Business Coverage

If you don't give me money, I won't bail you out! Conservative opposition to a federal bailout of financial institutions is over campaign donations, not a desire to uphold sound market principles, according to CNBC. CNBC's chief Washington correspondent John Harwood said Sept. 25 on "Squawk Box" that he had a conversation with "a top Republican member of congress last night" who told him…

Private CEOs? Yes. Government-sponsored CEOs? No. In a September 19 "Good Morning America" preview of a report scheduled to appear on the same day's edition of ABC's "20/20," chief investigative reporter Brian Ross took a few jabs at the rich who had fallen. Ross called it "the end of a shameful chapter of American history," and although top executives on Wall Street had been hit hard in…

It's come to this . . . Barack Obama became a candidate for president on the wings of his 2004 Dem convention keynote speech in which he famously said "there is not a Black America and a White America a Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America."  But as Rush Limbaugh has described in the Wall Street Journal today, Obama is now relying on deceptive ads for the…

In light of their reporting on the failure of investment firm Bear Stearns Companies Inc. (NYSE: BSC), it seems CNBC reporters aren't "tip-toeing around on eggshells" when reporting about problems at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH). On CNBC's "Squawk Box," reporter Charlie Gasparino told co-host Joe Kernen, "I will say this about the Bear Stearns thing when you compare that [Lehman]…

What if you could download a program that would scan, magically, any article written anywhere and expose the spin, bias, and misinformation? Would that interest you?This is what a new program--SpinSpotter--coming to you from Seattle, WA, purports to do. Business Week reports:The application's algorithms work off six key tenets of spin and bias, which the company derived from both the guidelines…

It's an oldie, but a goodie for the broadcast media - attacking bottled water, a legitimate product that produces billions of dollars in sales annually. The September 10 "CBS Evening News" went after the bottled water industry, suggesting that a lack of regulations for purification and testing meant bottled water is unsafe. "The marketing campaigns say it all - bottled water is a pure healthy…

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" September 8, Jim Cramer took a shot at owner of The Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch, in the midst of talking about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac takeover: I read The Wall Street Journal, sorry, The Fox Street Journal. When is Murdoch going to put his positive right wing implant on left wing journalists? ... When is Murdoch going to broom the Spartacus workers…

Sex sells, even during a presidential election. But that doesn't mean journalists have to be happy about it. CNBC's "Squawk Box" co-host Joe Kernen took a moment during a panel discussion September 2 to take a shot at the onslaught of coverage over presumptive vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's daughter's pregnancy. You know as a member of the media I'm just kind of embarrassed with…

Mercantilism [emphasis added]: An economic doctrine that flourished in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Mercantilists held that a nation's wealth consisted primarily in the amount of gold and silver in its treasury. Accordingly, mercantilist governments imposed extensive restrictions on their economies to ensure a surplus of exports over imports. In the eighteenth century,…

Sometimes the qualities that make a strong candidate in one pool make them a weak candidate in another pool. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would hurt Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain as a running mate because of "vulnerability" stemming from his successful businesses and support for free trade, according to a reporter for The Washington Post. "On the whole subject…

That “Made in America” sticker is looking more attractive.Second-quarter (2Q) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was revised up from 1.9 percent growth to a higher than anticipated 3.3 percent, according to reports on August 28.Rising exports played a significant role in the expansion. According to the Commerce Department, real exports increased 13.2 percent in the 2Q of 2008, compared with an increase…

In case traditional news outlets "forget" to tell you, Uncle Sam announced this morning that second-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth was revised sharply upward to 3.3% from the late July's advance estimate of 1.9%. Dude, where's my recession? Y'know, the recession that Barack Obama claimed we "almost certainly in" back in mid-July? Believe it or not, there are supposedly legitimate…

More bad news for the newspaper industry. Anyone paying attention to the current state of financial distress in the print news industry will realize that saving money is the order of the day industry wide. Yet, not long ago the Associated Press announced that it was to raise its prices to the print news industry causing consternation everywhere. This new rate structure has caused quite a few…

Just in time for Barack Obama's Greco-Roman Oration tomorrow night, two significant economic reports have gone or are about to go in a positive direction: Earlier Wednesday, the Census Bureau reported that durable goods orders increased 1.3% during July, repeating June's performance; shipments of durables were up 2.5%; and unfilled orders were at their highest level since 1992. There are…