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Slideshow: President-elect Barack Obama Play Video Barack Obama Video: Illinois House impeaches Gov. Rod Blagojevich AP Play Video Barack Obama Video: Web only: Obama names intelligence team WRAL Raleigh Reuters – President-elect Barack Obama arrives to make a speech on the economy at George Mason University in Fairfax, … WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama said Friday that he and Congress will "hone and refine" his nearly $800 billion economic recovery plan, as he seeks to patch fissures with senior Democrats over key features of the still-emerging plan. The job was made more urgent with the release of a Labor Department...

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So that was the problem.

If this is true, Peter Schiff's prediction of a bond market meltdown may be right. China, after all, is a creditor nation.

What a difference a year makes. President-elect Barack Obama hasn’t even taken office and we’re experiencing “climate change.” No, not the global warming variety that keeps bypassing the bone-chilling American winter, it’s the “climate change” in Washington. I’m talking about Obama, who promised a government of “change” and then unveiled a switcheroo in his January 2 radio address, also available on the Change.gov Web site. This isn’t a new controversy. There has been a blizzard of media coverage about the Obama economic plan. The only thing journalists agree on is that they don’t know what Obama has planned. The cost...

Obama: Government is only solution to fixing economy By Klaus Marre Posted: 01/08/09 08:55 AM [ET] President-elect Obama on Thursday plans to highlight the need for a massive stimulus measure by saying that only the government has the power to jumpstart the ailing economy. “If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four,” Obama will say during an address at George Mason University, according to prepared remarks...

With the financial industry, auto makers and more getting assistance from the federal government to stay afloat during the recession, the adult industry decided it would try to get something as well. Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis and “Hustler” magazine publisher Larry Flynt have said they will petition Congress for financial aid along the lines of what the Big Three auto makers are getting. Francis said that he and Flynt are asking for $5 billion, and that they have sent letters to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Congress and their local Congressman, Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) with the proposal.

Servers suffer as gratuities, and their incomes, plummet with the economyNobody is sitting at the rack at Mary’s Club on a Friday afternoon. The rack is the counter that lines the stage at Mary’s, an institution among Portland strip clubs, at 129 S.W. Broadway Ave. Customers who sit at the rack, up close to the dancers, are expected to tip dollar bills or more throughout the performances. In fact, there’s a sign in Mary’s Club that reads, “If you’re watching and not tipping, you’re stealing.” But it’s easier to watch and not tip from seats further back or at the...

Electronic unemployment systems in at least three states crashed under the crush of thousands of new claims from unemployed Americans. Along with having trouble keeping up with online filings, state unemployment centers are also swamped with telephone inquiries. The situation has an upside though, some states are hiring workers to deal with the increased workload created by other people losing a job. New York, North Carolina and Ohio ...

Barack Obama has dubbed his behemoth fiscal stimulus proposal the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." But if truth in advertising were required of White House plans, only one title would fit the trillion-dollar-plus-and-growing bill: The Generational Theft Act of 2009. President-elect Obama was at his most candid when he told the country Tuesday that we face massive deficits for the foreseeable future. "Potentially we've got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come," he said, "even with the economic recovery that we are working on." But one word is glaringly out of place in that warning. It's the word "even." Washington will...

I was at the mall two days before Christmas, and it was strangely quiet. So quiet that, sadly, I was able to hear every word of Kelly Clarkson bellowing over the sound system “My Grown-Up Christmas List”. Don’t get me wrong — I love seasonal songs. “Winter Wonderland” — I dig it. “Rudolph” — man, he’s cool, albeit not as literally as Frosty. But “Grown-Up Christmas List” is one of those overwrought ballads of melismatic bombast made for the “American Idol” crowd. It’s all about how the singer now eschews asking Santa for materialist goodies — beribboned trinkets and gaudy...

"If all we want are jobs, we can create any number -- for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs -- jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume." -- Milton Friedman Barack Obama and the Democratic Party seem to have fallen in love with the idea of "make work" jobs. In other words, they're going to take money...

