Leaders Must Deal With National Debt or Future Generations Will Pay
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

The only gleam of hope in this dark scene is that Democrats and Republicans have agreed to take part in a bipartisan commission to tackle the deficit. Established by President Obama's executive order (weeks after its rejection on a Senate vote), the commission has no executive power, but it does have two good men as cochairs

Alan Simpson on Bipartisanship and the Deficit Commission
Mary Kate Cary

Alan Simpson, who served as U.S. senator from Wyoming from 1979 until 1997 and was the Republican whip from 1985 to 1995. Recently, President Obama named him cochair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Obama has charged this commission with recommending changes for balancing the federal budget by 2015 and publishing its report by the end of 2010. Here's Simpson's take

Obama Needs to Focus on Housing, Not Health Reform
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

Remember the housing crisis? It hasn't gone away. It's gotten graver. Today, median prices for single-family houses nationwide are down by slightly more than 30 percent from their early 2006 peak. Over the near term, excess inventories are expected to push prices down by a further 10 percent.

What Tanking Home Sales Mean for Economic Recovery
Luke Mullins

After a big drop in December, sales of existing homes fell again in January -- a development that renewed concerns about the real estate recovery outlook. Sales of previously owned homes fell more than 7 percent in January. This puzzled many economists, who had expected sales to be stronger in the wake of December's 16 percent month-over-month plunge.

Global Energy After The Economic Crisis
Christof Ruhl

Commercially traded energy is what classical economists used to call a 'basic good': directly or indirectly, it enters the production of every other produced commodity or service. Because these resources are finite and unevenly distributed, they seem to become increasingly hard to come by when global economic activity expands. This is the logic behind the concept of energy security.

5 Things to Know About February's Jobs Report
Liz Wolgemuth

While there isn't much to celebrate in the Labor Department's news that February brought yet another month of job losses, the report does not leave exasperated job seekers without hope. Employers cut 36,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent, a good deal less than expected. Here are five things to know about February's job market

To Fix Economy and Unemployment Rate, First Help States
Richard Ravitch

The 50 states and their localities are the units of U.S. government that directly affect Americans' daily lives. It is the states that bear primary responsibility for ensuring adequate infrastructure, education, and healthcare for their citizens. These conditions are the foundations of the national economy and its ability to provide jobs.

The Stimulus: States Getting the Most Money So Far
Matthew Bandyk

The Obama stimulus bill is now one year old, and it is as controversial now as it was when it first passed. Last week, in the wake of the anniversary, the White House released the first Annual Report to the President on Progress Implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which defends the stimulus against criticisms that it has failed to produce jobs.

Rate of Home Price Declines Slows, But More Drops May Be Ahead
Luke Mullins

The real estate market continued to heal in the final three months of 2009, as lower home prices, cheap mortgage rates, and a federal tax credit worked to juice demand. While the news is encouraging, it's unlikely that home prices have bottomed. A handful of forces appear to be poised to drag values still lower. Here are three things you need to know about the development

The Future of Home-Price Appreciation
Luke Mullins

After historic declines brought the global economy to its knees, the U.S. housing market is gearing up for a long-awaited recovery. Real estate experts expect home prices to hit bottom in late 2010 or early 2011. But what shape will the rebound take? Are we in for another boom? Or will we have to settle for sluggish growth? Here's the outlook for home price appreciation through 2020.

Housing Crisis is Getting Worse
Jesse Jackson

While economists declare the recovery at hand, more Americans than ever are losing their homes. The financial bailout rescued the banks, but it has done precious little for homeowners faced with collapsing home values, ballooning mortgages and increasingly lost jobs that make it impossible to stay up on payments.

How Not to Deal With the Jobs Crisis
Arianna Huffington

On the first anniversary of the passage of the stimulus bill, the country's best economic research firms agree that the often-derided bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs -- with more on the way. This is obviously good news. But it shows how monumental a chasm we are facing that, even with those jobs, unemployment is still hovering around 10 percent

Selling and Debunking Economic Recovery
Jules Witcover

President Obama took the occasion of the first anniversary of passage of his economic recovery stimulus package to proclaim its success. But with unemployment still hovering around 10 percent, it has been a very hard sell.

How to Solve the National Debt Crisis
Jessica Rettig

Alice Rivlin is a renowned expert on U.S. economic policy. Now, as she and her cochair, Pete Domenici, launch the Debt Reduction Task Force, a nongovernment initiative backed by the Bipartisan Policy Center, will step up to the plate yet again to develop a strategy to confront the national debt. She recently spoke about the problems associated with a large debt.

What Could Derail Economic Recovery
Rick Newman

Large chunks of the U.S. economy remain addicted to financial painkillers or dependent upon dysfunctional institutions like Fannie and Freddie. As the government begins to withdraw vast amounts of aid this year, it will test whether the economy can stand on its own. However, we'll be lucky if we can avoid the following complications

Job Search Grows Cold, Creating Reluctant Retirees
Emily Brandon

A growing number of people who want to work into their 60s are pushed into early retirement due to the weak job market. The number of unemployed Americans ages 55 and older expressing interest in finding a job has grown by 60 percent since the end of 2007. However, finding work has proved difficult. In fact, the unemployment rate for older job seekers has more than doubled since 2007.

