Economy

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday's "Ed Show" actually said he prevented a worldwide depression. When he did, the host of the program didn't even bat an eye (video follows with transcript and commentary, h/t Hot Air):

On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric described British efforts to curb government spending: "Britain's new conservative government outlined the sharpest cuts in public spending in six decades....to see if that kind of severe belt-tightening can cure an ailing economy." Correspondent Mark Phillips warned of the fiscally conservative approach: "It's a high-stakes roll of the…

The largest tax hikes in history are imminent and it is still unclear whether Congress and President Obama will come to an agreement before January 1. The networks should have seen those tax hikes coming a mile away, but the Business & Media Institute found the primary theme of their tax cut stories was Obama as  the hero, cutting taxes for the middle-class, not as a tax increaser. This…

In a report so riddled with errors, inconsistencies, incompleteness and sloppiness that it's really hard to know where to begin, Associated Press real estate writer Alan Zibel couldn't even keep his housing recovery benchmark remotely consistent with what it was only a month ago. The Census Bureau's September release of information about August housing starts and building permits informed the…

The Democrats'  "localized approach to the midterms is understandable, defensible—and wrong. The best way to keep control would have been a national message targeted at independents," Newsweek's Jonathan Alter complained yesterday in an article at the magazine's website. And what exactly should the Democrats have touted in a national campaign strategy for the midterms? Why, shovel-ready…

CBS reporter Lesley Stahl was very confused on Monday's "Morning Joe". She just couldn't figure out why there are so many women involved with the Tea Party. Stahl received a basic civics lesson from two unlikely personalities: columnist Mike Barnicle, and Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review and author of "The Death of Conservatism". Tanenhaus noted that economic issues…

In August, Ed Schultz reportedly erupted in the MSNBC newsroom over being excluded from the network's election night promos.  According to the NY Post, network honchos threatened to fire Schultz if he pulled a similar stunt again. Could there be some kiss-and-make-up going on at 30 Rock?  Of all the MSNBC personages, the network apparently selected Schultz first to have his own spot in…

President Obama has accomplished so much during his tenure with so little gratitude from the American people, lamented the Monday panel for MSNBC's "Morning Joe." What is to blame? Poor marketing by the White House, the panelists answered. "Where is the celebration over what has been done and accomplished in the face of all this anger and vitriol in Washington?" complained co-host Mika…

Only the New York Times could burn through 2,500 words about Japan's economy and not use the word "stimulus." The Old Gray Lady's Martin Fackler did refer to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's just-announced second attempt to "stimulate" economy, but dodged the central lesson: The government created the Japanese people's malaise, and our government, despite Japan's experience, seems determined to do the…

Steven Rattner, the first Obama car czar who allegedly "bribed a political consultant to win business from New York's pension fund for his former investment firm," was extremely close this week to cutting a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), only to see that agreement held up this week to the intervention of New York Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate…

There is a simple explanation for President Obama's dismal approval ratings, but ABC's George Stephanopoulos fails to comprehend it. Appearing on the October 13 "O'Reilly Factor," the former Clinton adviser peddled multiple theories to explain Obama's unpopularity, but neglected to consider the possibility that the president has simply failed to connect with the general public. "As far as…

CNN's Wolf Blitzer and former public television anchor Nancy Karibjanian pressed Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell during Wednesday's Delaware Senate debate. While the two pressed O'Donnell on her personal finances, her past comments on evolution, and SNL poking fun of her, Karibjanian went out of her way to note Democratic candidate Chris Coons's past as a "student pastor at Yale."…

This paragraph from an Associated Press report by Christopher Rugaber on today's economic news should at a minimum strike readers as odd: A third report noted that prices at the wholesale level remained tame outside a sharp rise in food and energy costs. Excluding those two volatile categories, core wholesale prices rose just 0.1 percent, the Labor Department said. So we're left hanging…

Although experts from plenty of liberal-leaning news agencies agree that the Obama administration's complaint about the Chamber of Commerce allegedly spending foreign money on campaign issue ads is overblown, Time's Joe Klein is dead set on griping about the non-scandal. From his Swampland blog post yesterday: Karl Rove is a great American patriot, a genius, a statesman, even. And now he…