Economy

The President that expanded the role, scope, and size of the federal government more than all that came before him or since is unquestionably Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Yet on Tuesday, moments after calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann a "balloon head," MSNBC's Chris Matthews actually said FDR "bailed out capitalism in the '30s" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

What's with the New York Times and its inability to practice what it preaches when it comes to avoiding gun-filled images and rhetoric?  A few days ago I noted how the Times had placed a bullet-riddled ad for a violent video game right on its online op-ed page. Now comes this Times headline: "Republicans’ Budget Man Draws Fire".  That is of course a metaphorical invocation of someone who by…

In a Monday Associated Press dispatch, reporter Tom Krisher virtually celebrated the idea that Government/General Motors "may be Number 1 again," with happy talk of "dethroning" and "overtaking" Toyota. Nowhere did Krisher mention the inconvenient fact that Toyota's revenues dwarf GM's to the point where comparing unit sales is an absurd waste of time. Specifically:

 On Sunday’s Good Morning America on ABC, during a discussion of President Obama’s upcoming State of the Union Address, as guest Mike Paul of MGP and Associates PR argued that Obama needs to talk about forming a "partnership" with businesses and cutting taxes, co-anchor Dan Harris fretted that there would be "political risk" in Obama getting too close to business. Harris: "Isn't there some…

For years, Democrats and their media minions have maintained that the economic boom of the '90s was caused by the fiscal policies of President Bill Clinton, in particular his 1993 income tax hike. Appearing on ABC's "This Week" Sunday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman shockingly said what conservatives have been claiming all along (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Since its inception, NewsBusters has informed readers of the tendency of liberal media members to completely make up economic data when it fits their agenda. Not surprisingly, this happened on Friday's "Real Time" when host Bill Maher brought up Reaganomics and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow proudly told - she even stood up to tell this whopper! - a 100 percent falsehood about income gains during that…

Trick? Or "tweak"? On Friday, a Reuters report at CNBC noted the Federal Reserve's journey into the accounting and reporting twilight zone earlier this month. In doing so, it conducted a clinic in how to make unreality look acceptable and make a dangerous situation appear palatable. In the el bizzarro world at Reuters and those the wire service interviewed for its article: A change in…

I was reading Associated Press reporter Sam Hananel's coverage ("Unions see sharp membership declines again") of Uncle Sam's latest report on union membership, and I came to this paragraph about what happened with private-sector union representation in 2010: Union membership in the private sector fell from 7.2 percent to 6.9 percent, a low point not seen since the infancy of the labor…

At several points in 2010 (just one example: at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog; graphic), I pointed out that despite the federal government's continued insistence that its budget deficit for fiscal 2010 was on track to come in lower than fiscal 2009, the deficit based on real spending would be, and turned out to be, higher in fiscal 2010. That's important to know, as clever year-crossing accounting…

The folks in the establishment press are looking for any sign of upward movement in the housing market, especially in new home construction, that they can portray positively as the beginning of a general recovery. That desperate search explains the content of the following e-mail alert from CNN which arrived in my inbox this morning:

Tamron Hall was joined by her MSNBC colleague Dylan Ratigan on Wednesday's edition of "News Nation" in condemning some members of corporate America for the way they have "demonized" the Obama administration. That slight of American businesses came during a dicussion of President Hu Jintao's U.S visit, in which Ratigan remarked that President Obama's greatest challenge will not be dealing with…

Apparently the folks at WalMartFreeDC.org didn't get the memo from the liberal media about crosshairs being verboten in political speech. [Related story at TheBlaze.com has more information] The website for Wal-Mart Free DC prominently features the Wal-Mart smiley-face icon at the center of crosshairs in an advertisement for a "March on the Developer's House" in Northwest D.C. tomorrow at 7…

- Since Obama took office, only 16 percent of health care stories mentioning the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) included any criticism of their accounting, despite criticism from many conservative and libertarian experts as well as the former head of CBO. - Networks reporters and guests emphasized the CBO's integrity calling them "non-partisan," "independent" and the "referee" or "…

Two paragraphs don't seem to belong together in Martin Crutsinger's Associated Press dispatch on the government's Monthly Treasury Statement for December. But there they are. Here's the first paragraph of interest in Martin's missive ("Federal budget deficit narrows to $80B in December"): Government spending during this period totaled $902.6 billion, an increase of 3.1 percent over the same…