The Washington Post (a.k.a. Fox on 15th Street) is once again touting the "demographic crisis" shtick, this time in reference to China. The Post tells readers that China faces a "looming demographic crisis" that: "it is going to be the first nation in the world to grow old before it gets rich. By the middle of this century the percentage of its population above age 60 will be higher than in the United States, and more than 100 million Chinese will be older than 80."

The NYT reports that strong demand is causing wages to rise rapidly in China. While the article describes this as a "labor shortage," this is actually a normal process in a growing economy. Workers move from less productive sectors to more productive sectors. Firms that cannot afford to pay the market wage go out of business.

At the end of the article, the NYT notes that China may revalue the yuan as one mechanism for offsetting the inflation caused by the rise in wages. It then cites Jing Ulrich, the chairwoman of China equities and commodities at J. P. Morgan: "Letting wages rise benefits workers, ... letting the currency rise benefits currency speculators."

It seems that being surprised by the economy is a requirement for an economist to be a source for the Washington Post. The first sentence of a Post article on January existing home sales and GDP revisions told readers that: "Sales of previously owned houses unexpectedly slumped in January." The main surprised economist featured in the article was Lawrence Yun, the chief economist of the National Association of Realtors.

NPR gave us classic financial markets as sports event reporting this morning, pointing out how the markets moved on the words spoken by Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke. The correct response to these moment by moment movements should be: "who gives a damn?"

There are a small number of rich speculators who stand to make or lose large amounts of money on these movements, just as people at racing tracks stand to make or lose money depending on the outcome of horse races. For the vast majority of people in the country (including the vast majority of NPR's relatively affluent listeners), the hour to hour or even day to day movement of the financial markets have no consequence.

The headline of a Washington Post article told readers: "Economists surprised as new-home sales fall to lowest level in nearly 50 years." The first sentence explained: "sales of newly built homes unexpectedly plummeted in January to their lowest level in nearly five decades, providing more evidence of the housing market's fragility."

The NYT had another blogpost complaining that the government pays more money to rich investment bankers like Peter Peterson than it does to poor children. Actually, the column didn't mention how much money rich investment bankers get from the government in the form of interest payments on the government bonds that most of them hold, instead it complained about the money that retirees collect in the form of Social Security and Medicare payments.