Jobs Lost in Best Buy HQ Layoffs, Store Closures: Several Thousand, No
From what I can tell, no one in the establishment press yesterday attempted to quantify the total employment impact of yesterday's announcement by Best Buy that it will reduce its headquarters headcount by 400 and close 50 stores. One thing is certain: It's not just 400, as the headlines and verbiage in certain media reports might lead readers to believe -- and it's not excusable to say that…
DOL's Seasonal Initial Jobless Claims Revisions Increase Past 4 Weeks
Earlier this year, a reporter informed me of what is apparently a common belief in the business press, namely that "the Labor Department considers the (seasonally adjusted, or SA) numbers to be much more reflective of what’s actually going on in the economy" than the raw (i.e., not seasonally adjusted, or NSA) economic data. That's interesting, given that you can't even do seasonal adjustments…
Bloomberg: Dem Corzine Ordered $200 Million Customer Funds Move; AP, U
An item filed at the Hill on Friday afternoon by Peter Schroeder tells us that Bloomberg News was the first organization to report the latest development relating to former New Jersey Democratic Governor and Senator Jon Corzine. Bloomberg's report, via Phil Mattingly and Silla Brush, reveals that Corzine, who was CEO at the now-bankrupt MF Global Holdings until November, "gave 'direct…
Wires Trumpet Unemployment Claims As Tying '4-Year Low'; Historical Ch
The exercise of watching the press report on the current week's unemployment claims figure as if it's etched in stone and assessing it as if it's the last word -- only to see the figure get upwardly revised the next week virtually without media comment -- is getting extraordinarily tedious and predictable (but of course watching what they do remains necessary).
At the Associated Press,…
More Grading on the Curve: At RTT, Acceptable Weekly Unemployment Clai
The Department of Labor reported today that initial claims for unemployment benefits increased to 362,000 from an upwardly revised (as usual) 354,000 the previous week. Expectations were for a reading of 351,000 (Business Insider's email) or 352,000 (Bloomberg).
Over at the Associated Press, also known as the Administration's Press, the headlined reaction in its 9:17 a.m. report was: "…
S.E. Cupp Smacks Down Margaret Carlson for Calling Santorum a Zealot
Conservative author S.E. Cupp didn't take kindly to Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson calling Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum a zealot on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday.
"Rick Santorum is not a zealot," scolded Cupp. "He happens to be a Christian and a conservative. That's it, end of story" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Charles Krauthammer Schools Jeanne Cummings: Gingrich Won in SC Becaus
Bloomberg's Jeanne Cummings got a much-needed lesson Friday about money not being everything in politics.
After she claimed on PBS's Inside Washington that Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's revival in the race was all due to multimillion dollar donations from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer correctly replied that the former Speaker's…
Al Hunt and Mark Shields Repeat Disputed Story of Gingrich Divorcing C
Last Friday saw two high-profile liberal pundits - one on Bloomberg News's Political Capital and the other on PBS's Inside Washington - repeating the story that Newt Gingrich divorced his first wife while she was being treated for cancer, without either of them noting that one of Gingrich's daughters - Jackie Gingrich Cushman - last May specifically disputed the account that her mother, who is…
Charles Krauthammer Schools Margaret Carlson on Payroll Tax Holidays
Like so many of her liberal media colleagues, Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson believes cutting payroll taxes for a short period of time stimulates the economy.
Fortunately for viewers of PBS's Inside Washington, when she tried to make this absurd conclusion Friday, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer was there to give her and others on the panel a much-needed education (video follows with…
Obama Crony-Run LightSquared's Network Now Shown to Disrupt Plane Safe
Late Friday afternoon, Todd Shields at Bloomberg News broke a story about some guy, who happens to be an Obama and Democratic Party donor (but not disclosed), against whom the Securities and Exchange Commission is formally considering an enforcement action (also not disclosed, though it was noted at the New York Times's Dealbook Blog five hours before Shields's report), whose "wireless service…
GM Non-Story: Dealer Inventory Build-up Continues
Not that it took keen insight to catch it, but yours truly was one of a very few people who pointed out that General/Government Motors unduly dressed up its financial statements in advance of its late-2010 initial public offering by foisting an unreasonable level of vehicle inventory on dealers. The effect of this was to enable the company, which in accordance with general industry practice…
AP Critique of GOP Candidates' Economic Proposals Cites 'Mainstream' T
It's truly delicious when the outfit which calls itself the Essential Global News Network essentially admits that a certain economic theory which begins with a "K" has become such an undesirable word -- almost an epithet -- that it avoids its mention.
That was the case with a pathetic critique of GOP candidates' economic plans written up by the wire service's Charles Babington on Sunday. When…
WaPo Item on Fed's Economic Downgrade Leaves Out Tepid Projected Growt
At the Washington Post's "with Bloomberg" Business section, the self-described locale "Where Washington and Business Intersect," a Wednesday item by Neil Irwin ("Fed downgrades growth forecasts, sees high unemployment for years ahead") told us that "The Federal Reserve sharply downgraded its projections for the U.S. economy," but never cited any projected growth numbers. Seriously.
Having…
Wires Virtually Ignore Corzine's Dem Party ID, Rarely Associate Him Wi
Consider this post the print and online follow-up to the report early Tuesday evening by Matthew Balan at NewsBusters on the failure of the Big Three TV networks to note the Democratic Party/Obama fundraising affiliation of former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, whose now-bankrupt MF Global financial firm has apparently admitted to diverting client money in a futile attempt to battle its…
