Wages & Prices

The Census Bureau reported today that sales new homes in the U.S. (seasonally adjusted at an annual rate) plunged sharply in March to 481,000 after hitting a seven-year record level of 543,000 in February. As has been the case so often, AP reporter Josh Boak didn't look past the seasonally adjusted numbers, and as a result gave the "expert" he quoted a free pass to supply sunnyside-up commentary…

Introducing a report on Tuesday's CBS This Morning that examined the negative impact of forcing a wage hike on small businesses, co-host Norah O'Donnell declared: "A theater drama is playing out this morning in Los Angeles. The country's largest stage actors union votes on a plan forcing tiny theaters to pay everyone the minimum wage....many performers say getting a raise will do them more harm…

Chris Christie who? Rachel Swarns, who for years fawned over Barack and Michelle Obama for the New York Times, wrote an "open letter" column to actor Adam Baldwin in defense of a left-wing group which tied up traffic in mid-town Manhattan in the name of a $15-an-hour "living wage."

The New York Times' fight for the economically dubious $15 minimum wage (and its related obsession with "income inequality") boiled over onto the front page the day after nationwide protests against fast-food companies by left-wing activists. The same reporter also challenged Hillary Clinton from the left, insisting she must embrace a $15 figure or risk losing "progressive" support.

Alec Baldwin, famous liberal actor (and public-radio talk show host at WNYC-FM), started a Twitter battle with fellow liberals about traffic-blocking protests in mid-town Manhattan on behalf of the "Fight for $15" minimum-wage demands. Occupy somewhere else, he seemed to proclaim to more than a million followers at his foundation's Twitter account.

In response to the far-left and union-led protests nationwide on Wednesday for a $15 minimum wage for fast-food and retail workers, NBC Nightly News applauded the protests with a glowing report that felt more like a campaign commercial. Disguised as a segment on the broader topic of income inequality, interim anchor Lester Holt and correspondent Stephanie Gosk led the way in offering no opposing…

Cherry blossoms are blooming and as sure as a springtime rainstorm liberals are repeating false claims that women make significantly less than men do for the same work. Why? Discrimination, of course. The feminist holiday Equal Pay Day is April 14, this year and already media outlets are marking it with complaints about how a “gender pay gap” concerns graduating women. Time ridiculously included…

Imagine you're a Cuban who has somehow managed to catch the cablecast of Melissa Harris-Perry's MSNBC show today.  The topic is President Obama's opening toward Cuba. You're scraping by on the average Cuban monthly salary of $20/month and are thrilled at the prospect of getting a better-paying job if and when American tourists start coming in numbers. Then suddenly you hear Harris-Perry fretting…

Chickens came home to roost yesterday at the Associated Press. The AP, the economy's most consistent cheerleader when a Democrat is in office, has not only been ignoring and downplaying the significance of disappointing and negative reports for several months, pinning its claim that all is well on the streak of seasonally adjusted 200,000-plus job gains seen during the past 12 months. It has…

Timothy Egan, liberal New York Times reporter turned left-wing Times columnist, made Friday's paper accusing some conservative Republicans born disadvantaged as being "Traitors to Their Class." Egan's columns are typically online only, but the paper liked this one enough to feature in print. One can see why; it has the easy, superior mockery of Republicans who grew up poor but have the audacity…

Apparently, the sheer number of weak to awful economic reports seen during the past month or so finally led Josh Boak at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, to acknowledge that "critical pieces of the economy remain troubled almost six years into the recovery." Boak's belated timing is interesting, to say the least, given that the Federal Reserve is weighing whether or not to…

As we know - America’s media is for the most part decidedly Leftist, often befuddled and rarely right.  So when they wade into an intricate issue like President Barack Obama’s Net Neutrality Internet power grab - we can only expect even more Leftism, befuddlement and wrongness. On February 26, the Obama Administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) pretended to be Congress and rewrote…

The business press's ability to keep up the appearances of "recovery is just around the corner" for over 5-1/2 years has been simultaneously amazing and disgusting. One of their strategies has been to define a "new normal" which is only presented that way because everyone knows deep-down that as long as the left controls economic policy, the nation's economy won't ever really get any better than…

After yesterday's government report on economic growth reduced the fourth quarter's originally estimated increase in gross domestic product from an annualized 2.6 percent to 2.2 percent, you just knew that the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, would try to ride to the rescue. Late Friday afternoon, the AP's Martin Crutsinger gamely tried to concoct five reasons why we shouldn't…