Wages & Prices

The student loan industry has been too cozy with colleges and universities and has harmed students, at least that’s what the media say.

“For weeks, an investigation of the student loan business has been scrutinizing whether close ties between lenders and colleges have enriched them at the expense of debt-laden students,” explained the May 29 USA Today.

But that investigation has been an anti-industry “crusade” waged by liberal New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and the media have been fighting alongside him.

What do you get when you add a liberal think tank study, another liberal “expert, and CBS “Evening News?” You get a doom-and-gloom story about baby boomers remaining in the work force as “an economic necessity” that ignores relevant information.

“The 78 million baby boomers are starting to think about retirement, but for many of them, that’s all they’ll be able to do. Think about it. Two new reports out today show many will have to retire much later than they thought,” said anchor Katie Couric.

Couric also said, “While boomers may be better educated and better paid than their parent, they’re not necessarily better off.”

Now don’t despair boomers. There is something Couric and correspondent Nancy Cordes didn’t tell you.

In the You-Can’t-Make-This-Up Department, ‘In the Money’ show reporter Polly Labarre complained employees don’t get enough time off. We’ve got it so darn bad, according to the folks at CNN, “we work more than medieval peasants used to work.”

Ordinarily, I’d debunk that June 9 report, pointing out that peasants had to work dawn to dusk eking out a living little better than slaves. But it’s so ridiculous, why bother?

Like so much in the media, this little nugget comes from another goofy group that the media miraculously fail to ignore. It’s called the “Take Back Your Time” movement. The group has a long list of demands of more time off for Americans and Canadians.

"America's CEOs are raking in big, huge, fat wads of cash," said CNN's Stephanie Elam on the June 11 "American Morning." More specifically, Elam was talking about Yahoo! chairman Terry Semel's pay from last year: $71.7 million.

Elam and "American Morning" host John Roberts then concluded that high CEO pay is justified as long as the company is doing well, the exact opposite of previous comments made on the show.

Elam: "At the same time, Yahoo! stock was down 35 percent last year and he [Semel] is still making more and more money."

While past ABC reports have mourned the hardship facing the American auto industry, ABC aired liberal support for higher fuel efficiency standards that would make competition more difficult and manufacturing more expensive.

But reporter Dean Reynolds gave almost no time to the auto industry in his June 7 “World News with Charles Gibson” story.

Reynolds cited left-wing Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Phyllis Cuttino of Pew’s Campaign for a Fuel Efficient America.

“We have better cup holders in cars, we have better music systems in cars – that’s all good,” Dorgan said, “But the fact is we need cars that are more efficient.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal Supreme Court justice, took the unusual step of reading from the bench her dissent against the Court's recent 5-4 ruling in a case against pay disparity in the workplace. The New York Times' Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse celebrated Ginsburg's activism in her Thursday "Supreme Court Memo," "Oral Dissents Give Ginsburg a New Voice on Court."

"Whatever else may be said about the Supreme Court's current term, which ends in about a month, it will be remembered as the time when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg found her voice, and used it.

"Both in the abortion case the court decided last month and the discrimination ruling it issued on Tuesday, Justice Ginsburg read forceful dissents from the bench. In each case, she spoke not only for herself but also for three other dissenting colleagues, Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer.

On Thursday’s "Good Morning America," the ABC program repeated anti-Wal-Mart talking points from the liberal group Wake-up Wal-Mart. Reporter Bianna Golodryga explained that the segment, which discussed recent company woes, was based on a confidential memo given to the network:

Bianna Golodryga: "...Wake-Up Wal-Mart, a union financed group highly critical of the retailer has provided ABC News with a confidential memo from a former ad agency with a dire warning."

The memo, which is six months old and amounts to nothing more than an embarrassing behind the scenes discussion of Wal-Mart’s strategy to market high-end goods, seemed to simply be a pretext for GMA to bash the company. Golodryga piled on, noting that "the leaked memo is just another blow to a company which has experienced its share of blunders this year, ranging from sexual discrimination lawsuits to a recent war of words with a fired ad executive." The segment also featured a representative from the left-wing Wake up Wal-Mart group slamming the company’s "poor values," while having nobody on to defend it:

The American left loves to chant "no blood for oil." But those same liberals would eagerly sacrifice American interests in the name of . . . a cheaper Caesar salad.

Take this morning's report on CNN which came at about 7:35 am EDT. Entitled "Farm-Fresh Problems," the segment, narrated by CNN's Chris Lawrence, focused on the lack of illegal immigrant labor to harvest California's fruit and vegetable crops.

