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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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: [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

The Wall Street Journal explains why we shouldn’t put a “buy American steel provision” into the upcoming stimulus plan. 1) The domestic steel industry cannot supply all our needs (20-25% of our steel is imported). 2) American steel companies have become highly consolidated and, without international competition, would be able to raise prices and bilk [...]

Folks on the left and the right of this issue discuss on CNBC… Of course Kudlow and Toomey were going to argue for lower corporate tax rates, but we’ve seen how many taxes corporations pay (hint: not much). But individual people and smaller businesses need the tax cuts and ability to write off debt, not [...]

Not necessarily the worst thing in the world, especially considering the noises Republicans have been making recently about accounting for every single dollar. From NY Times: Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, expressed doubt on Sunday that the Jan. 20 goal set by some for getting a stimulus package before the new [...]

3 million new jobs. 80% of them in the private sector. Here’s more… By the way, Obama is now posting his videos on Vimeo too, which is much better quality.

For me, the meaning of “worst” is definitely in the eye of the beholder. Because while a lot of wealth was lost, the silver lining was that many economic ills were exposed before something truly cataclysmic happened. There’s no doubt that our economy is hurting right now, but just imagine what would have happened if [...]

The New York Times covers three small businesses in the NYC area and it’s pretty sobering stuff. Whatever stimulus plan we see after Obama gets in better help these folks directly otherwise the economy simply isn’t going to pick back up. Do you own a small business? How tough have things been recently?

Massive energy speculation mixed with much lower demand is driving the price down, down, down for the foreseeable future. From AP: A report by the Commerce Department showed that sales of new homes fell in November to the slowest pace in nearly 18 years, while new home prices dropped by the biggest amount in eight [...]