Business Coverage

Today's report from the government on February's retail sales was awful. Last month's sales fell by 0.1 percent, which was bad enough. Beyond that, January's originally reported 0.2 percent increase was revised down to a 0.4 percent decrease. Additionally, as I noted at my home blog this morning, January's seasonally adjusted revision should have been much worse, based on how terrible that month'…

Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently admitted her policies would put a certain group of people out of work, which could cost her support if the liberal media reported it. At a CNN/TV One town hall event in Ohio on March 13, Clinton said, “[W]e’re gonna put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business. Right, Tim? And we’re gonna make it clear that we don’t want…

Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. apparently got on the good side of the Associated Press a year ago when it announced that would be raising entry-level wages. Since that announcement, AP, in particular wire service reporter Anne D'Innocenzio, has been excusing the company's relatively poor financial performance while complimenting it for a virtually imaginary "perk up" in sales. Falling profits…

From reading most establishment press news, especially their economy-related reports, you'd think that those who are complaining about the current U.S. economy are outliers — especially the millions of Americans who are angry about it. Though they sometimes acknowledge that forward progress  since the recession hasn't been robust, the media's meme-makers have mostly told us that "overall job…

For years, Andrew F. Puzder, the CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's fast-food chains, has been telling the world that while the U.S. government makes life needlessly miserable for businesses, California, where it has been headquartered, is exponentially worse. This week, CKE announced that it is moving its headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee. A story at…

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…

Score another blow for (allegedly) "unintended consequences." A proposed 33-page rule applying to investment advisers emanating from the Department of Labor would redefine the fiduciary relationship between investment advisers and their clients investing for retirement, which is the predominant objective of most investors. According to the Wall Street Journal, the rule "could be released as soon…

Columbia Journalism professor Dale Maharidge has produced a lengthy lament about the state of print and newsroom journalism, and how hard it's been on those forced out of their jobs. It's present online at The Nation, one of the far-left's flagships, and at BillMoyers.com, the web site of the former Johnson administration press secretary. The delusional Moyers believes that "We have an…

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…

For all that the liberal media and politicians rake CEOs over the coals for being paid too much, it turns out there is a group of people getting paid even more. Turns out, the average college president is making $377,261 per year, more than twice the annual haul for the average CEO, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and CBSNews.com. Academia is known to be a bastion of liberal…

To believe what the Associated Press's Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin wrote yesterday about February's auto sales, you have to believe that last month's car buyers were either: "a) affected with vertigo; dizzy"; or b) "frivolous and lighthearted; impulsive; flighty." That's because they claimed that in February, "consumers - giddy from Super Bowl ads - returned to showrooms after a snowy January…

It appears that there's an effort underway to expand the definition of "deniers" beyond the realm of climate change/"global warming." Ideally, in leftists' minds, a "denier" would be "anyone who doesn't accept leftist dogma without reservations." That definition would apparently extend to anything relating to the economy, if Associated Press White House reporter and dedicated Barack Obama…

At the Associated Press, in a Friday morning writeup, the wire service's headline writers and reporter Martin Crutsinger demonstrated extraordinary auditory powers. The headline writers somehow heard the entire U.S. economy start the year off "with a bang." Meanwhile, Crutsinger, continuing to earn his designated title of "worst economics writer" given by Kevin Williamson at National Review…

In the context of his pathetic writeup on the government's disappointing report on January new-home sales, Josh Boak at the Associated Press had the nerve to claim that "demand for housing has recovered over the course of the 6 ½-year recovery from the recession." Wow. Who knew that the industry has made it all the way back to an acceptable level at long last? The obvious answer to that question…