CNN REPORTER CHRIS LAWRENCE: California harvests about half the nation's fruits and vegetables and every summer, farmers need half-a-million workers to pick those crops. But the crackdown on illegal immigrants is keeping workers out of their fields, leaving unpicked fruit left to rot.

HENRY VEGA [California farmer]: They're definitely worried about being raided and deported.

View video here.

It’s the age gap, stupid.

USA Today’s article on the “generation gap” in income and wealth has the power to revolutionize media coverage of “income inequality.” It’s not inequality between people in general that’s growing, Dennis Cauchon’s report said – it’s inequality between generations. Young people are delaying careers for more education, marrying later and even getting their inheritances later. Meanwhile, retirees are living longer and living off the payments of those same youngsters.

As Al Gore and his band of not so merry global warming alarmists in buses and in the press try to convince Americans that they need to alter behaviors in order to save the planet, an inconvenient truth is being cynically withheld: this is going to cost a lot of money.

Of course, one of the delicious hypocrisies is that these are the same people who decry the current economic boom as only helping the rich, and state regularly and fervently that the poor and middle-class are being left behind.

At the same time, such mid- to lower-level wage earners should be saddled with exorbitant additional expenses to shelter them from a wolf that might never come knocking at their doors.

Makes sense, right?

With that in mind, the Chicago Tribune’s Laurie Goering wrote a fabulous piece recently exposing some of the potential costs of this exercise that most media don’t want you to know (emphasis added throughout, h/t Benny Peiser):

It must be tough to be a network anchor. Ask John Roberts of CNN. His definition of a “modest” salary is $162,100.

That’s how the “American Morning” anchor described Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) annual salary of $162,100. He also called the Obama family incomes of “$470,000 up to $1.4 million” “pretty modest” during the May 17 report. Roberts used the word “modest” three different times to depict some part of Obama’s financial life.

In other words – nearly four times the median household income. The median household income in the United States is $46,326, according to the U.S. Census. That’s 29 percent of Obama’s “modest” Senate income and about 10 percent of the “pretty modest” amount the Obamas declared as the low end of what they earned last year.

CNN "American Morning" this morning promoted the ultimate green decision: a green funeral.

Correspondent Greg Hunter discussed the option for those who choose "Going green as their final gift to the Earth."

"It's very peaceful," said Hunter, "There's a growing interest in scaled-down version of a traditional funeral which costs on average of more than $6,000, but cost is not the only reason people are choosing to go green."

It's certainly the only reason I would choose to.

Hunter's segment featured Memorial Ecosystems, Inc. of Westminster, S.C. which will provide a green burial at the 76-acre Ramsey Creek Preserve for about $2,275.

As the stock market has continued to regularly make new highs in 2007, how many times have you heard or read a media report carping about how the rich are getting richer?

Quite a bit, right?

If you feel bombarded with such inanities, consider that a completely unaudited LexisNexis search of major American media outlets identified 234 reports which included phrases like “rich get richer,” “income inequality,” “wealth disparity,” etc., since January 1.

Add it all up, and that’s almost two a day.

A fine example of this nauseating mantra was demonstrated by CBS’s Charles Osgood on “Sunday Morning” April 15:

CBS "Evening News" showcased Aflac CEO Dan Amos on April 29 because the company plans to begin giving shareholders a vote on executive compensation beginning in 2009.

While CBS correspondent Mark Strassmann did explain that the shareholders' vote would be non-binding, the premise of the story was that it could create a ripple effect throughout corporate America.

"Other CEOs may soon get the message -- perform or you're a sitting duck," said correspondent Mark Strassmann.

Strassmann also supplied viewers with a common class envy talking point: "In one work day, America's average CEO earns more than the average employee makes all year."

Leave it to NBC's Today show to find the downside of a booming stock market. Playing the class envy card Today co-host Matt Lauer teased a story on a widening gap between rich and poor as he incredulously asked the audience: "Do you feel like you're working harder and harder these days just to stay financially afloat while fat cats get richer and richer?" Lauer, not exactly a pauper himself, then threw it to CNBC's Scott Cohn who claimed: "Not only are the rich getting richer they're leaving everyone else behind. In fact the last time the rich were this much richer than everyone else was the Great Depression."

Cohn did mention the wealthy are giving more to charity but only highlighted liberal billionaire Bill Gates' good deeds.

Here’s an extraordinarily inconvenient truth the press will likely not report: a “cap-and-trade” program designed to curb carbon emissions in order to "solve" global warming will negatively impact the poor the most.

