit of describing bad news about the economy as having occurred "unexpectedly." Now they seem to be reserving the "U-word" for unexpected improvements, which haven't been seen very much during the past seven-plus years.
Instead, reacting to today's bad news from the National Association of Realtors…
Not News: Economy's Wholesale Sales at a Four-Year Low
Actual sales at the wholesale level in January, as reported today by the Census Bureau, fell sharply from December. That's to be expected. But this time was different — really different, because the drop was to a level lower than January 2012, i.e., four years ago.
Four press outlets which covered today's release either missed (or ignored) this shocking news. They only told readers about what…
Press Euphoria Over Jobs Report Blows Off Lower Hourly Pay, Earnings
The press is mostly thrilled over yesterday's Employment Situation Summary from the government, which reported that the unemployment rate stayed at 4.9 percent and that the economy added 242,000 seasonally adjusted payroll jobs. President Barack Obama took the opportunity to take what CNBC's Jeff Cox described as "a victory lap ... in Friday remarks to the media."
Well, why not? Obama was secure…
Bloomberg Writer: 'Economic Growth Isn't Everything'
Observers can be excused for thinking that the politicial establishment is preparing the battlespace to convince us plebes that progress and economic growth are overrated. (That's sort of odd for people who call themselves "progressives," but making sense is not their strong suit.)
How interesting, for example, that Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon's book, The Rise and Fall of…
Press Ignores Compelling Reason Why 4th Quarter GDP May Further Weaken
As has been its habit during the Obama administration when the economy turns in a poor performance, the press's coverage of yesterday's report on U.S. economic growth focused on how much better next quarter's news will supposedly be. Especially in this instance, the beat reporters and pundits should have looked at whether or not yesterday's initial result will hold up, or whether it's likely to…
Conservative Politics May Hurt Curt Schilling’s Hall of Fame Chances
Culture
Being a conservative got you down? Maybe people are looking at you weird? Not holding the elevator when they see you running up? Co-workers preventing you from being copied on all those invites to office parties? Voters trying to keep you from being enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame?
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Year-End Awards: The ‘Harsh to the Huddled Masses’ Award
This week, NewsBusters is presenting the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” our annual awards for the year’s worst journalism. Today, the “Harsh to the Huddled Masses” award, for attacks on the GOP candidates for their supposed hostility to immigration. Winning the trophy: Yahoo! News anchor Katie Couric for suggesting to GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz that he lacked “…
Press Exaggerates Nov. Existing-Home Sales Plunge by Ignoring Raw Data
The business press worships at the altar of seasonally adjusted data. Most journalists covering the economy don't even bother looking at raw, not seasonally adjusted data, which in layman's terms is best understood as "what actually happened." As I have shown for nearly a decade, this is often a big mistake.
On the rare occasions when reporters take the initiative to look at the raw data, they…
Absurd Reuters: Today's Homebuilding News 'Signals Economic Strength'
Reuters and reporter Lucia Mutikani went way overboard today in reacting to today's residential construction news from the Census Bureau.
Mutikani's headline contended that today's "housing data signals economic strength," while a section title claimed that there are "strong housing fundamentals." That can only possibly be true if one believes the world began in 2007.
Sean Penn Denies Existence of Climate Skeptics, Says Fox 'Like a Cult'
Business
Climate skeptics don’t exist, according to actor, activist and socialist sympathizer Sean Penn.
They’re just cult followers of Fox news programming.
Media Miss: Year-Over-Year Oct. Existing Home Sales Up 1%, Not 4%
Gosh, this gets tiresome.
Once again, with one noteworthy exception, the business press's virtually blind acceptance of seasonally adjusted economic data, and its accompanying refusal to look at the underlying raw data, led it to paint a deceptive picture of an important element of the economy. This time, it was existing home sales for October. The seasonally adjusted annual rate for October…
