Stimulus

On Tuesday, Julia Seymour at NewsBusters reported that the Friday evening news shows on all three networks spent a few seconds noting the government's somewhat disappointing but hardly alarming job-creation number for December (148,000 seasonally adjusted payroll jobs) reported earlier that day. Seymour observed that "Those same news programs (have) often underreported good economic news in the…

Business and technology magazine Fast Company may have pulled a fast one over any readers unwilling to whip out a calculator when thinking about the Universal Basic Income (UBI). A universal basic income is when a government provides a certain amount of money unconditionally, to all individuals regardless of employment status or income level.

On Friday, the government reported that the economy added a seasonally adjusted 211,000 jobs, and that the unemployment rate dropped to a 10-year low of 4.4 percent. The day's press coverage had three noticeable highlights. The first was the headline at the Associated Press's coverage — "US JOBS DATA SHOW SOME SCARS FROM RECESSION FINALLY HEALING."

There are predictable signs that after eight years of giving the problem inadequate attention and occasional ridicule, the business press has decided that federal budget deficits and the national debt are going to start to matter again. Gosh, I wonder why? The Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber was relatively subtle about it in a report on Uncle Sam's December and year-to-date budget deficits…

Chuck Todd joined colleagues Mark Murray and Carrie Dann in a Wednesday article on NBC's First Read blog that decried President-Elect Donald Trump's "dangerous game of...picking winners and losers" in the economy. The trio oddly wondered, "Despite all of the corporate criticism of President Obama's first few years in office...has Trump intervened more in companies -- directly and individually --…

Vice President-Elect Mike Pence appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday to discuss Donald Trump’s fast approaching presidency. What he got, at one point, was moderator Chuck Todd grilling him on why Trump couldn’t save some 700 jobs Carrier still sent to Mexico. “You gave a tax break -- some people could say you gave a tax break to Carrier so that they would only send 700 jobs overseas,” he…

On Thursday's CNN Newsroom, Carol Costello hyped the possible impact to taxpayers for President-Elect Donald Trump's role in getting Carrier to stay in Indiana: "Donald Trump delivering on his vow to save Carrier jobs, and his economic team says it will deliver a lot more — but at what cost?" Costello brought on two Trump critics from both sides of the aisle, but didn't bring on any supporters.…

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews went of the metaphorical high speed rails during Hardball Monday night, as he announced a ridiculous plan to fund high speed rail. “We've got about $30 trillion sitting overseas, because of the tax laws of this country, the corporate tax rates and things like that,” he explained, “You say, ‘Why don't we find a way to grab all of that, in fact, and put it into development of…

The liberals who thought Chris Wallace did a bang-up job as moderator of the third presidential debate were judging strictly by appearances, contended Daily Kos’s Laura Clawson and Salon’s Gary Legum in separate articles. Clawson pooh-poohed the praise for Wallace, sneering that he “really wasn’t all that. Unless the ‘that’ is ‘a purveyor of right-wing talking points masked as “fair and balanced…

The federal government's fiscal year ended on September 30. As has been the administration's habit for years with news that might draw negative attention, the Treasury Department conveniently released its year-end Monthly Budget Review Friday afternoon to minimize the discussion of its grim news.

Many writers on the left and beat journalists in the establishment press contend that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and running mate Mike Pence tell lies so often that it's virtually impossible to keep up with all of them. If that's so, why, with all those "obvious" falsehoods out there, did two Los Angeles Times reporters have to label an absolutely true statement by Pence about…

On Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen suggested in a videoconference call, as translated into plain English by the Wall Street Journal, that "there could be benefits to allowing the central bank to buy stocks as a way to boost the economy in a downturn."

CBS broadcasts discussing the Brexit Leave vote on Sunday and Monday went to economic "experts" whose "analysis" betrayed partisanship and both feigned and real ignorance. On Sunday on Face the Nation, max 2015 Hillary contributor (as usual, not disclosed to viewers) Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics predicted that that the UK economy "is going down the rabbit hole" as the result of the Leave…