The Great Retail Revolution
Rick Newman

A facade of calm may be returning to the consumer landscape as a thrashing recession finally subsides. But behind the cheerful window displays are deeply worried retail executives who fear that shopping may never be the same again.

Surviving the American Economic Makeover
Rick Newman

Many Americans feel they're going in a different direction these days -- but too often, it's reverse. As the Great Recession of 2007-2009 finally winds down, millions of Americans face diminished lifestyles, with no obvious way to regain the wealth and prospects they enjoyed just a few years ago. If so, Americans may need to reconsider the unwritten rules that have governed upward mobility

What the Economic Bust Left Behind
Kirk Shinkle

The Great Recession is subsiding, but there's no doubt that today's economy is a much-damaged version of its formerly robust, bubbly self. Near-term worries dominate headlines, but a host of other seismic economic shifts caused by the housing and credit crises will be with us for years. Economists are already touting the "new norm" -- a generally unpleasant mix of economic trends

Tough Economic Times Molding Tough Consumers
Philip Moeller

More than 3 million individuals and families sought credit counseling in 2009 according to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. While credit counselors, economists, and other experts throughout the United States agree that things are slowly getting better, they also believe that the American economic landscape is the financial equivalent of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Careful Planning and Discipline Can Pull Consumers Out of Debt
Philip Moeller

Consumers forced to cut their spending are most likely to succeed when they build a financial plan, create a budget, and have the discipline to stick with that budget. four credit counselors who work for ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions share their expertise and advice on credit counseling and debt-management programs

Green Jobs Can Spur Economic Recovery
Jerome Ringo

Green jobs are touted by the Obama administration and others as a cure for the economy, a spur to American innovation, and an ecological boon that cannot be shipped overseas. But doubters label them as too expensive to create, unsustainable, and even employment wreckers. Are green jobs a panacea or a pipe dream?

Green Jobs and Market Meddling Will Not Work
Kenneth P. Green

Green jobs and a green economic recovery is feel-good blather. It makes no economic sense whatsoever, and where it has been tried most extensively, evidence shows that it's a job-destroying, economy-weakening fiasco.

Obama's Mixed Economic Signals Won't Create Jobs
Don Nickles

The recent unemployment report reflected a slight improvement in the overall jobless figure, but did not inspire a lot of optimism as 'long-term unemployed' and 'discouraged workers' figures again ticked upward. The mixed signals contained within the Obama administration proposals are doing nothing to bolster employer confidence.

Obama's Budget Gives a Boost to Science
Kent Garber

The Obama administration budget request would significantly increase spending across many of the government's science agencies, from the National Science Foundation to the Department of Energy's Office of Science, even as other federal agencies tighten their belts. It's a deliberate move that speaks to a long-term strategy.

Who to Blame for the Financial Crisis
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

Class warfare, American style, is being waged between Main Street and Wall Street. With President Obama and Democrats in Congress turning up the populist heat against Wall Street, the financial community is losing. Its back is up against the wall. But the administration is also getting its share of the public's rage. So, Who's really to blame?

Partisan Stimulus Poisoned the Well
Jonah Goldberg

If there's a single event for which Obama himself is to blame, one decision that explains his predicament, it is his mishandling of the stimulus at the dawn of his administration. Obama made a rookie mistake outsourcing his first major domestic policy decision to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the Old Bulls of the Democratic Party, and that blunder has done lasting damage to his presidency.

The Future of the U.S. Economy: 2050
Matthew Bandyk

Think back to 1967. The job you have today may not even have existed. The Internet, and all the jobs that have come with it, were decades away. The Detroit automakers were dominant. Quality of life was different, too. The lifestyle of the average American may change just as much from 2010 to 2050 as it did from 1967 to 2006. The economy will especially undergo change.

Reading the Economic Tea Leaves
Jules Witcover

On the weekend when the first National Tea Party Convention was held in Nashville, plenty of political tea leaves were being read by economists around the country, with mixed interpretations.

Obama's Federal Budget Looking Backward and Ahead
Jules Witcover

The new Obama budget is a two-headed creature that looks in opposite directions -- back at the deep hole created by fiscal irresponsibility and ahead with wishful thinking toward desirable social gains.

Breaking Down Obama's Budget
Rob Silverblatt

Perhaps the most obvious of financial truisms is that there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all national budget. And with the economic forecast looking more incoherent than ever, it's also the most problematic of truisms for President Barack Obama and his $3.8 trillion spending plan for 2011

Home Sales Stable After Tax-Credit 'Hangover'
Luke Mullins

The number of Americans signing home sales contracts flattened out in December after plunging the previous month. The National Association of Realtors' pending home sales index -- which gages signed contracts but not transaction closings -- inched up 1 percent from November to December and stands at nearly 11 percent above its year-earlier level.

