The August 30th USA Today carried a story by David Lynch headed: “Economists agree: Stimulus created nearly 3 million jobs.” In paragraph two we learn that: “A recent study by two prominent economists generally agrees, crediting the pump-priming with averting ‘what could have been called Great Depression 2.0.’” It is not immediately obvious which two economist’s Lynch is referring to, but two paragraphs later Lynch reports: “‘We have played our policy hand. Now we’ve got to hope it’s good enough,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics and co-author of the recent study.”

The study Lynch is referring to, … Continue Reading

The August 29th New York Times Week in Review featured an article entitled, “Policy Options Dwindle as Economic Fear Grows,” by Peter S. Goodman. As Goodman recounts the drumbeat of bad economic data released in recent days and the obstacles to using traditional “stimulus,” he offers this explanation for why Congress is reluctant to add more to the national debt:

The dramatic expansion of the national debt — which began in the Bush administration, via hefty tax cuts and two wars — has ratcheted up fears that, one day, creditors like China and Japan might demand sharply

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The amount of oil remaining in the Gulf has been subject to debate with conflicting reports suggesting that either much of the oil is gone or much of it remains. The two major studies came from the federal government’s The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and from researchers at the University of Georgia. NOAA reported that only about a quarter the oil was left in the Gulf while UGA found that seventy to eighty percent remained. In a recent Washington Post article, David A. Fahrenthold and Kimberly Kindy reported that a study from the … Continue Reading

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, appealed for aid from the international community telling reporters: “Climate change, with all its severity and unpredictability, has become a reality for 170 million Pakistanis. The present situation in Pakistan reconfirms our extreme vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change.” The New York Times Nathanial Gronewold then added on August 20th:

Both Qureshi and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hinted that they would use the Pakistan crisis to spur the now-stalled international climate talks. At the very least, the disaster shows that massive funding is needed to make the developing world more resilient

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Reporting on the $26.1 billion government union bailout for the Associated Press on August 13th, Steven Paulson wrote:

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis told his colleagues in the House on Tuesday that the bill will provide Colorado school districts with $160 million and save the jobs of 2,600 teachers in Colorado.

Paulson did go on to add:

State Sen. Nancy Spence, a Republican from Centennial, said an unofficial survey by the Colorado School Finance Project, a joint venture by teachers, educators and school executives to track school finances, raises serious questions about the number of jobs that will be saved.

But this makes the … Continue Reading

When President Barack Obama stopped in Columbus, Ohio to raise campaign cash on August 18th, Dispath reporters Mark Niquette and Joe Hallett reported:

Later, at a Downtown luncheon fundraiser for Gov. Ted Strickland and the Ohio Democratic Party, Obama said the recession already had swept away 8million jobs before “we had any opportunity to put in our economic policies.” Those policies - the $787billion stimulus package, health-care overhaul, domestic auto industry bailout and tighter regulations on Wall Street - are helping to rebuild the economy, Obama said.

If Niquette and Hallett are just repeating what the President said, then they should … Continue Reading

Covering the General Motors bailout for the August 19th Washington Post, Peter Whoriskey writes, “While the government rescue of GM began under the George W. Bush administration, it was the Obama administration that pumped the larger share of federal money into the automaker in exchange for a majority stake. The Obama administration also forced the company to restructure and pushed out then-chief executive G. Richard “Rick” Wagoner Jr., who is now a board member of The Washington Post Co.”

The message is not that the bailout worked but restructuring worked, which would have been done under bankruptcy regardless. … Continue Reading

Covering the release of the annual Medicare and Social Security trustees report for The Washington Post, Amy Goldstein wrote on August 6th:

Specifically, the new report says Medicare’s hospital trust fund will be able to pay all its bills until 2029, compared with last year’s forecast of 2017.
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The report predicts that the Social Security trust fund will have enough money until 2037, the same date as in last year’s forecast.