Americans were left scratching their heads today and wondering "Did he really just say that?" as President-elect Barack Obama threatened promised that the US economy would "get worse before it gets better." After blinking my eyes several times I was pretty sure my eyeballs weren't going to pop out from the rapidly increasing pressure in my head. The president-elect was essentially talking down an economy that has crashed in anticipation of what is widely expected to be four years of looting our government. What does he want? Dow 2500 again? Calming down I thought back on how some other leaders...

Jimmy Carter had his "malaise" speech. Barack Obama may have just given his "malaise" interview. See, it looks like there's a new addition to Obama's lexicon. Along with "hope" and "change" and "Yes, we can!" you can now toss in "It's going to get worse." (I'm sure a semihypnotic will.i.am YouTube video is coming soon.) 1) Obama reminded Americans of that unpleasant economic reality—at least as he apparently views it—a couple of times during his Meet the Press interview with Tom Brokaw. Now, certainly the next president is on the same page as Wall Street when it comes to depressing...

The failure of American media to properly vet the political beliefs of Barack Obama during the just concluded presidential campaign was on full display Sunday when the president-elect made clear just how much of a socialist he really is, and did so with nary a challenge from "Meet the Press" moderator Tom Brokaw. Makes you wonder what the results might have been on November 4 if the press had done its job in exposing Obama's radical economic beliefs rather than attacking Joe the Plumber for suggesting he had them, and how much differently his appearance on "Meet the Press" would...

President-elect Barack Obama promised Saturday to create the largest public works construction program since the inception of the interstate highway system a half century ago as he seeks to put together a plan to resuscitate the reeling economy. With jobs evaporating and the recession deepening, Mr. Obama began highlighting elements of the economic recovery program he is trying to fashion with Congressional leaders in hopes of being able to enact it shortly after being sworn in on Jan. 20. His address on Saturday followed the report on Friday indicating that the country lost 533,000 jobs in November alone, bringing the...

** This is the second of the Obamanomics Chronicles, an ad-hoc series that will review and analyze the incipient economic shocks and surprises on the road to "change." ** If you haven't been hiding in a cave in Afghanistan today you have most likely heard about the latest series of punches to land on our national economic face. The first bit of news was that the latest jobs report issued today indicates that more than half a million Americans lost their jobs this past month. To believe the news one would think that this was entirely unexpected. If you know...

A record one in 10 American homeowners with a mortgage were either at least a month behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of September as the source of housing market pressure shifted to the crumbling U.S. economy. The Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday the percentage of loans at least a month overdue or in foreclosure was up from 9.2 percent in the April-June quarter, and up from 7.3 percent a year earlier. Distress in the home loan market started about two years ago as increasing numbers of adjustable-rate loans reset to higher interest rates. But the...

With each passing day, the forecast for Wall Street bonuses only grows worse. In less than two weeks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will tell their bankers and traders how much they will receive in annual bonuses for one of the worst years ever for the securities industry. Bonuses represent the bulk of a Wall Streeter's compensation and in a good year could reach anywhere from $500,000 to several million dollars for a top producer.

In last six months, 65 percent of days when Fed chairman speaks show market declines, including three of worst drops in history. When Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks, Wall Street listens – and investors should beware. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has lost nearly 2,300 points on days he has spoken, including three of the worst point losses ever. “Every time President Bush, Ben Bernanke, every time [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson – every time they get on the air, the market just drops in concert with every word that comes out of their mouth,” CBS “The Saturday Early...

A wave of daunting economic headlines took control of the markets on Monday as the Dow suffered its fourth worst one-day point decline on record. The latest bleeding came as the markets received confirmation the U.S. has been in a recession for a year, a fact backed up by gloomy speeches from regulators and a new report showing manufacturing activity stands at 26-year lows. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 679.95 points, or 7.70%, to 8149.09, the S&P 500 slumped 80.03 points, or 8.93%, to 816.21 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 137.50 points, or 8.95%, to 1398.07. The consumer-friendly FOX...