Future of Housing Demand: 4 Key Demographic Trends
Luke Mullins

Demographic shifts and changing values will increase demand for pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use communities in both urban and suburban settings, according to John McIlwain of the Urban Land Institute. In his report, McIlwain points to four key demographic trends in regards to future housing demand to watch going forward

Predicting the Fed's Next Move
Rob Silverblatt

The Federal Reserve didn't pull out any surprises when it blandly announced that it will keep interest rates near zero as the economy continues to recover. But even as the Fed remains fairly tight-lipped about when it will begin ratcheting up rates, economists have been quick to speculate about what's in store. Here are some predictions

Home Prices Stabilize Further, But More Drops May Be in Store
Luke Mullins

Although home prices continued to stabilize in November, real estate experts believe we have another 5 or 10 percent of declines in store before values finally hit bottom. Home prices in 20 major cities declined 5.3 percent in November 2009 from a year earlier, a significant improvement over the 13.3 annual drop posted in July

Home Sales Tank: What it Means for You
Luke Mullins

Existing home sales plunged in December, falling nearly 17 percent from November in their largest month-over-month drop since record-keeping began. December's inventory represented a 7.2-month supply of unsold homes, notably higher than the 6.5-month supply in November. Here's a look at what the December existing home sales report means for homeowners, home sellers, and home buyers

Obama - Trashing the Job Makers
Victor Davis Hanson

A year ago Obama inherited a recession brought on by the collapse of the housing bubble. The crash was made worse by recklessness on Wall Street. Job losses followed, and in response, Obama pushed through an epic stimulus bill. Yet despite the stimulus, unemployment soared from 7.6 percent to 10 percent. Now, an embarrassed administration continues to cite jobs saved, rather than jobs lost

Prosperity Isn't Coming Without Structural Rebalancing
Robyn Blumner

President Barack Obama did a fine job with his first State of the Union address. His basic theses were: The middle-class is suffering. We must create more jobs. Banks have to pay more. Democrats and Republicans should get along. Nice. But to reignite a constituency for a progressive vision, Obama should be talking in broader strokes.

The Economy, Jobs and Justice
Jesse Jackson

The effort to save America's financial system and big banks has succeeded. However, the clot in financing remains. Finance is the blood of the economy. When there is a clot, the economy can't work and people suffer. Republicans contewnd that Obama's recovery plan has failed. Yet, they want to prescribe the same poison that created the breakdown in the first place.

Financial Fat Cats
(c) Matt Davies

Rising Yachts Lift No Tides
Jesse Jackson

The government argued that they had to resuscitate the banks in order to save the U.S. economy. So, they rescued the banks not to save the banks, but to save the economy. It 'worked.' Banks are back, making profits and gearing up bonuses. However, unemployment and home foreclosures are rising and personal bankruptcies are at record levels. Obviously, there is a fundamental disconnect ...

Global Economy: 7 Countries Spooking Investors
Matthew Bandyk

Despite federal spending consuming 27.2 percent of GDP, the United States maintains a Aaa rating. But you can't say the same about many countries in both the developed and developing world where continued fallout from the economic crisis is hurting their credit ratings. As a result, investors have viewed the economic situations in these countries as increasingly risky bets.

How to Get Americans Working Again
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

There is no silver lining to the dark cloud that has enveloped America. A slight decline in the rate of job losses at the end of 2009, coupled with a rise in the GDP, gave hope that the U.S. was at the beginning of a recovery from the Great Recession. However that hope was. So, how can America accelerate job growth and the economy? There is no snap answer, but I do have a few proposals

Real Estate - Strategic Defaults and the Foreclosure Crisis
Luke Mullins

Foreclosure tallies continue to break records and even more homeowners appear headed for foreclosure this year. However, as the housing crisis rumbles forward, an additional driver of home foreclosures has become clear: Strategic Defaults -- borrowers able to pay their mortgage are simply walking away because they believe it's best for their finances

Wall Street CEOs
(c) Walt Handelsman

Wall Street CEOs: The Mea Culpa That Wasn't
Robyn Blumner

Here is the testimony I would have liked to have heard from the CEOs of Wall Street's largest banks -- institutions whose irresponsibility and greed nearly brought down the economy

Let Us All Now Bail Out the States
Ross Mackenzie

Most states must balance their budgets by constitutional stipulation -- a concept also viewed with a federal sneer. In the depression year of 2009, the feds bailed out the states to the tune of $87 billion. In the current fiscal year, state budget shortfalls are expected to total about $180 billion, with a like amount (or more) anticipated for fiscal 2011.

Detroit - Who's Your Tiger
Mitch Albom

In the last 18 months, the auto industry has become something bigger than just the buying and selling of cars. It has become an ideological ground zero, a tug of war with many hands on the rope, labor, manufacturing, nationalism, elitism, environmentalism, jobs, the survival of a shrinking but vital American city: Detroit

Politics Behind Hugo Chavez's Currency Devaluation
Andres Oppenheimer

A lot has been written in recent days about the economic impact of drastic devaluation of the Venezuelan currency announced by Venezuela's authoritarian-populist President Hugo Ch‡vez. But the measure's political impact may be just as important, if not more.

