Business

Those who enjoy the city life should not stop others who want to experience the same thing.

Do customers resist businesses that #Resist?

The business of NFL broadcasting contracts. Plus: All things Scotland, from notes from a visit to notes on the TV show 'Outlander.'

No.

The president campaigned on the idea that the pact was a “total disaster.” Can he do better?

The city hosting the 2020 GOP convention has come a long way.

What does AT&T want to do to HBO?

Senators are coming together to examine ideas on paid family leave Wednesday, encouraged along by the support of first daughter and senior White House adviser Ivanka Trump.

American joins Delta, United, and Alaska airlines in strictly regulating exotic animals on its flights.

Solar perplexus.

Top executives average $25 million in compensation in 2017.

It’s almost as if a tight labor supply helps workers.

Promises of 'community engagement' don’t go far when managers call police on black men waiting for their friend.

Republicans are just over six months away from the 2018 midterm elections, and there's plenty to worry about. Midterms almost always favor the party out of power, and Democratic voters are far more enthused about the election than their Republican correlatives. And although one should never…

Citibank has announced a new “U.S. Commercial Firearms Policy” a move it descries as a direct response to recent gun violence. At the same time, Citibank claims this new policy is “not centered on an ideological mission to rid the world of firearms.” The measures that Citibank is instituting are no…

When is a steel tariff not a steel tariff? How about when it exempts two-thirds of steel imports?

Amazon opened its first bookstore in the Washington D.C. area last week, a real brick-and-mortar storefront on ritzy M street in Georgetown, and is attracting the kind of attention you would expect. “An Amazon bookstore? What the hell?” one woman exclaimed to her friend, stopping for a double-take…

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is considering a plan to integrate drones across U.S. national airspace. Several large corporations have proposed a low-altitude control grid, which they would operate, to manage these unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), popularly referred to as drones. For…

Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake introduced legislation Monday to nullify President Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, calling on his colleagues to rally behind the bill.

An older online myth resurfaced this week, claiming that Malboro was set to release marijuana cigarettes in four states.

Like any savvy investor, I am always on the lookout for signs that the economy may be overheating, that things may be getting a bit frothy. Of particular concern are exotic businesses that pop up at the very end of economic booms, selling products or services that will be the first items struck off…

On the morning of December 12, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson took the stage at the Dean Acheson Auditorium to conduct a year-end town-hall meeting with his anxious and largely skeptical State Department staff. The event was keenly anticipated and the venue packed. No one in attendance—not even…

When President Trump talks tough on trade to one or several of our “partners,” he is being rude and wrecking the world trading system—in the words of the New York Times, adopting a “starkly unilateralist approach.” Yet when he politely raises America’s problems with that system in private, praises…

Have a question for Matt Labash? Ask him at askmattlabash@gmail.com or click here.

Nobody tell the media-critic-in-chief, but the New York Times seems to be nowhere near “failing.”

Disposing of a used couch in an urban neighborhood turns out to be a complicated affair.

It has been a rocky year for ride-sharing conglomerate Uber. On the one hand, they’re still bringing in the revenue, to the tune of in $8.25 billion in the second quarter of 2017. On the other, the company has blundered through a series of corporate missteps and PR disasters, ultimately resulting…

Move over, Bill Gates: There’s a new richest man in the world.

Picture in your mind, for a moment, the Monopoly man. You know, the guy in the Parker Brothers board game who has a top hat and white handlebar mustache. He makes his money in real estate and railroads. Think how he probably invested that money.

I want to share a fantastic Bloomberg Businessweek piece on the Medallion Fund by Katherine Burton.

Administration critics are slamming Secretary of State John Kerry's globetrotting in recent weeks to drum up investment in Iran with international banking and business leaders, and say Tehran has a responsibility to clean up its financial act in order to attract investment on its own.

Business schools are like sanatoriums for the English language—places where words go to languish and softly fade, easing towards a coughing, clichéd death.

As voters are exposed to more about presidential frontrunner Donald J. Trump's record as a businessman, the list of failed ventures comes to mind: Steaks sold at the Sharper Image, an airline, vodka, magazines, mortgages, and a travel agency.

Last month, Ted Cruz released an ad attacking Donald Trump for trying to use eminent domain to bulldoze a widow's home in order to build a parking lot for limos in Atlantic City. Trump didn't succeed, but the fact he tried makes him look like an almost cartoonish movie villain:

Top Chris Christie donor Ken Langone made the case this morning on CNBC that Carly Fiorina is only doing well in the presidential race because she's a woman. "She's done nothing of any consequence in business," said Langone, a founder of Home Depot.

With their attacks on his ideology, misogyny, and hair failing to wound him, Donald Trump’s opponents have decided to really cut to the quick: They’re now attacking the boastful billionaire’s business record. For a man whose sense of self-worth is clearly wrapped up in his net-worth (he has…

Today, in an economic speech at the New School in Manhattan, Hillary Clinton spoke out against short-term traders.

