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Sharpton Astounded Rand Paul Thinks People Who Work Harder Earn More
In the liberal universe, there's no correlation between hard work or ingenuity and financial success. As President Obama recently put it, the rich are simply "society's lottery winners."
Sounding a similar theme, Al Sharpton today declared it "astounding" that Rand Paul believes that income inequality is due to "some people working harder." Astounding, indeed! What's wrong with Rand? How…
Deadpan Humor at AP: 'Job Market Is Not Yet Back to Full Health'
Christopher Rugaber at the Associated Press and the "expert" he quoted in his writeup on the government's awful Employment Cost Index report seemed to be taking their cues from Steven Wright's deadpan comedy act. The problem, of course, is that they were writing and saying isn't funny at all.
Rugaber, with his "expert" help, assembled an impressive array of understatements and misstatements in…
'Unexpectedly' Again: Pending Home Sales Fall 1.8 Percent
Yet another important economic statistic confidently predicted to rise has fallen — hard.
This time it was June's pending sales of existing homes. Just in time for summer, they were predicted to increase by a seasonally adjusted 1.0 percent to 1.5 percent. Instead they fell by 1.8 percent, the steepest drop since December 2013. Additionally, May's original 0.9 percent increase was revised down…
AP Fails to Note That Consumer Confidence Drop Is Worst in Four Years
The Conference Board's July Consumer Confidence report released earlier today threw a heavy dose of cold water on the idea that the economy might finally achieve a broad-based, genuine recovery this year.
Despite month after month of "all is well" reporting — and excuse-making when all hasn't been well — from the U.S. business press, the American public has apparently finally figured out that…
Press Mostly Fails to Note Union Exemptions in Some Minimum-Wage Laws
I guess the slogan of labor has changed from "Look for the union label" to "Look for the union waiver."
The Los Angeles Times published a long front-page story early this morning on an issue some people thought disappeared after its initial exposure two months ago. The issue is whether union workers should be exempt from minimum wage laws, especially the sky-high minimums being enacted in some U…
NYT Celebrates $15 Minimum Wage After Cheerleading It Into NYC Law
Thursday's lead New York Times story on New York State raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers to a whopping $15 an hour was dominated almost completely by cheerleading for the wage. That's despite the fact that even liberal economists are queasy about such a drastic hike in the minimum wage, and that the hike risks hurting the very low-income workers it supposedly helps, by raising the…
AP Pair: Sit Back and Accept This Lousy 'New Normal' Job Market
As seen in two previous posts at NewsBusters, once the Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber didn't get the job market "nearing full health" he expected and briefly thought he got in Thursday's jobs report, he quickly downgraded it to "painting a mixed picture," and took it further down to "a bleaker picture" about eight hours later.
That still left the problem, six years after the recession's…
AP Changed June Jobs Report Take Again, From 'Mixed' to 'Bleaker'
The Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber had a very bad day on Thursday as he covered the government's June jobs report, but it was all self-inflicted.
I noted much of the problem in a NewsBusters post yesterday, citing how the AP economics writer got badly burned while engaging in the wire service's usual practice of analyzing expected and reported economic results instead of concentrating on…
On Jobs Report, AP Changes Take From Almost 'Healthy' to 'Mixed'
This post will document what transpired at the Associated Press on Thursday before and just after the release of the government's employment report. It should be a humiliating lesson to its business and economics writers. One would hope that they might learn to concentrate solely on discerning and accurately reporting the relevant facts, and to leave the analysis to others. (I know; fat chance…
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ABC Omits Flat Wages, Low Labor Participation Rate in June Jobs Report
All three major broadcast networks covered on their Thursday evening newscasts the June 2015 jobs report, but it was ABC’s World News Tonight that neglected provide any further details and/or context beyond the unemployment rate and number of jobs added and omitted how hourly wages remained flat and the labor force participation rate sunk to its lowest level in 38 years. While CBS and NBC…
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CNN's Acosta Tosses Softball to Obama Over His 'Best Week Ever'
On Tuesday, CNN's Jim Acosta asked President Obama about "what some people are calling 'your best week ever.'" Acosta played up that "you had two Supreme Court decisions supportive of the Affordable Care Act and of gay rights. You also delivered a speech down in Charleston that was pretty warmly received." The correspondent then underlined that 'it seems that you've built up some political…
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ABC, NBC Ignore Downside of Obama’s Wage ‘Boost’ Proposal
On Tuesday, the “Big Three” (ABC, CBS, and NBC) networks all highlighted President Obama’s plan to increase the income threshold for salaried workers who earn overtime pay but only CBS This Morning acknowledged the potential harm such a policy change could have on businesses.
CNN Inserts Anti-Poverty Plan into Church Massacre Discussion
On Friday's New Day, during a discussion of the then-upcoming funeral for South Carolina State Senator Clementa Pinckney, CNN host Alisyn Camerota brought up issues of high poverty in South Carolina's black population and invited Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn to use the recent church massacre as a springboard to push for diverting more federal money into high-poverty areas.
CNN Touts Another Panel of Voters Who Slant Heavily Liberal
A week after CNN's New Day aired a pair of pre-recorded segments focusing on an allegedly balanced group of New Hampshire voters who ended up displaying political views stacked heavily in the liberal direction, this week's batch of voters -- this time from Charleston, South Carolina -- appear even more slanted to the left in spite of suggestions of a balanced sample with equal numbers of…
