While everybody is focused on the ups and downs of the top 30 companies, Obama and Geithner have plans to free up money for the little guys.
From AP:
Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday planned to announce a broad package that includes reduced small-business lending fees and an increase on the guarantee to some [...]

TheStreet.com’s CEO quits immediately after last night’s interview.
Not sure why. After all, the interview that Stewart used to bludgeon Cramer with has been around for quite some time…and on TheStreet.com.
But nonetheless…
Friday brought more tumult for CNBC anchor Jim Cramer, when the chief executive of his online financial news site, The Street.com, resigned.
The company announced [...]

The flagging economy has accelerated the decline of the American newspaper industry. Already suffering from waning readership and declining ad sales, several major newspapers are now projected to fold or go exclusively on-line before the end of the year. Those papers include such stalwarts of the news business as the Miami Herald, the Boston Globe, [...]

CNBC with a great look at the ins and outs of the “industry” in Marijuana, Inc.

Listen, I can understand bans on harder narcotics, but not marijuana. Everybody knows that marijuana is FAR less dangerous to your health and the public’s safety than alcohol. I could literally go out right now and buy enough alcohol to [...]

Michelle Malkin and several other conservative bloggers are having a lot of fun with this particular statistic:
On Nov. 4, after Barack Obama clinched the White House, the market closed at 9,625.28.
In mid-morning trading today, the day President Obama signs his massive Generational Theft Act into law and a day before he unveils a massive new [...]

o what extent did the Treasury Secretary and the executive branch permit misinformation and fear to be used to panic the Congress into abrogating their responsibilities to the American taxpayer and pass a very bad bill with very little consideration?

For those of you who would have done nothing, listen to the reality…

Partial transcript…
I was there when the secretary and the chairman of the Federal Reserve came those days and talked to members of Congress about what was going on… Here’s the facts. We don’t even talk about these things.
On Thursday, at about 11 o’clock [...]

Compared to now…

The situation is certainly getting worse and there are no indications I’ve seen that it’ll get better anytime soon…
The United States lost nearly 600,000 jobs last month, sending the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent, the highest in 16 years, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday.
News of the increase, up from 7.2 percent, was [...]

Looks like the Republican senator will be attempting to join the Obama administration since a press conference is set for tomorrow morning. And my guess is that he’ll get confirmed immediately.
Now, there had been speculation that Obama’s team was picking Gregg to swing the senate to 60 Dem votes, but that was quickly put to [...]

The PJM Ad Network is no more, and when you do the math it doesn’t really make sense.
First, to understand why people are so upset right now you have to know that PJM forced their bloggers to accept NO other advertising dollars if they wanted to be part of their ad network. So BlogAds, AdBrite, [...]

Some tough cuts and tax increases are coming to The Big Apple.
From WCBSTV.com:

“This is a very tough time for our city and nation,” Bloomberg said. “We have a $4 billion budget gap. It is serious, I think it is manageable.” [...]
For now, Bloomberg is proposing $894 million in new sales taxes, including:
-Increasing the sales [...]

I think it’s pretty clear by now that the economy will define Obama’s first year.
But will it define his entire first term?
Hardball discusses…

A bit of good news? Credit seems to be unfreezing.
More as it develops…

No doubt this will change, but just a quick snapshot of what’s proposed in the stimulus bill.

Courtesy of the NY Times.

In a sign of the times, electronics retailer Circuit City has failed to find a buyer for its business and will close all 567 remaining U.S. stores. 30,000 people will lose their jobs.
In a bid to remain viable, Circuit City filed for bankruptcy last year, but a dismal holiday shopping season sealed the chain’s [...]

Following up on my earlier post about oil speculation, there’s news that 50 million barrels of oil are being hoarded on supertankers.
The market calls it “contango.”
I call it irresponsible.
From Marketplace…
“Contango” refers to a market condition in which the future price of a commodity is higher than the cost of buying it today. Right now, [...]

The Chair-designate for the Council of Economic Advisers put the plan together so she’s the best person to explain it.

It’s refreshing to hear somebody argue that both government spending and tax cuts can create jobs. Because, first and foremost, Romer cares about the ideas that works and that’s what we need right now.
Also, maybe it’s [...]

I found this interesting nugget in Obama’s economic proposal…
Summing across industries suggests that the total number of created jobs likely to go to women is roughly 42% of the jobs created by the package.
Given that so far in the recession women have accounted for roughly 20% of the decline in payroll employment, this calculation could [...]

Before we get into the details, one very important thing I want to point out is that the Obama team is starting to make this plan bullet proof. Because not only are 90% of the projected jobs going to be created in the private sector, but the 10% of government jobs are those that are [...]

Presented in full by MSNBC…

You can also read the text here.

I’ll have the video when it’s posted, but from what I’ve read below this is, once again, exactly in line with the type of pragmatic, common sense leadership Obama promised on the campaign trail.
Here are a few key thoughts…
Our problems are rooted in past mistakes, not our capacity for future greatness

The true test of [...]