Think Charlie, Brian, and Katie will do a story on this tonight?

Regardless of the answer, the reality is that as folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and his sycophant devotees recommend solutions to a conceivably nonexistent problem, few care to address the negative economic impact of such strategies.

Towards that goal, the Congressional Budget Office released a study on Wednesday that didn’t paint a very pretty picture of the financial ramifications of a cap-and-trade program proposed by Democrats (emphasis added throughout):

Producer of an MSM morning news show? Got a few minutes to fill at the end of your first half-hour? Why not resort to a tried-and-true winner: a bit of good old class warfare?

That was the "Today" formula this morning. Matt Lauer introduced the segment, enviously entitled "Share the Wealth?: The Rich Get Richer," fanning the flames of envy and resentment with this opener:

TODAY CO-HOST MATT LAUER: Do you feel like you're working harder and harder nowadays just to stay financially afloat while fat cats get richer and richer? It's not just a feeling, and you're not alone. The story now from from CNBC's Scott Cohn.

View video here

Fanning the flames of class warfare, ABC "World News with Charles Gibson" focused on hedge fund managers' pay on April 24.

"Some of them made a lot, I mean really a lot," said anchor Charles Gibson.

While the report by John Berman focused on the high pay -- the top fund manager James Simons made $1.7 billion last year -- but left out reasons for high compensation as well as the high taxes that certainly accompany such incomes.

Together the top 25 hedge fund managers earned a combined $14 billion last year according to Alpha magazine. Berman compared the figure to teachers pay saying it was "enough to pay New York City's 80,000 teachers for 3 years." Sure, at a tax rate of 100 percent.

Update at bottom of post: A blogger picks apart the AP story.

Just as the ladies of "The View" discussed the previous day, "The Early Show" on April 24 harped on a study that allegedly demonstrates a pay gap between men and women. Hannah Storm kicked off the report noting "women’s rights groups have declared today equal pay day." Reporter Kelly Wallace uncritically reported a study conducting by the left leaning American Association of University Women, which supports abortion rights and affirmative action. Wallace fed this information to several unsuspecting New York University female students. Although Wallace briefly mentioned that women are more likely to enter professions with lower pay, she quickly refuted it with the liberal organization’s own study.

The co-hosts on "The View" discussed the recent reports of the wage gap between men and women. Co-hosts Rosie O’Donnell and Joy Behar wondered why that story is even news. Elisabeth Hasselbeck noted that the gap begins immediately after college despite women’s higher marks in testing.

ROSIE O’DONNELL: And did you hear in the news? They’re reporting this like it's new news, which I think is funny. There is a gender pay gap in America.

JOY BEHAR: Shocking, shocking.

O’DONNELL: Women make less than men. [slapping forehead] Zoinks!

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: You know what I didn’t realize thought was right out of college, right at the jump that women are making less than men. I think they said-

It's a read-the-whole-thing piece. Too bad it's subscriber-only.

Brian Wesbury, whose previous writings have been blogged on many times by yours truly (including here, here, here, and here), is very tired of the dissing the current economy is taking, and especially how it is unfavorably compared to the economy of the 1990s:

Soon it’s going to cost you more to mow your lawn, and the Christian Science Monitor doesn’t mind because it’s all in the name of a cleaner planet.

“[H]elp is on the way. Thanks to a new rule unveiled by the Environmental Protection Agency this week, homeowners will finally be able to buy mowers that give their lawn a truly clean cut,” wrote Mark Clayton of the Monitor.

But it was not homeowners who pressured mower manufacturers to lower emissions, but a mandate from the EPA. According to the new rule, beginning in 2011 small engines like those used in lawn tractors must filter out “an additional 35 pollutants … in addition to the 60 percent reduction mandated last year.”

Update added at bottom of post.

"There's many simple, even money-saving ways that we can actually give our little bit of help in our own lives and in our own homes and make a little bit of a difference," said weatherman Sam Champion on April 19 "Good Morning America."

But when it came to cost, the April 19 USA Today contradicted Champion:

“Products that help people use less energy – or leave a smaller ‘environmental footprint,’ as green advocates say – often are more costly than their alternatives, causing some to argue that going green is only for those who can afford it,” said USA Today.

Champion's segment focused on a special energy-efficient home built by BASF The Chemical Company that is 80 percent more energy efficient than other houses.

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Real Earnings News Release yesterday:

Average weekly earnings rose by 4.4 percent, seasonally adjusted, from March 2006 to March 2007. After deflation by the CPI-W, average weekly earnings increased by 1.6 percent.