America is heading towards the path of inflation and under Obama's economic plan it may very well be one of the worst inflationary periods ever experienced.

Barack Obama and the FDR-Great Depression Mythby Michael Fumento (more by this author) Posted 11/26/2008 ET The cover of Time magazine has Barack Obama photoshopped into Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous convertible, complete with oval-shaped glasses and cigarette holder held between the teeth. “The NEW New Deal,� The cover reads. Surely many who voted for Obama saw him as potentially the new FDR, the man to lead us out of hard economic times. But they’ve been misled, for even FDR wasn’t FDR. He is a quasi-mythical creature who not only didn’t end the Great Depression but probably greatly prolonged the...

CHICAGO (Nov. 24) - With the economy in crisis, President-elect Barack Obama urged the new Congress to pass a quick economic stimulus bill, pledged help for the troubled auto industry and blessed the Bush administration's bailout of the financial industry. Even so, he conceded, "The economy is likely to get worse before it gets better," a downbeat forecast, delivered 57 days before he takes the oath of office and as Americans headed into the year-end holiday season. Barring swift action, "most experts now believe that we could lose millions of jobs next year," he said, urging the newly elected Congress...

It’s Peter Schiff, Cassandra of the collapse, sounding off on Bloomberg TV over the weekend. He also predicts a bear market for another five to 10 years, with lows for the Dow somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 but actually much worse in real dollars as the U.S. is crushed by hyperinflation. The only solution? Bring on the apocalypse and let’s muddle through. If anyone needs me, I’ll be out back killing myself.

Breaking over on CNBC: Timothy Franz Geithner is the 9th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In that role he also serves as Vice Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). After completing his studies, Geithner worked for Kissinger and Associates in Washington, DC, for three years and then joined the International Affairs division of the US Treasury Department in 1988. In 1999 he was promoted to Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs and served under Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers. In 2001 he left the Treasury to join the Council on...

NEW YORK - US stocks plunged yet again, as a frantic flight from risk prompted by investors' deepening economic fears drove the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index to its lowest level since 1997 -- completing the erasure of more than a decade of stock market gains. The latest leg down in what has been a 13-month whipping of equities worldwide was led by the year's weakest links: banks, commodity producers and car makers. The S&P 500 is now more than 52 per cent below its October 2007 record high, making the current bear market the second biggest on record....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Democratic Congress, unwilling or unable to approve a $25 billion bailout for Detroit's Big Three, appears ready to punt the automakers' fate to a lame-duck Republican president. Caught in the middle of a who-blinks-first standoff are legions of manufacturing firms and auto dealers — and millions of Americans' jobs — after Senate Democrats canceled a showdown vote that had been expected Thursday. President George W. Bush has "no appetite" to act on his own.

His friends advise Barack Obama to launch a "New" New Deal. Maybe that's because the old New Deal is sinking fast. Mr. Obama's one deeply false note during the campaign was his harping on "deregulation" as if that were the source of current troubles. His real problem is the crack-up of the world FDR built.

Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration. Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly. The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House...

Chinese carmakers SAIC and Dongfeng have plans to acquire GM and Chrysler, China’s 21st Century Business Herald reports today. [A National Enquirer the paper is not. It is one of China's leading business newspapers, with a daily readership over three million.] The paper cites a senior official of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology– the state regulator of China’s auto industry– who dropped the hint that “the auto manufacturing giants in China, such as Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) and Dongfeng Motor Corporation, have the capability and intention to buy some assets of the two crisis-plagued American automakers.” These...

Video link: Economic Effects of Auto Industry Collapse

It's Green Week again at NBC, time for more global warming scare-mongering by the network. During half-time of last night's Sunday Night Football game, Meredith Vieira helped, uh, kick things off with a bit of alarmism that would put Al Gore to shame. The Today show co-host raised the spectre of the oceans rising . . . at least 200 feet! [H/t reader Mick L.] Readers will recall that Al Gore's claim, propagated in An Inconvenient Truth, of a Manhattan-drowning 20-foot sea-level rise has been widely rejected as so much alarmist hooey. But compared to her apocalyptic vision, Vieira made...