Why December Jobs Report Is Such a Bust
Liz Wolgemuth

For economists and job seekers expecting to end the year with a little good news, the last month of 2009 turned out to be a major disappointment. Even after adding 4,000 jobs in November, according to revised Labor Department figures, employers could not sustain the confidence necessary to add jobs in December. Instead, they sliced 85,000 jobs from the nation's payrolls

2010 Discounting Forecast: Retail and Auto
Rebecca Kern

For consumers, 2010 may not look very different from 2009 when it comes to discounts. Companies in the apparel, jewelry, and home furnishing industries are planning to keep their inventories low to cut operating costs, which means fewer large discounts for customers

Jobless Overwhelm Retraining Programs
Kim Clark

The crowds of unemployed people trying to get retraining have so swamped long-underfunded community colleges and other job skills programs that many communities now have waiting lists of six months or more.

United States The Corporate State of America
Paul Greenberg

Can anybody be surprised at the latest development in the saga of U.S.A., Inc.? The government now has advanced GMAC, the financial arm of Government Motors, formerly General Motors, another $3.8 billion in cash, acquiring a majority stake in that lending agency, which is laden with debt itself.

Global Political-Risk Outlook for 2010
Ian Bremmer and David Gordon

The biggest risk for 2010 comes from the point at which these trends converge: U.S.-China relations, Iran, European Fiscal Divergence, U.S. Financial Regulation, Japan ... Our top 10 geopolitical concerns for 2010 and their impact on the world

Capitalism Fingered as Fiend of the Past Decade
Jonah Goldberg

On the last day of 2009, that awful year, I was listening to National Public Radio. Reporter Tamara Keith presented a by-now-familiar recap of the worst financial and corporate scandals of the decade, from Enron and Martha Stewart to Tyco and Bernie Madoff. It was a depressing slog of greed, venality and theft. However, there have been positives ...

The Caring Economy and Healthcare as Human Right
Anna Mulrine

'Health care is a human right, and that every citizen ... should have access to health care, just as every citizen has access to the fire department, the police or public schools.' And for a moment the fog of jargon and compromise lifted and a vision of what's possible hovered over Congress. America could return to the task of creating what economist Riane Eisler calls 'the caring economy.'

The New Energy Order
David G. Victor and Linda Yueh

The last decade has seen an extraordinary shift in expectations for the world energy system. After a long era of excess capacity prices for oil and most energy commodities have risen sharply and become more volatile. As such, a crisis is looming which will be difficult to resolve.

The War Against the Wannabe Rich
Victor Davis Hanson

There is class warfare going on in this country -- but it's not against the established rich. It's against those who are trying to become wealthy. Most of those targeted are not the already rich like Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. And they 're not the multimillionaire speculators on Wall Street who wrecked the American economy. Instead, it's professionals and small-business owners.

Latin America: Economy Risks a Chicken's Flight in 2010
Andres Oppenheimer

The good news is that Latin American economies are expected to do reasonably well in 2010. But economists warn that unless they become more competitive, their recovery will look like a chicken's flight -- they get a few feet off the ground, and fall

Why International Aid Does Not Alleviate Poverty
Jagdish Bhagwati

The African silence has been broken by Dambisa Moyo, a young Zambian-born economist with impeccable credentials. Educated at Harvard and Oxford and employed by Goldman Sachs and the World Bank, Moyo has written an impassioned attack on aid that has won praise from leaders as diverse as former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

An Elegy for Journalism? The Future of the News and Journalism
Peter Osnos

The twenty-first century has been a traumatic one for journalism. Changes in how people consume news combined with the Great Recession have produced a dark era in journalism. In Losing the News, Alex Jones, addresses how the rise of the Internet and the precipitous decline in advertising have left print journalism in desperate straits.

Why Failing to Complete Green Revolution Could Bring Next Famine
Carlisle Ford Runge

Rising food prices have intensified the risks of large-scale hunger. The reasons are complex, but one of them is that demand for food is increasing as populations and incomes grow even as the supply of food is increasingly being diverted to other uses, such as the production of biofuels. As a result famine is again stalking the world's poor

New Economic, Market Trends Merit New Approach to Once Shunned Investments
Andrew Leckey

Investors seeking industries they can count on in 2010 will have to think outside the box. New economic and market trends require a reexamination of previously-avoided groups, such as regional banks, insurers, shipping companies, utilities, consumer staples firms and auto component companies. All could take a turn for the better in the coming year.

The Over-indulgent Self-Centered Generation
Mark Miller

Pollster John Zogby posed this question last summer to 4,000 Americans: 'What will be the historic legacy of Baby Boomers?' The responses were startling. The Greatest Generation. . . the Silent Generation . . . And now, the Over-indulgent, Self-Centered Generation? It doesn't sound too good ...

