Bloomberg

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…

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…

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…

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…

Jonathan Alter, who spent 28 years at Newsweek, has been a columnist at Bloomberg News since early this year. Just this year, the reliably and insufferably liberal Alter, among many other things, called the Republican House's passage of Paul Ryan's budget plan in April an attempt "to throw Granny in the snow," and coldly calculated that in the wake of her shooting, Arizona Congresswoman…

Yesterday, Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider reacted to the mixed economic news of the day by observing: "Lots of folks are scratching their head about today's dismal UMich/Reuters consumer sentiment number coming in so ugly, just as retail sales for September came in so strong." It seems that the folks at the Associated Press were not among the head-scratchers. From all appearances, the…

PBS's Charlie Rose opened last night’s Bloomberg/Washington Post GOP presidential economic policy debate by noting the round table format was like a “kind of kitchen table where families for generations have come together to talk and solve their problems.” But through much of the debate it sounded more like Thanksgiving dinner with your liberal aunt and uncle as panelist Karen Tumulty of the…

Tonight's GOP presidential debate (hosted by The Washington Post and Bloomberg TV) is moderated by longtime PBS late-night host Charlie Rose. His show has been touted as a "national salon," but it's a very cozy place for liberal media elites. Conservatives are not regulars. The most frequent guests include his journalist buddy Al Hunt (with 79 appearances), who now works at Bloomberg, and New…

Yesterday, in a different post about long-term unemployment, I wrote: "Of all the reality-denying aspects of Obama administration press coverage, the usually implicit but occasionally explicit assertion that he and his people are just helpless bystanders in an economic calamiity is easily among the most annoying." Bloomberg's Mike Dorning triggered the annoyance meter today with an "analysis…

The juvenile bashing of Chris Christie's weight hit a disgraceful low on PBS's "Inside Washington" Friday when a panel absent the guiding sanity of syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer chuckled and guffawed over the size of the New Jersey governor. What posterity will certainly view as one of the more embarrassing episodes on this political talk show stalwart came when PBS's Mark Shields…

The Conference Board's September Consumer Confidence Survey came out this morning. Overall, it rose very slightly from a miserable 45.2 to a still-miserable 45.4. Consumers' assessment of near-term prospects slid from 34.3 to in August to 32.5, while their longer-term outlook improved from 52.4 to 54.0. At the Associated Press (saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes…

Sometimes, I think that we wouldn't have a useful press at all if it weren't for the British press. The big news out of the International Monetary Fund this weekend was, as reported by the UK Telegraph, that it "may need billions in extra funding." Specifically, it "may have to tap its members – including Britain – for billions of pounds of extra funding to stem the European debt crisis."…

So I figure that I need to catch up on the LightSquared saga. This is the company which, as Fox News reported on Thursday (the URL date is September 15, though the time stamp is the next day) is building "a nationwide, next-generation, 4G phone network." The problem is, as Fox further noted, that there are concerns that "many, including (General William) Shelton, think (the network) would…

The public learned on September 3 from William McQuillen at Bloomberg (possibly earlier elsewhere) that now-bankrupt Soyndra's private investors restructured the company's finances in January by lending the company "$75 million." As a condition of doing so, they convinced the government to give the new loan senior status over all other creditors. Now taxpayers face a likely loss of hundreds of…