Economy

At the top of Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Julie Chen declared: "Optimism offensive. An upbeat Ben Bernanke tells '60 Minutes' the economy could turn around within nine months." Chen later introduced the segment on the Obama administration’s new economic optimism: "...from bleak to bright. The Obama administration has switched its tone and is now saying the economy is on the road to recovery…

Barney Frank was allowed, by NBC's Meredith Vieira, to go on a tear against AIG for wasting bailout money on corporate bonuses, on Monday's "Today" show, yet Vieira never once interrupted Frank to point out his own wasteful stimulus spending on earmarks going to Frank's home district, including $1 million for scallop research. Vieira also didn't interject when Frank blamed the Bush administration…

Newsweek has some prescriptions to save us all. We should live like it's 1899 instead of 2009. Don't use a dryer for your clothes, chop your own wood for heating fuel, buy a black and white TV because it's "just as good," and don't get the Internet or cable TV. Sheese, talk about a kill-joy! Of course, the piece by Steve Tuttle isn't all stone-ageie, new-ageiness. Some of the points Tuttle…

Since CNBC's Rick Santelli first suggested a Chicago Tea Party to protest President Obama's plans to "stimulate" the economy and bailout homeowners through unrestrained government spending, organized demonstrations have been occurring across the fruited plain.In fact, as Glenn Reynolds reported moments ago, there's one happening today in Cincinnati.  Unfortunately, unless you frequent…

The current “money mess” is “primarily because we've spent or authorized more money on the Iraq war (its sixth anniversary is next Thursday) than we're putting into the stimulus program,” USA Today founder Al Neuharth contended in his weekly “Plain Talk” column on Friday. While “many Democrats as well as nearly all Republicans in Congress gave Bush” the authority to go to war in Iraq, “by…

Could this be a sign of things to come? Now that CNBC Chicago Mercantile Exchange reporter Rick Santelli has mysteriously disappeared from the spotlight after his criticism of President Barack Obama's mortgage proposal in February and now that CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer has been marginalized after his lackluster appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" on March 12, could the new…

There seems to be a wall of silence surrounding the sudden withdrawal of H. Rodgin Cohen (pictured at right) from consideration for the Number 2 job at the Treasury Department. The party line, according to ABC's This Week host and former Clinton administration adviser George Stephanopoulos, is that "an issue arose in the final stages of the vetting process." David Cho at the Washington Post…

It was supposed to be a moment of high drama - when Comedy Central "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart faced off with CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer.  But it wasn't a fight, it was more of a beating. The "comedian," as Cramer recently called him, repeatedly bashed the financial network and its star host in a segment called "Brawl Street."The week-long feud began when CNBC reporter Rick Santelli…

Brian Williams certainly has an affinity for FDR. Four months after suggesting the nation could “use a little FDR right about now,” though Rooselvelt's policies failed to end the Depression, on Thursday night he connected the obscure 76th anniversary of Roosevelt's first “fireside chat” in 1933 to President Barack Obama's efforts to fix the economy:76 years ago today, President Franklin Roosevelt…

Jim Cramer just keeps paying the price for his heresy. Ever since his March 3 remarks calling Obama's policies "greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president," the CNBC "Mad Money" host has been under attack. First it was the back-and-forth with the White House, then he was skewered by comedian Jon Stewart. Now CNN and a former high-ranking public official have targeted him. Cramer, who…

Too bad this particular report didn't include an expert that was railing against the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bailout before it was passed last October. They could have said, "I told you so." Global banks lending money to other countries including "the playground of the Middle East" may have angered Congressmen, but Lisa Myers investigation didn't point out that those critics of…

It seems that so-called stimulus package funding is being spread around so widely that some of its beneficiaries can't figure out how to spend it as intended. When it became clear to a few small cities in California's Los Angeles County that they didn't have appropriate transportation projects for their promised stimulus funding, they decided to sell the rights to that funding to other nearby…