The New Population Bomb
Jack A. Goldstone

Averting this century's potential dangers will require sweeping measures. Policymakers must adapt today's global governance institutions to the new realities of the aging of the industrialized world, the concentration of the world's economic and population growth in developing countries, and the increase in international immigration.

President Obama's Surprising Relationship With Lobbyists and Big Business: Tim Carney discusses Obamanomics
Jessica Rettig

Barack Obama campaigned for president, says Tim Carney, as an advocate for big government, claiming that more federal regulation and spending will protect American consumers against the excesses of big business. But, Carney argues the president's push for more intervention actually favors big business and lobbying

Keep Congress Away From the Fed
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

The Federal Reserve has to be protected. If global financial markets came to believe that Congress and political pressure was determining monetary policy, there would be dangerous consequences.

The Case for a National Infrastructure Bank
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

The costs of long neglect of our infrastructure and our precious land -- and the commensurate benefits of doing something about it -- are manifest to every commuter, every driver, every airline passenger, every flood victim. Now, the vital rebuilding of America must begin with federal government money

Latin America: Chile Now One Step Closer to First World
Andres Oppenheimer

Recently, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) -- the club of the world's richest democracies -- formally invited Chile to become a member. Chile had applied for membership two years ago. Chile will become the first South American member of the OECD

With Dollar Down and Out, New IMF Reserve Currency May Be Answer
William Pfaff

Although Washington is the home of fiscal orthodoxy, in theory, in practice it has been playing the deficit game for a considerable time now, in what the economist Joseph Stiglitz calls a kind of bizarre reverse foreign aid, by which poor countries loan the United States trillions at zero interest rates by buying U.S. Treasury bills.

Time For Financial Institutions to Give Back
William Pfaff

It seems plausible that payback time has arrived for the international financial community. The principal obstacle to this happening is, at the moment, the Barack Obama administration's Treasury Department, which thus far in the financial crisis has been mistaken for the executive committee of Goldman Sachs in disguise

Attacking the Jobless Economic Recovery
Jules Witcover

Combatting high unemployment in times of recession is a complicated task. But there is certain simple justice in taking Uncle Sam's dollars originally slated to bail out banks that helped dig the economic hole and giving it to the consequently idled working stiffs of the country.

Obama's Innovation Strategy: Behind the Curtain
Matthew Bandyk

How can this economy create jobs? As one of many answers to that question, the Obama administration has championed giving loans and awards to innovative companies through programs. But it is not a simple journey from funding these programs to actually creating jobs. There are many hiccups along the way. For example, ...

Housing Wealth Declines Stabilize
Luke Mullins

The real estate slump sucked nearly $500 billion in value from American homes through the first 11 months of the year -- a notable improvement from the $3.6 trillion of housing wealth that evaporated in 2008, according to new data. But that doesn't mean the housing market has hit bottom quite yet. Here are four things you need to know

New Year's Resolutions for Home Buyers
Ilyce R. Glink

At the end of 2008, I said I wouldn't be surprised if that year went down as one of the worst ever for housing since the Great Depression. But as we get ready to say goodbye to 2009, it's clear that this year hasn't been much better. We've had another record year of foreclosures. So what's in store for 2010 ...

Why We Should Be Worried That Washington Is the New Job Creator
Matthew Bandyk

While entrepreneurs have usually placed their business development first and foremost, there is some evidence that the increasing role of the federal government has forced many to emphasize lobbying, politicking, and jumping through administrative hurdles.

Why Businesses Can't Create Jobs Even if the Recession Is Over
Matthew Bandyk

The lack of lending is putting their abilities to employ additional workers in jeopardy. The recession is supposed to be over, but unemployment is still high, and the freeze in small-business lending might be a big reason.

5 Surprises in the November Jobs Report
Liz Wolgemuth

The unemployment rate fell by 0.2 percentage point to 10 percent. The data were far better than economists' forecasts of 125,000 jobs lost and an unchanged unemployment rate.

U.S. No Longer the Great Job Creation Machine
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

The nervousness of millions of Americans is entirely justifiable. They see economic head winds all about them. The biggest economy in the world is held hostage by shoppers and consumers who are scared and pessimistic. What are our job prospects? The problem in the job market going forward is not so much layoffs in the private sector, which are abating, but a lack of hiring.

Mending the Job Market
Reader Comments

Unfortunately, I believe Mort Zuckerman is right on about the U.S. failure to create jobs. The U.S. is in a financial and leadership crisis

Obama: How to Create Jobs Without Really Trying
Cal Thomas

President Obama delivered his latest speech on job creation and the economy Tuesday at the liberal Brookings Institution in Washington. As with all of his speeches, this one was loaded with first-person references and blame of the Bush administration for America's economic troubles.

What Happens When Free Markets Fail
Rick Newman

Those who fancy themselves free marketeers are aghast as they watch the Obama administration taking the wheel at failed automakers, drafting a sweeping overhaul of healthcare, dictating salaries at bailed-out banks, and preparing stringent new rules for the whole financial sector. Americans have historically been skeptical of big government, with a preference for market solutions and private initiative. But Americans also reject free markets when ...