And here's one for Paul "the rich are getting it all" Krugman of the New York Times -- Note who is being surveyed when these numbers are determined:

Earnings series from the monthly establishment series are estimated arithmetic averages (means) of the hourly and weekly earnings of all production or nonsupervisory jobs in the private nonfarm sector of the economy.

It's Joe and Josephine Sixpack whose earnings have "really" increased in the past year.

Even more confirmation came from BLS today:

Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien must be preparing for a new line of work in fortune-telling.

On the April 9 "American Morning," the CNN anchors didn't wait for someone to complain about executive pay before making it an issue.

Instead, after Soledad complained that she was "desperately" underpaid she also predicted that the AFL-CIO would gripe about Occidental Petroleum Corp. CEO Ray Irani's $400 million executive compensation package.

"You think with a number like that they will. I've got to imagine," mused Soledad to Andrew Ross Sorkin who was "Minding Your Business."

Sorkin told viewers Irani's package was "what has to be one of the largest numbers in history," but admitted it took several years to earn. "Had he not taken all these options he would have made just a paltry $55 million."

On Monday's The Situation Room, CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty expressed frustration that the Democratic Congress has not yet passed a minimum wage increase, even lamenting that the increase could not be made retroactive.

After Blitzer seemed to seriously ask if the minimum wage increase could be made retroactive to November, Cafferty rhetorically exclaimed that it should be "retroactive to ten years ago."

Blitzer: "I guess they can't make the increase in the minimum wage retroactive to back November, huh, Jack?"

Cafferty: "They ought to make it retroactive to ten years ago. That's the last time anybody addressed these folks."

Blitzer: "Don't hold your breath on that one." (Transcript follows)

Another left winger appeared on "The View." This time it was Roseanne Barr who felt she knew everything because she’s "old," claimed to stump for the middle and working class while admitting she’s rich, bashed the late Ronald Reagan, praised Rosie O’Donnell, and hinted at the left wing election "fixing" conspiracy theory.

Roseanne started with her explanation on why she thinks she knows everything, then demonstrated her love for her favorite "View" co-hosts, Rosie O’Donnell and Joy Behar. She even added that Rosie made this a "very intellectual hour." The multimillionaire comedienne proceeded to bring in her class warfare pitch by bashing the late President Ronald Reagan and then discussed with four rich women the horror that "most people like to hang out with rich people. They don’t give a damn about anyone else." The four rich co-hosts agreed.

Rosie, Roseanne, and Joy agreed on some commonly held left wing conspiracy theories. Roseanne called on "people who fix elections" to "let a Democrat in the next time." Then of course, much of the media feeds us is "the art of distraction." The transcript from key points of the discussion is below.

If I were a rich man, the media would likely bash me. But if I were a female billionaire, I would become "good news" according to ABC and NBC.

While both ABC and NBC have called very successful CEOs examples of "runaway pay," there was no animosity to be found toward extremely high-earning women during the March 8 "World News with Charles Gibson" or "Nightly News."

In fact, after CNBC's Maria Bartiromo stated  that 83 women made Forbes magazine's billionaires list on NBC "Nightly News," anchor Campbell Brown chimed: "All right, that's good news."

ABC's "World News" lauded the 1 percent club: "self-made members of the fairer sex," but left out Forbes statement that 60 percent of those on the billionaires list all made their fortunes from scratch.

It's a good thing I wasn't sipping my coffee when I saw this on the front page of the Baltimore Sun in Starbucks this afternoon.

"Checks, balances rule Md. capital: Democratic leaders split on key issues, how to raise money."

Reporter Andrew Green began his March 5 article by conceding that "in ways large and small, Annapolis is showing signs of a leftward tilt" ever since Gov. Martin O'Malley took the helm on the second floor of the State House. But relax, Green continued, competing egos in the state government ensure that the legislative track isn't laden with runaway trains.

Maybe so, but all the freight the Maryland General Assembly is steaming into the station is filled with liberal goodies:

Ripping a line straight from a TV infomercial, CBS reporter Kelly Wallace downplayed the true cost of "emergency elder home care" provided by Freddie Mac with one little phrase:

"Just $15 a day."

But wait a minute ... that comes out to $5,475 a year for the employee who needs this benefit for an aging parent. The 'Evening News' segment from February 21 blatantly advocated for companies to provide elder care assistance to employees, scolded those that do not and urged workers to ask for these programs. Read the full Business & Media Institute article here.