Media

During a recent news conference at the state Capitol, Lisa Graves, executive director of the Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy, made an astonishing claim.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed to raise the New York State minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.75 per hour, drawing cheers from progressive groups who have lobbied for such a hike for years. But many business advocacy groups worry that this move would raise the cost of hiring entry level employees, and hinder New York's already slow economic recovery. 

Which is better for a country’s well-being: $10 million spent constructing a jail, or $10 million spent producing a line of smartphones? How about clear- cutting rain forests to produce $10 million in lumber? Or a storm that requires $10 million in repairs?

A quarter of the eligible recipients do not take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Just when we imagined that credit reporting firms couldn’t be more invasive and profiteering, NBC News breaks this story: 

A federal judge recently approved the BP settlement over the Deep Horizon disaster so BP will pay $4 billion in criminal penalties—a slap on the wrist—and plead guilty to manslaughter.

The Peter Peterson Foundation has released its second monthly "Fiscal Confidence Index." It's worth looking at closely as a case study in how polling data can be used selectively and manipulatively -- and as a broader example of what's wrong with today's narrow, ill-informed debate over fiscal policy.

Just over a year ago, The Economist published a lovely essay on the euphemism and its generally pernicious effect on civilization -- in the bedroom, the boardroom, in politics, and so on. It's been firmly in the back of my mind lately as Whole Foods CEO John Mackey tours to promote Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business.

This section, on business, is particularly apt vis-à-vis the language of Whole Foods:

One of the main reasons GDP declined was a 22 percent decrease in defense spending. This is not a bad thing.