Free Market Failure
Reader Comments

Neither capitalism nor fire should be allowed to burn out of control. Both have basic requirements for their continued existence, and both can be destructive if not carefully managed

A Visit with China's New Moguls
Clarence Page

As a guy who was raised in Cold War America, the dazzling ease with which communist China has accommodated capitalism is hard for me to fathom, but I was there to learn.

Financial Crisis, Enron, Hurricane Katrina Examples of Leadership Gone Wrong
Tamara Lytle

The New Orleans masses who huddled in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina, the Enron retirees who lost their life savings, and the laid-off workers buried under the economic ruin of financial companies all live with a simple truth. Just as spectacularly as great leadership can spark success, failed leadership can bring down cities, businesses, and economies

How to Fix the Financial System: Let Federal Reserve oversee new regulations for finance giants
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

In the grip of our Great Recession, with more job losses to come, we have yet to fix the broken financial system that is an underlying cause of this whole mess. How can we do it?

Triumph of the Hysterical or A Word from the Little Old Lady
Paul Greenberg

I had this powerful urge to proclaim that The End Is Near, and generally do a Paul Krugman. They were placing all their bets on black -- dark, funereal black -- when the Panic of 2008 hit, which they insisted on confusing with the Great Depression.

Will Unemployment Disaster be Obama's Katrina
Arianna Huffington

Just as Katrina exposed critical weaknesses in the priorities and competence of the Bush administration, the unfolding unemployment disaster is threatening to do the same for the Obama White House.

Memo to Warren Buffett: Put Down Pompoms and Tell Us Truth About Economy
Arianna Huffington

It was deeply distressing to watch Warren Buffett's recent CNBC town hall meeting, followed the next night by an hour spent talking about the economy with Charlie Rose, and see Buffett joining in the economic victory lap the Obama administration -- and much of the media -- are taking.

Where The Stimulus Is Working
Matthew Bandyk

The ripple effects created by stimulus spending have consequences that are hard to calculate in the short-term. Nevertheless, we can identify certain winners from these ripple effects.

In a Global Economy, American CEOs Are a Different Breed
Thomas K. Grose

If you think of global business styles as a continuum, U.S. executives are at one end, their Asian counterparts at the other. American executives, and the companies they lead, are generally more comfortable with risk and uncertainty than those in Europe and, particularly, Asia.

4 Stages of Market Recovery: Is economy finally catching up with market?
Katy Marquardt

Talk about mixed messages. Stocks are blasting off, yet unemployment remains stubbornly high. The economy grew in the third quarter -- posting the first increase in a year -- so why all the gloomy talk? And exactly where are we in the current economic cycle? Jason Pride believes we've entered stage three of four in a market recovery. Here's his rundown of each stage and his assessment.

Why It's Wrong When Wrongdoers are Allowed to Admit No Wrongdoing
Arianna Huffington

As part of the settlement, JPMorgan neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing -- despite ample evidence that it had engaged in plenty of wrongdoing. Things like paying off local officials with millions to win no-bid contracts worth billions and convincing county officials to switch from fixed-rate bonds to bonds hedged with risky derivatives -- a switch that has driven Jefferson County to the brink of bankruptcy

Beginning of a New World Epoch
Paul A. Samuelson

President Barack Obama's 2008 electoral landslide victory averted a global financial meltdown. Had Republican Sen. John McCain won that election, present U.S. GDP would have been even lower than it is now, by more than 15 percent! And similar losses in global productivity would also have taken place.

Unemployment Rockets

October Jobs Report: A True Witches' Brew
Liz Wolgemuth

In what will no doubt boost skepticism over the Obama administration's message of stimulus success, the unemployment rate in October rocketed to 10.2 percent, a figure much higher than economists had expected and just 0.6 percentage points away from the post-World War II high seen in 1982. While unemployment snapped back down swiftly in the early-1980s recession, it is widely expected that job creation will be slow in this recovery.

Economy: Cities Where Jobs Recovery Will Be Slowest
Liz Wolgemuth

While the nation's job market is awful overall -- thousands of Americans are exhausting their unemployment benefits daily -- it's clear that the true jobs picture is as varied as the nation's topography. With the promise of a recovery on the horizon, new data show that the employment upturn will be regional as well

Forget Inflation, Deflation Is a Bigger Danger
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

Inflation typically results from 'too much money chasing too few goods.' Today, too much supply is chasing too little demand. That, coupled with consumers' need to save money to rebuild their finances, raises the risk of deflation, not inflation. And as workers compete for scarce jobs and companies underbid one another for sales, both wages and prices will remain under pressure.

Economy: Finding Opportunity in the Recession
Matthew Bandyk

Of all the industries devastated by the recession, the media has been one of the most notoriously affected. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 65,000 media jobs were cut in 2008 -- nearly 4 percent of the industry's total. Newspapers are perhaps the biggest loser, with more than 9 percent of jobs eliminated in 2008. However, ...

