Bloomberg

While the Obama administration and its media minions castigate financial industry executives for their so-called greedy ways, a couple of inconvenient truths are going largely un- or under-reported: one bank being criticized for a lavish convention in Las Vegas was forced to take TARP money in October, while another is trying to pay back the funds to regain its autonomy.As the press had a field…

He might be on the Forbes list of billionaires with a net worth of $1.3 billion and he may appear frequently in the financial media, but Pimco's Bill Gross doesn't have a grasp of how much "trillions" are. Gross recently called for a massive government intervention or face certain catastrophe.  "This economy requires support from the government, a check from the government in some form or…

The newspaper that appears to be on a mission to become Manhattan's quaint little alternative daily is considering a move that would cheer those who prefer fair and balanced reporting accompanied by intellectually honest editorials and op-eds. That publication, the New York Times, is considering a return to fee-based content -- and this time, it might go for the whole enchilada. Times Executive…

Here are the key numbers (in red) in Uncle Sam's November Personal Income and Outlays report (the July : Common sense says that the chart's results after adjusting for inflation are more important (identified as "Chained [2000] dollars") than those in current dollars. Consmers' disposable income went up 1.0% in real (after-inflation) terms in November after a 0.7% increase in October. It took a…

In an attempt to play Main Street against Wall Street, Rachel Maddow mocked and criticized the rate at which Goldman Sachs was taxed this year. The MSNBC host of "The Rachel Maddow Show" lamented that the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which reported a $2.12 billion dollar loss for the fourth quarter ending Nov. 28, paid only 1 percent in taxes for the entire year during her Dec. 18 show. "Five…

Those who thought that President-elect Obama's pre-Thanksgiving promise to "create or save jobs," appropriately satirized by Mark Finkelstein at NewsBusters on November 24, might have been another one of the Oh-So-(in)Articulate One's "inartful" statements should know that it has become standard fare in Obama speeches.In related news, Uncle Sam told us Friday that over 136 million seasonally…

Pulitzer-Prize winning author and professor of history at Stanford University David M. Kennedy told Bloomberg radio Nov. 18 that the current financial crisis bears no comparison to the Great Depression. "Well, we're not yet in anything remotely resembling the crisis, the scale of crisis of the Great Depression." When Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, 13 million Americans were unemployed…

With 15 minutes of fame comes 15 hours of “gotcha” scrutiny -- especially if you’re a voter who has dared to criticize Barack Obama, the liberal media’s Chosen One for president.Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher has had his 15 minutes of fame, capping it off with an unplanned appearance as the poster boy of populist tax policy in last night’s presidential debate. So now it’s time for the press to…

Poor Karl Ritter and Matt Moore of the Associated Press must have a lot of time to kill, a dearth of ideas, and a studied disinterest in accuracy as they await the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Economics in Stockholm, Sweden on Monday. A list of past winners is here.  Besides lamenting that no woman has ever won the Economics Prize (so?), the AP pair felt the need to relate the financial…

Earlier this year, the media trotted out story after story of high gas price hardship as oil climbed to a record-high $147 a barrel back in July. One analyst even predicted in May that oil would reach $300 a barrel. But, now that a financial mess has struck the markets, oil has fallen from $140 to right around $90 a barrel on Oct. 7. During months leading up to its peak, many were forecasting…

On PBS's Web site today, ombudsman Michael Getler writes of complaints over an incident during last Sunday's pledge drive.  He describes the cheap shot taken by actor Mike Farrell against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:According to Joseph Campbell, vice president of fundraising programs, here's what happened:

To explain the high level of hatred for Governor Sarah Palin, the September 18 edition of "Fox and Friends" invited Bloomberg News columnist Caroline Baum. Ms. Baum, who claims to have studied it extensively, later used a vulgar term to describe which direction women voters will lean.The Bloomberg columnist explained that Governor Palin "made the Democrats’ road to the White House less inevitable…