Economy

While questions swirl about the ins and outs of the Securities and Exchange Commission charges against Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), and the eventual result is no clearer. According to CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer, after the release of several e-mails from Goldman traders, including Fabrice Tourre, who described the investments at the firm "like Frankenstein," the investment bank finds…

In his weekly address today (video only at link; transcript was not present when this post was prepared), President Obama opened with these three sentences: It was a little more than one year ago that our country faced a potentially devastating crisis in our auto industry. Over the course of 2008, the industry shed 400,000 jobs. In the midst of a financial crisis and deep recession, both…

Does anyone remember when the liberal intellectuals decried populism coming from the likes of Glenn Beck and other conservatives that was aimed at the direction the country is going under the leadership of President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress? Throughout 2009, that so-called "bottom-barrel demagogy," as Troy Patterson called it in an post for Slate one year ago, was the…

On Wednesday, the Detroit Free Press published the Mike Thompson cartoon seen at the right. It shows a GM bigwig carrying a briefcase telling a recoiling Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and three other politicians that "We're going to pay off the loan." The cartoon's caption is, "The Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say in Washington." At his blog, where a full-size version of the cartoon can be found,…

In the past 20 months, liberal media members have routinely blamed 2008's financial crisis on George W. Bush, Republicans, Wall Street, and greed.Someone that has hardly ever been accused of having a hand in what led to the tumult is former President Bill Clinton.As NewsBusters has been reporting almost since the crash began, it was Clinton who signed into law two key bills -- the Financial…

On Friday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez declared that when it comes to financial reform legislation, "Democrats have all the leverage right now." Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer appeared on the show and observed that "They think this is the time to picture Republicans as trying to protect fat cat bankers, as it were." In her first question to Schieffer, Rodriguez wondered: "Do…

Ed Whitacre, Chairman of Government/General Motors, took to the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday to crow about repaying a loan (link may require subscription). Note the deceptive headline and its accompanying end-zone dance: The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full The investment of U.S. and Canadian tax dollars worked. Whitacre can try to make a case that the government's loans have been repaid, but…

The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of…

Finally! What the public thinks is now important. That was the takeaway from an April 22 CNBC "Squawk Box" segment in which the network's Washington correspondent John Harwood explained the upside for the Obama administration in taking an aggressive tack on financial regulation and pushing it through Congress. According to Harwood, public opinion on this issue favors President Barack Obama. He…

GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media, working for its project partner the Associated Press, conducted a poll from March 3-8 about Americans' car preferences and perceptions. The poll's results were released earlier this week, and the wire service's Dan Sewell reported on the results yesterday. Why the 40-day delay? I'll suggest the possibility that the poll was timed in hopes that the detailed…

CNBC's John Harwood, in an interview aired on Thursday's Today show, pressed Barack Obama about the need to regulate Wall Street as he questioned the President if Americans needed to view them in the same way they view Big Tobacco as "companies whose core activities are harmful to the country?" Obama declined to make the comparison to the tobacco companies, but went on to insist Wall Street…

So you do your part and pay your taxes to the federal government. However, you feel you pay too much and you don't like how that same government uses that money. Do you have the right to petition and protest that government? If it's on federal land that your tax dollars paid for, then your protest is hypocritical nonsense, according to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. To her, the tea partiers, who…

In honor of Earth Day 2010, the Washington Post dedicated eight tree-killing pages to a special advertising supplement titled "Environmental Leadership." (Unavailable online). Although it was woefully short on actual ads, the advertising supplement featured thirteen columns that sponsored, championed, and moralized the environmental catastrophe sure to result if Americans - and sometimes…