Unemployment and Foreclosure: If You Don't Have a Job, How Will You Pay the Mortgage
Ilyce Glink

When it comes to foreclosure, the problem isn't just the 7.2 million jobs that have been lost during this great recession. There are millions of Americans who took a huge pay cut to keep their companies going. Unpaid furloughs and 10 to 25 percent pay cuts mean tens of millions of Americans are having a much harder time paying their bills -- and their mortgages are at risk as well.

Latin American Economy Will Do Well, but Not Great
Latin American Current Events, News & Affairs - Andres Oppenheimer

The news that Brazil and Mexico have come out of the recession and are poised for solid growth in 2010 should be celebrated, and both countries' leaders should be given credit for their sound economic management. But in the global economic context, the two Latin American giants' recovery will be modest.

The Dollar and the Deficits
C. Fred Bergsten

The dollar is under attack on two fronts. Private investors are driving it lower in the foreign exchange markets. Monetary authorities are questioning its role as the world's key currency. There is an obvious linkage between the two attacks: expectations of further falls in the dollar's value will accelerate the prospect that foreign central banks will switch to euros

Economy: End of The Recession Around the Corner?
Paul A. Samuelson

The 2006-2009 recession is likely over now (or very soon). So says Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. At most central banks around the globe the same story is now being proclaimed. Just what does this mean? And what does it not necessarily mean?

Economic Recovery   (c) Matt Davies

Reports Show Mixed Results for Obama's Stimulus
Amanda Ruggeri

One report shows that the GDP rose about 2.3 percentage points. In Washington, talk of the $787 billion stimulus package has been largely overshadowed by healthcare reform. A recent report by the Council of Economic Advisers could help the Democratic cause, at least when it comes to defending the administration's decisions on fiscal recovery. But taken in conjunction with a Government Accountability Office report that examines states' use of stimulus funding the overall picture remains a mixed bag.

Free Enterprise is Key to Economic Recovery
Kenneth T. Walsh

Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has big plans. In mid-October, his organization, which is one of the most influential advocates for business in the United States, will launch a 'Campaign for Free Enterprise,' a multiyear effort (at an estimated cost of at least $25 million annually) to educate Americans about capitalism and explain the importance of free enterprise.

Pecora Hearings a Model for Financial Crisis Investigation
Amanda Ruggeri

Congress could learn from Pecora's 1930s investigation of the stock market crash. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission -- created by Congress in May to determine and analyze the origins of the current financial crisis -- is charged with examining no fewer than 20 of its specific causes, including the roles of fraud and abuse, credit rating agencies, and corporate compensation structures. The commission must also examine the collapses of major financial institutions like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.

The Case for Economic Irrelevance
Paul Greenberg

A recession may stunt more than material growth. It can also drain intellectual curiosity. For economic pressure can lead people to settle for what only seems to be security instead of following their dreams. Which can be a tragedy for both the individual and a society that depends on people reaching ever higher, rather than not settling for what only seems safe.

Selling the Economic Recovery
Jules Witcover

To counter the pessimistic observations of Republicans who haven't been able to come up with their own answer to the economic mess they left to President Obama, he trotted out ever-optimistic Vice President Joe Biden the other day to declare a solid start to a job only barely getting underway.

Why Obama Won't Be Able to Reform Wall Street
Arianna Huffington

Listening to President Obama's heartfelt, well-intentioned, but ultimately naive speech on financial reform, my mind kept flashing on a story I heard the last time Washington, in the wake of the Enron scandal, promised to reform Wall Street.

Barack Obama Must See Michael Moore's New Movie (and So Must You)
Arianna Huffington

With his new movie, 'Capitalism: A Love Story,' Michael Moore is riding the wave of the collapse of trust in our country's financial system. The film is a withering indictment of the current economic order, covering everything from Wall Street's casino mentality to for-profit prisons, from Goldman Sachs' sway in Washington to the poverty-level pay of many airline pilots, from the tidal wave of foreclosures to the tragic consequences of runaway greed.

The Emerging Economic Order
(c) Jack Ohman

U.S., China and the Emerging Economic Order
Henry Kissinger

The assumption that the end of the recession will restore the familiar global economic system ignores the psychological and political upheaval that has taken place.

A vast tide of liquidity coupled with America's appetite for consumer goods had sent enormous amounts of dollars to China that, in turn, China lent back to us for still more buying.

Economy: Past Stormy Weather and What May Follow
Paul A. Samuelson

The Fed and the majority of the consensus forecasters fear that this expected recovery might be a weak one that does little to reduce Main Street's unemployment. And it may also imply that future private consumer and investment spending will continue to be anemic. That would mean that at the global level there might not be the replay of the old-time drama in which the American locomotive comes to the rescue of depressed economies.

Divine Debt Trumps All
Victor Davis Hanson

In modern America, debt -- whether national, state or trade -- now plays the same overarching role as the ancient Greek notion of fate. And the president, Congress and the states for all their various agendas are impotent since they must first pay back trillions that have long ago been borrowed and spent.

