CNBC

Concerning the Christmas shopping season, the Associated Press's Anne D'Innocenzio and CNBC's Krystina Gustafson agree: It has stunk. D'Innocenzio noted that "sales at stores have fallen for the third consecutive week as Americans continue to hold back on spending during what is traditionally the busiest buying period of the year." Gustafson, apparently looking over the same ShopperTrak data…

Print, broadcast or web, the media sure aren’t Nostradamus. In spite of their best attempts, the news media have gotten it wrong prediction after prediction on a wide range of business and economic issues in 2013. Just in the past year, reporters warned of “economic doomsday,” thought Healthcare.gov was going to be “easy” just like Amazon.com, and warned of melting polar ice, even as a new…

The broadcast networks have aired more than a few critical stories about the ObamaCare rollout -- from "glitches" with the HealthCare.gov website to the millions of individuals who are losing their health insurance in spite of the President's oft-repeated promise to the contrary (a lie that NBC's Chuck Todd naively argued was not "intentional.") But an exchange on Monday night's The Kudlow…

CNBC’s morning anchors were troubled by the news that their own insurance plans will become more costly under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). On Oct. 30’s “Squawk Box,” CNBC Senior Correspondent Scott Cohn revealed details of NBC’s open enrollment, brandishing an official fact book outlining the process. He quoted the document, revealing that the ACA would increase employee premiums.

Near the end of the fourth story on Monday's NBC Nightly News, White House correspondent Peter Alexander managed to squeeze in a mention of the network's scoop that the Obama administration knew for years that millions of people would be kicked off of their current health insurance plans because of ObamaCare, despite the President's repeated assurances to the contrary. [Listen to the audio]…

Between the government shut down and the debt ceiling limit about to be crossed Oct. 17, the news media is screaming like the house is on fire. The Obama administration has also warned of dangers. Of course, that’s nothing new. In many cases following the Obama administration’s reports and threats, the networks were hysterical in their coverage of the “fiscal cliff” and the sequester in late…

The Morning Joe crew, along with much of the liberal media, has lately been ringing the debt-ceiling alarm, saying that a failure to raise the debt ceiling by October 17 would cause a default that would devastate the U.S. economy. But on Friday’s Morning Joe, CNBC’s Michelle Caruso-Cabrera stepped onto the set and took a wrecking ball to the wall of hysteria surrounding a possible default.…

In an exclusive interview with President Obama on Wednesday, CNBC chief Washington correspondent John Harwood lobbed this softball on the political fallout of the government shutdown: "Before the election last year, you said you thought there was a possibility your re-election would break the fever within the Republican Party. Didn't happen. Do you see this moment as a chance, through this…

On CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday, Sun Microsystems founder and Harvard-trained economist Scott Mc Nealy asserted the Federal Reserve has become a "marketing department" for the government and "shouldn't be in any business at all. They shouldn’t be in the business of taxing people by devaluing the dollar, and they shouldn’t be in the business of setting expectations." He said the Fed should…

The August Jobs Report showed 169,000 jobs were added, less than many had predicted and revisions from previous months even included a drop of 74,000 jobs. So the jobs total for the month was really just 95,000. The stock market continued to rally, but CNBC’s Rick Santelli, who covers the Chicago Board of Trade, said that such a contrast was upsetting. “What are we, a banana republic?”…

Maybe we should cue up the old classic "High Hopes," especially given its ironic title, every time one of these "unintended consequence of Obamacare" stories comes along. Instead of singing "Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant," we can all sing, "Oops, there goes another Obamacare 'quirk.'" One of the latest "quirks," also described as a "weird" result of the progressive movement's…

A November 15, 2010 blog post by Michael S. Derby at the Wall Street Journal ("San Francisco Fed Official Says QE2 Is Working") told us that "The Federal Reserve‘s recently announced plan to buy $600 billion in Treasury securities to improve economic growth is having a positive effect on growth." The Fed official involved also predicted "the U.S. gross domestic product to come in at 2.5% this…

NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley made some stunning comments concerning the George Zimmerman trial Thursday. Appearing on CNBC’s Closing Bell, Barkley not only said that he agreed with the verdict, but also that when it comes to race, “I don’t think the media has a pure heart…A lot of these people have a hidden agenda” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

UPDATED: [May 21; 5:15 p.m. EDT | see portion in brackets below the page break] || The liberal media continue their effort to spin the Obama administration right out of trouble. On Saturday’s Today, NBC brought on John Harwood, CNBC’s chief Washington correspondent, to provide some analysis of the three scandals that rocked the administration last week. Harwood, with help from co-anchor Erica…