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars. Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America. From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders. There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence...

The United States government should not worry about deficits over the next two years while spending money to jumpstart the ailing economy, President-elect Barack Obama said in a television interview that aired on Sunday. Obama, a Democrat who takes over from President George W. Bush, a Republican, on January 20, said consensus had emerged between economists in both major U.S. political parties that expensive measures were necessary to avoid a deep recession. "The consensus is this, that we have to do whatever it takes to get this economy moving again, that we have to -- we're going to have to...

The potential collapse of the auto industry would be "a disaster" amid today's economic crisis, President-elect Barack Obama told CBS' "60 Minutes" in a wide-ranging interview airing Sunday. "It's my belief that we need to provide assistance to the auto industry," Obama tells veteran correspondent Steve Kroft, according to excerpts released by CBS. "But I think that it can't be a blank check." The Senate is expected to vote this week on emergency loans to the auto industry, though the measure faces strong opposition from many Republicans. The bill would authorize loans to the auto industry from the Treasury Department's...

Major indexes down for second straight week; Nasdaq Composite hardest hit U.S. stocks on Friday fell sharply to tally a second consecutive week of losses as a record decline in retail sales and a warning of falling mobile-phone sales hammered home the ongoing fallout of the ailing economy. The market again showed its erratic side in the final hour of trade, briefly turning higher as utilities and consumer staples gained, but ultimately being weighed down by technology. Finishing near session lows, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU:Dow Jones Industrial Average: 8,497.31-337.94-3.82% $INDU 8,497.31, -337.94, -3.8%) declined 337.94 points, or 3.8%,...

A news-talk radio station in New Haven, Connecticut, is refusing to air a spirited interview between a conservative host and the powerful chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Chris Dodd. NBC News reports that a federal criminal investigation into possible wrongdoing by mortgage giant Countrywide Home Loans now includes scrutiny of Countrywide's VIP program that gave special mortgage deals to government officials, including Senators Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) and Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut). Connecticut conservative radio talk-show host Tom Scott says up until now, fellow senators and the media have not questioned Dodd about his personal scandal. "I have asserted publicly...

General Motors Corp., hoping to sway the battle in Washington over an auto-industry bailout, has begun telling federal officials that a bankruptcy filing by the car maker would set off a chain reaction hammering hundreds of suppliers and dealers -- and in turn the company's Detroit rivals. GM is attempting to set the terms for what looks to be a showdown among the lame-duck U.S. Congress, President Bush and the incoming Obama administration. On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid signaled he will move forward on Monday with a bill giving the industry access to the $700 billion Troubled Asset...

Six members of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team for government operations worked in the Clinton administration, and one of them runs a consulting firm that has listed Freddie Mac as a client. The group will review the nuts and bolts of federal agencies, from managing government property to hiring government workers to handling national archives and official records. Linh Nguyen, who’ll oversee the office of personnel management review for the Government Operations Transition Team, founded Morningside Consulting in 2006. His company has since done work for Freddie Mac, as well as Wells Fargo, American Express, Chase Bank, Citibank and a...

As these late autumn days of financial disaster wind down into a winter of discontent across the world, the United States Congress is discussing a step that will surely signal the final collapse of America as anything more than a bankrupt and possibly failed state. What is this subject? The subject is none other than pensions, the last refuge of money and the last source of fast cash for spend thirsty politicos. In committees the US Congress is hearing testimony from various leftist professors on how to redistribute, read spend, the vast amount of money accumulated by the 60 million...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — CSX Corp. is taking a different approach to the government. For years, the railroad industry wanted to keep government out of its affairs. But an increase in advertising by CSX (NYSE: CSX) and Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC) is an attempt to make voters and policymakers aware of rail’s benefits, said Anthony Hatch, a New York City-based transportation analyst. “The industry had been going through the pains of deregulation and was trying to do as much as they could to be ignored by the government,” he said. “That began to change over the past decade as railroads...