Are airlines unfairly conniving to keep capacity low and thus drive up fares? According to Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, they are—and he's asked the Justice Department to investigate.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders railed against the NSA and corporate privacy concerns this morning in an apeparance on NBC's Meet the Press.

Last year Hillary Clinton called the Russia "reset" policy "totally transactional." The comments seem to take on a new meaning after last week's news about Clinton helping to approve the sale of uranium company to the Russians.

CNN host Chris Cuomo said this morning that reports Hillary Clinton used her private email address to conduct official State Department business "smells terrible."

The latest episode of Conversations With Bill Kristol features guest Jim Manzi:

Hillary Clinton, doing her no-bull, forceful leader number, tells an audience:

Amidst the cliched rhetoric decrying “unpatriotic” companies that accompanied the Obama administration’s recent move to address corporate inversions, it was easy to miss the fact that there is relatively little of substance that can be remedied via regulation alone, even with Treasury Secretary…

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have made increasing the federal minimum wage one of their marquee issues during campaign appearances leading up to the 2014 elections. After pushing for an increase to $9.00/hour up through 2013, the president moved the bar up to $10.10/hour in his…

A Nevada man complained to Vice President Joe Biden that it's hard for small businesses to operate these days:

The former constituents who returned Eric Cantor to the private sector have reason to think, He is who we thought he was. As Mario Trujillo of The Hill reports:

Publicly, President Obama loves to demonize insurance companies.  But behind the scenes, Big Government and Big Insurance maintain a cozy alliance that the Obama administration actively nourishes, often at taxpayer expense.  Indeed, as emails recently obtained by the House Oversight Committee show,…

Pfizer is an American pharmaceutical company that makes Viagra to increase many men’s sexual activity, and Lipitor to prevent strokes and heart attacks (my lay language, not the more precise Pfizer claims). AstraZeneca is a British pharmaceutical company that makes cancer and other drugs. Pfizer…

A new Brookings Institution report indicates that businesses are shuttering their doors more quickly than new ones are popping up.

A new study by American Health Policy Institute finds that the president's signature legislation, Obamacare, will cost large employers "$4,800 to $5,900 per employee." The study, called “The Cost of the Affordable Care Act to Large Employers,” is available here. 

His promising career in politics having come to an inglorious – and no doubt temporary – end, Anthony Weiner has turned to punditry.  In his first column for Business Insider, his subject is the controversy over the Tesla automobile and the campaign by its maker to sell directly to the consumer…

Megan R. Wilson of The Hill reports that:

Last night, Jon Stewart asked Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a simple question: Why was business given the opportunity to delay Obamacare, but individuals were not?

Northern New England is in its glory; now and for the next week or so.  The leaves are nearing peak color and until yesterday, there has been a big high pressure zone parked over the area so the weather has been what would once have been described as "heavenly." It has been raining now but in a few…

The antitrust lawyers I have served as a consultant often have the same complaint: Their clients don’t know when to shut up. This was certainly true of the executives of US Airways and American Airlines as they touted the virtues of their proposed $11 billion merger. US Airways president Scott…

The idea of building a $40 billion canal in Nicaragua, Central America’s poorest nation, seems highly improbable. Yet Chinese businessman Wang Jing insists he is serious about constructing such a waterway, and Nicaraguan lawmakers have given his Hong Kong–based company, HKND Group, a green light to…

KSAT in San Antonio reports that a local businessman faces a $1 million Obamacare bill:

Local Ci Ci's pizza franchise owner Bob Westbrook had to sell off part of his business due to Obamacare:

In the New York Times on Friday, Adam Liptak writes that the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has concluded another term in which, on the whole, conservative interests have won the day. Liptak and his sources attribute this chiefly to Roberts’s role as a “canny strategist with a tough…

With another of those airline mergers in the works, there is a possibility that flights from Washington's Reagan National Airport to some smaller cities out in the interior may be cancelled to the inconvenience of members of Congress who need to get home regularly and hang with their constituents.…

This week we have entry #5,740,412 in the ledger documenting "Why Not Every Market-Based Outcome Is Optimal." And that’s the Yahoo purchase of Tumblr.

Last week, it was announced that Ray's Hell Burger just outside Washington, D.C. would be closing its doors. A fan of the burger joint was President Obama, who had visited the location with his Russian counterpart. 

Tomorrow at the White House, President Barack Obama will bring in "progressive and labor leaders" for an immigration discussion. He'll also be meeting with "business leaders" to discuss the same topic.

As the tax debate continues, Republicans have a good opportunity to contrast their own support for small businesses with the Democrats' support for big business. As Kimberley Strassel writes in Friday's Wall Street Journal, big business is backing President Obama's refusal to stop the looming tax…

John Kerry, who will be nominated later today to be the next secretary of state, is the richest member of the U.S. Senate. His estimated net worth is, at minimum, $198.65 million, according to disclosure forms.