The Post’s economic reporters need to convey to readers that the Medicare and Social Security “trust funds” contain zero funds. This is not up for dispute. When those programs’ revenues … Continue Reading

On January 1, 2011, every American who pays taxes is set to see their tax bill rise. The lowest personal income bracket will see their taxes rise from 10% - 15%. the 25% bracket will rise to 28%, the old 28% bracket will rise to 31%, the 33% bracket will rise to 36%, and the old 35% bracket will rise to 39.6%. But son’t look for the words “hike”, “rise”, or “raise” any where near the word “tax” in Jackie Calmes coverage of the issue for the August 10th New York Times.

Instead of informing readers about who’s taxes are … Continue Reading

Jim Kirk argues in the August 13th New York Times that since Congress is not moving forward with cap and trade legislation, the Chicago Climate Exchange, the nation’s only buyer and seller of carbon credits, is suffering. Kirk says, “Although carbon trading is robust in Europe, Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the Chicago Climate Exchange, painted a gloomy outlook for a robust cap-and-trade market in the United States.”

While is true absent a cap and trade policy, the future of the Chicago Climate Change is gloomy, Kirk is simply wrong to say that carbon trading is robust in … Continue Reading

The August 6th New York Times included a lengthy Michael Cooper article titled “Governments Go to Extremes as the Downturn Wears On” recounting cutbacks in government programs in Hawaii, Georgia, and Colorado. In 2,632 words we do find out that Hawaii owns “billions of dollars to a pension system that has only 68.8 percent of the money it needs to cover its promises” and that Clayton County Georgia spends $8 million a year on its bus system, and that Colorado Springs saved $1.2 million by shutting off streetlights this winter, but no where are we told just how big … Continue Reading

David Cho writes in the August 8th Washington Post that businesses are willing to incur enormous sums of debt because of incentives in the tax code, primarily the way businesses can deduct interest expense. Cho says:

Like other U.S. corporations, it also has had a uniquely American incentive for its borrowing habits: the nation’s tax laws. These rules offer extensive tax breaks to companies that borrow money and penalize those that raise cash in safer ways, such as issuing stock. Yet despite the recent financial crash, which exposed the perils of excessive borrowing, the rules are likely to

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In a report comparing the costs of nuclear energy and solar energy, New York Times reporter Diana Powers gives an unfair critique of nuclear power and glorifies solar energy by ignoring the challenges of bringing it online. Powers points to a study that says electricity produced from solar photovoltaic cells could be cheaper than nuclear and that nuclear’s costs are on the rise while solar’s costs are on the decline. The Times later amended the article to say, “In raising several questions about this issue and the economics of nuclear power, the article failed to point out, … Continue Reading

The headline over Amy Goldstein’s August 5th article on the Medicare Trustees Report reads “Health-care law strengthens Medicare outlook, report finds” but the facts contradict this conclusion. The Washington Post reports:

The federal law intended to spur broad changes to the nation’s health-care system has strengthened Medicare’s financial condition, with the fund that pays for older Americans’ hospital care predicted to last a dozen years longer than expected a year ago, according to a new government forecast.

But here is what the Medicare Chief Actuary actually writes about Obamacare:

Further, while the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended, makes

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On August 2 in NPR, David Welna writes on the scaled-back energy bill in the Senate proposed by Senator Harry Reid (D-NV). Welna’s description of the bill is mostly accurate but his report has two fundamental flaws. First, when noting that Reid’s bill does not contain a system to price carbon dioxide, he wrongly asserts that businesses responded negatively towards proposals like cap and trade. He writes, “It’s been more than a year since the House narrowly passed its energy bill. That was a tough vote for a lot of Democrats because the bill included … Continue Reading

On August 1st, The Los Angeles Times asked: “Arizona was once tolerant of illegal immigrants. What happened?” Authors Anna Gorman and Nicholas Riccardi go on to report:

Arizona has made a name for itself as the state with the harshest policies against illegal immigration. But as few as six years ago, this border state was among the nation’s most welcoming of illegal immigrants.
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Since 2004, Arizona legislators have passed measures that restricted illegal immigrants from receiving in-state tuition, made English the official language and dissolved any business that repeatedly hired illegal immigrants.
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But one factor influencing the state in profound ways was

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