Deerfield Beach Florida – In 2004 and 2005 I suggested to people to sell their homes immediately and to rent. I told them the prices of homes were not true, they were not real. I implored them and even wrote a few articles about the coming land bust. Bob’s note:Links to the referenced stories Omens of the coming Real Estate Bubble? December 2005 - Predictions of real estate bursting after the new bankruptcy laws came true. Sell your home now, or risk the coming real estate crash May 2005 - Get out, get out now. Talk of great depression like...

This might be a good time for investors to pick up a copy of the Koran. Stocks and other investments that adhere to sharia, or Islamic law -- though hardly unscathed -- have fared better than the broader market. That's thanks largely to rules that forbid investing in collateralized debt obligations and other toxic assets that have caused the carnage in conventional financial circles. A big part of the appeal of Islamic finance is its simplicity. Speculation is taboo under sharia, and there's a ban on assessing interest because the Prophet Mohammed said debts must be repaid in the amount...

Democrats may have been the big victors on Election Day. But the Republicans still in charge in the White House and representing a possibly immovable minority in the Senate may keep the U.S. auto industry from getting the help it needs before Barack Obama is inaugurated as President in January. To convince wary Republicans to go along with a rescue package, a House bill being crafted would give the government stock warrants, an equity stake in the automakers. It also has a provision that would put taxpayers at or near the head of the line for debt repayment when the...

In recent months, General Motors has been burning through about $3.1 million an hour, or $52,000 - the price of a well-equipped Chevy Tahoe sport utility vehicle - every minute. How much longer can this go on? And perhaps more important, can GM hang on until President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress can come to the rescue in January? With an auto industry bailout running headlong into Republican opposition in Congress, GM's best hope of avoiding collapse might lie with the incoming Democratic administration. But the automaker is practically running on empty already, and analysts and others warn that...

There are disturbing parallels between the financial crisis and America's illegal immigration crisis. In both cases, the irresponsible acts of the few have become the collective burdens of the majority who behaved responsibly and legally. During the campaign, President-elect Obama promised to address immigration policy — with amnesty for millions of illegal aliens as its centerpiece — during his first year in office. Couched euphemistically as "comprehensive immigration reform," the plan we can expect from the Obama administration will have the earmarks of another massively expensive taxpayer bailout scheme. The minority of people who acted illegally and irresponsibly would benefit,...

The public already has cast a landslide vote on the nation's automotive industry. They hate it. And why shouldn't they? The Big Three automakers have generated a level of consumer satisfaction not seen in America since the English started taxing tea in Boston. The Republican Party also has been peddling a highly disagreeable product. And if they have a desire to regain relevancy, it is incumbent on them to use whatever meager power they still possess to stop the Democrats from passing a bailout of the Big Three. We should be calling this a bailout of incompetence, corporate cronyism and...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Freddie Mac, the second-largest provider of funding for U.S. residential mortgages, said on Friday it lost $25.3 billion in the third quarter as it wrote down a tax-related asset that had buoyed its capital and the housing slump took a significant turn for the worse. Freddie Mac's loss equaled $19.44 per share, compared with a loss, before preferred dividend payments, of $1.24 billion, or $2.07 per share, a year earlier. The loss pushed the company's net worth to a negative $13.7 billion at the end of the third quarter, and shareholder equity to a negative $13.8...

Miami -- In an interview after her speech at the Republican Governors' Association meetings here today, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin criticized the Bush administration for exacerbating voter "distrust" by shifting money from the $700 billion bailout from buying bad bank assets to purchasing additional stock in banks. In response to the proposed changes, announced yesterday by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Palin expressed frustration on behalf of a weary electorate and offered a stern warning. "No more surprises," she said. "I think the surprises make the electorate distrust elected officials and their ability to appoint people who are to be looking...