Forbes’s recently released list of “The Best States for Businesses and Careers” provides further evidence of the Democratic party’s striking erosion as a party of economic growth and prosperity.  Based on their votes in the most recent presidential election, all but three of Forbes’s top-10 states…

If Republicans want to be the party of Main Street and let Democrats continue to be the party of big government and its natural ally, big business, there's one tax they should embrace. As Christine Gregoire and Sally Jewell write in today's Wall Street Journal, government tax policies discriminate…

Karen Mills, President Obama's Small Business Administration chief, claimed this morning on MSNBC that she has not heard one case of Obamacare hurting small business:

The latest ad from Mitt Romney's campaign hits President Barack Obama for floating the idea of adding a "secretary of business" in a second term: 

A group of over 30 business leaders, including Jack Welch, slammed President Barack Obama in a paid advertisement that appeared recently in USA Today.

An Ohio man at the market told President Obama that business has been "Terrible since you got here," according to the White House pool report. Via the pool report:

Permit me to add two points to the comments on the first presidential debate. First, no one seems to have noticed that after extolling Americans for “their genius, their grit, their determination,” the president said that everything he has tried to do and will do if reelected is to see that these…

Can the Romney campaign become a cause? Can a mere electoral effort become a broad political movement? That's what really successful campaigns do—think Reagan 1980 or Obama 2008. The last few days have suggested this possibility. And the Virginia small businessman who took a stand provides an…

This is the president speaking:

Rasmussen, on its latest poll: 

Mitt Romney's campaign has released a web video responding to President Obama's comments, "If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own."

Barack Obama's supporters have been furiously arguing that the presdent's recent comments about American businesses have been taken out of context. Obama said at a campaign event last Friday:  

Lis Smith, a spokesman for President Barack Obama's reelection campaign, touted Solyndra by saying the failed energy company that received federally backed loans has been "widely praised as successful and innovative."

Free advice for the Romney campaign from Luigi Zingales, writing in City Journal:

In an interview on CNN last night, former President Bill Clinton praised Donald Trump, a supporter and fundraiser of presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney. "Donald Trump has been uncommonly nice to Hillary and me," Clinton tells CNN. He later adds: "I like him. And I love playing golf with…

In an interview on CNN this evening, former President Bill Clinton completely undermined President Obama's campaign strategy of attacking Mitt Romney and his record as a businessman. Clinton praised Romney's "sterling business career":

John Engler, the former three-term governor of Michigan and current president of the Business Roundtable, calls the House Republican budget proposal a "courageous exercise" and says it has "intriguing ideas" regarding tax and entitlement reforms.

An appropriate accompaniment to this season’s return of Mad Men is Jane Maas’s entertaining and rueful memoir of what it was like to be an advertising woman in the 1960s and ’70s. Maas, a star copywriter who became a creative director and president of an agency, is best known for being the “mother”…

Earlier this week, on Monday, the advocacy group USA*Engage sent a letter to each of the 100 Senate offices. The organization’s intention was clear: to prevent the U.S. from imposing economic sanctions on Iran.

The average American family is not going to cancel a trip to Disneyland because of headlines about “something going on in Italy or France,” says James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. So he is guessing “The holiday season will be reasonable.” Pollsters support that view.…

The Omaha World-Herald has a profile of presidential candidate Herman Cain's time at the helm of Godfather's Pizza:

Hot Air: "Obama: Are you better off than you were four years ago? I guess you’re not"

New York Times: "As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe"

In the Washington Post, Camden Fine, president and chief executive of the Independent Community Bankers of America, writes, “I was astounded this month when the Federal Reserve announced its intention to keep interest rates at zero percent for at least the next two years. I kept staring at that…

Lately there's been a spate of businessmen loudly complaining about the burdensome regulatory climate of the Obama administration. Fortunately, there's at least one highly experienced businessman in the Senate that feels their pain. Until he was elected last fall, Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson…

Reuters: "A small majority of economists -- 30 out of 53 -- surveyed over the past two days said the United States will lose its AAA credit rating from one of the three big ratings agencies -- Standard & Poor's, Moody's or Fitch."

John Merline of Investor's Business Daily interviews Bernie Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot. Marcus tells IBD that Home Depot "would never have succeeded" as a retail business if it were founded today because of the regulatory burden. Here's a taste of the interview:

Alan Blinder’s Wall Street Journal column today, “Our National Jobs Emergency,” unwittingly provides an answer to why all the Obama administration’s machinations to improve our economy have failed. Professor Blinder is surely a smart guy, but, like the president himself, he seems to view…

General Electric paid no American taxes in 2010, the New York Times reports: