Business Coverage

CBS's "The Early Show" got an early start on the grumbling Oct. 30.CBSNews.com and "Early Show" co-host Julie Chen warned viewers about flying the "pricey skies" this "hardly festive" holiday season because airfares have gone "way up." Chen said fares were "absolutely going through the roof." Chen served up the numbers: I want to put up two graphics that show how much prices have increased…

It's obvious The Washington Post's "Style" section is broadening it horizons beyond fashion, music, books and other fluff, plus of course - Howard Kurtz's media column and the comics. The editors of that section are tackling important events that changed history by commemorating them as milestones. The Post's Oct. 29 "Style" section allotted two-thirds of the front page to observing the 79th…

On Tuesday, Editor & Publisher released daily and Sunday newspaper circulation figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations as of September 30, along with percentage changes from the preceding year. Showing that the press can't even report accurately about itself E&P's accompanying commentary vastly understated the situation:Most Major Papers Continue Circ DeclineAccording to ABC for the…

Sometimes former CEOs have a reason to be downbeat when they make predictions. Former Chairman and CEO of Citigroup Sanford Weill told CBS's "The Early Show" Oct. 28 that unemployment would hit 9 percent and that Wall Street CEOs "didn't deserve bonuses this year." It went something like this: Well, I think we've set in motion a whole series of events that is going to make the economy…

Sometimes government tries to fix the problem; then it makes the problem worse. In 2004, economists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), studied the policies of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and determined it actually prolonged the Depression by seven years. Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian blamed anti-free market measures for the slow recovery in an article…

Who wrote the following?:"Societies in which the few are allowed to fatten themselves without limit on the labor of many are not just."A. Friedrich EngelsB. William AyersC. Michelle ObamaD. Timothy RuttenAny of the answers would make sense, but the headline kind of gave it away. It was Timothy Rutten of the LA Times who penned that immortal line in his column of today.  In doing so, Rutten echoes…

You know the news media is doing a poor job of covering Sen. Barack Obama and his running mate when a supporter of the Democratic ticket criticizes the media for giving them a "pass." Megan McArdle, a blogger for TheAtlantic.com who has said she's voting for Obama, slammed the media in an appearance on Reason.tv's "The Talkshow" for not bringing up Sen. Joseph Biden's past as a "corporate…

When Tony the Tiger gets fired, we'll know biofuel mandates have taken their toll. Correspondent Susan Koeppen said on "The Early Show" Oct. 23 consumers would be "paying more and getting less" for some food products they buy because companies are downsizing their products. "It's called downsizing," Koeppen on the CBS broadcast. "More and more companies are going to start shrinking their…

You have to give credit where credit is due. The lead editorial in the Oct. 20 Washington Post didn't declare free-market capitalism dead after the failure of several financial institutions led to massive government intervention - as a front-page story on its Oct. 10 edition declared. Instead, the editorial pointed out the how the market that failed wasn't exactly free to begin with. "The…

Someone should explain to ABC: it ain't "dirty" if it's true.  GMA got the collective vapors this morning over the robo-calls the RNC and McCain campaign are making, informing voters of Barack Obama's close association with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers.  In GMA's book, there's no real difference between these calls—which Cokie Roberts alluded to as "dirtier" tactics—and the calls made against…

When the Dow hit below 8,000, the media went nuts, crying the economy was on the brink of collapse. But a lot of that same economy is still doing quite well, despite the mainstream media. Businessman Dan Kennedy, a new columnist with the Business & Media Institute, shows how skewed the standard view really is. Between 91 and 94 percent of all home mortgages in the United States are current,…

It may not have been "huge" when CNBC's Joe Kernen said it but the dude has been on practically every news station by now. Kernen told chief Washington correspondent John Harwood that the "Joe the plumber" story "would be huge" and even a "bombshell," in any other election year. Kernen said voters "don't care" because they are buying into Sen. Obama's assertion that the Bush tax policies have…

Gee, and I thought I might be pushing the envelope on September 28 when I expressed concern that the "bailout" with the made-up $700 billion price tag that turned into the pork-loaded "bailout" with the made-up $850 billion price tag "blackmail" (though "extortion" may be the more appropriate word). It is clear that this is indeed the case, at least twice over. First, there were the threats made…

The Nobel committee can stop looking for next year winner of the Nobel prize in economics and hand the thing right now to Harold Myerson.  The WaPo columnist's effort of today, Gods That Failed, is Krugmanesque, reading like an extended gloat at the expense of believers in free markets. Ha-ha, mocks Myerson, your god of unregulated capitalism is dead.  Just like Communism failed, so has your…