Business Coverage

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…

The tiny northern Pennsylvania town of Dimock has been the site of a battle over natural gas drilling for several years. Some residents claimed the drilling contaminated their water, and they sued Cabot Oil & Gas in a battle that gained national news attention. Test after test failed to find fracking contaminants in the water, something the lawyer for those Dimock residents just admitted in…

Two important economic reports came out today at 10 a.m. One had relatively good news, while the other was a definite downer. At 2:43 p.m., the good-news item was still listed second at the Associated Press's list of Top 10 business stories, while the bad-news item was gone. That's all in a day's work of news manipulation at what should be called the Administration's Press. (UPDATE: At 9:12 p.m…

If form holds, the Democratic Party's presidential candidates in the U.S. will continue to spout various forms of socialism and class warfare as the answers to this nation's woes in hopes of buying enough "free stuff" votes to hang on to the White House. Venezuela's apparent imminent economic collapse poses a problem for this strategy. The country's problems are the direct result of 15 years of…

West Virginia became the nation's 26th state with a "right-to-work" law a bit over a week ago. At the same time, it also repealed "prevailing wage" requirements for public construction projects. The idea that the formerly Democrat-dominated Mountain State would pass either item was unthinkable as little as a decade ago. That was before the Obama administration began its war on coal-powereed…

The Associated Press's choice of a headline to accompany business writer Stan Choe's Saturday morning report on the state of the economy — "MAIN STREET HOLDS UP AS WALL STREET STRUGGLES, FOR A CHANGE" — has a couple of interesting implications. Is AP celebrating the fact that Wall Street is struggling? Or does the idea that "Main Street" is holding up "for a change" mean that it hasn't been…