Joseph Stiglitz Left's Favorite U.S. Nobel Economist
Andres Oppenheimer

U.S. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has become a sort of rock star in left-of-center Latin American countries for his vocal criticism of free-for-all capitalism. But in a wide-ranging interview, he offered some advice that many of his fans in the region may not want to hear.

The Dollar's Fate, in the Longer Term
Paul Kennedy

There is a most interesting debate going on at present in the academic community about the longer-term fate of the U.S. dollar as the supreme reserve currency for foreign-exchange transactions and, more importantly, for the currency holdings of national governments, global companies and the producers of oil, gas and other raw materials.

The Dilemmas of the Dollar
by Barry Eichengreen

Legions of pundits have argued that the dollar's status as a reserve currency has been damaged by the credit crisis of 2007-9. The crisis has not exactly enhanced the attractions of the United States as a supplier of high-quality financial assets. It would be no surprise if the disfunctionality of U.S. financial markets diminished the appetite of foreign central banks for U.S. debt securities.

Low and Behold the Price of Oil
by Edward L. Morse

The rapid fall and then rebound in oil prices over the past year surprised many people. But it was not unusual: commodities markets are cyclical by nature and have a history punctuated by sudden turning points. Although this generally makes it difficult to forecast prices, it is safe to say that commodities markets will remain lower over the next few years than they have been over the past five.

Beware of False Hopes on the Economy
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

Is there light at the end of this very long tunnel of a recession? Government spokespeople, keen to encourage confidence, say there is (their metaphor is "green shoots"). Many private business people concur. Let's do a reality check ...

Budget Cuts Hit Nation's Public Colleges Hard, Even as Demand for Well-educated Workforce Soars
Kim Clark

The recession, state budget cuts, and hidebound bureaucracies are endangering some of the most important foundations of the American dream -- the low-cost, high-quality public colleges created to provide anyone with smarts and diligence the training needed to succeed.

General Motors: 'Cash for Clunkers' a Huge Success
Amanda Ruggeri

Not everyone supported the Senate's passage of a bill that boosted "cash for clunkers" by $2 billion, effectively extending it through Labor Day. But it's hard to argue that the program, which gives rebates to people who trade in old cars for more fuel-efficient vehicles, hasn't made the auto industry happy. That's true for General Motors ...

Maybe Cash For Clunkers Helped The Economy After All
Matthew Bandyk

Daniel Gross at Slate makes the case that the evidence is in, and cash-for-clunkers gets a pretty good return as stimulus: If we use Taylor's estimate, about 250,000 extra cars were purchased (40 percent of 625,000). And if each cost $29,000, those sales generated about $7.3 billion in revenue in the space of a few weeks. That's a pretty good return on $2.6 billion in government spending.

Auto Dealers: Cash for Clunkers a Needed Boost
Amanda Ruggeri

John McEleney is the chair of the Virginia-based National Automobile Dealers Association, which represents more than 90 percent of new-car dealers nationwide and lobbied hard for the program. He recently spoke about how dealers have been reacting to the program and what the problem was with reimbursements.

Hidden behind the unemployment rate are some startling numbers
Matthew Bandyk

The "Great Recession" is the name that has stuck for the economic decline that began in late 2007. But there's some reason to think that using the word recession is being kind. The U.S. gross domestic product has shrunk 3.9 percent in the past year, the worst drop since the Great Depression. Plenty of observers are willing to say that this recession is much deeper than anything we've seen since the 1930s

Keep Back-to-School Shopping Costs Down
Zack Miners

The National Retail Federaton predicts the worst back-to-school shopping season for stores in more than a decade, with a spending drop of 8 percent. But many retailers are doing everything they can to win back business, and you can do your part to stretch your dollar by considering these recommendations ...

Government Bailout
(c) Paul Tong

Opportunity Cost of the Bank Bailout
Arianna Huffington

The lopsided 'recovery.' Banks that received billions in taxpayer handouts now reporting massive profits and setting aside record amounts for executive bonuses, and the American people continuing to face 9.5 percent unemployment, 10,000 foreclosures a day and vital services being cut.

What Enron & WorldCom Can Teach Us About Goldman & AIG
Arianna Huffington

Newsweek's latest cover story declares that The Great Recession is over. A Merrill Lynch report concurs, saying, 'The recession is over... We are bullish on global equities.' Goldman Sachs is placing riskier bets on the market than it did before the financial meltdown (and setting aside huge amounts of money to pay its executives). The problem is ...

Smoke Billowing Out of Our Economic Mount Vesuvius
Arianna Huffington

There is currently plenty of alarming smoke pouring out of our economic Vesuvius, but it is being dismissed. Don't worry about economic tremors, we're told, our financial system is back on track, the bailout worked and we'll start our slow but steady climb to recovery. But warning signs are all around us ...

Working to Improve the Economy
Kenneth T. Walsh Interviews Christina Romer

Christina Romer -- chairwoman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers -- recently spoke with Kenneth T. Walsh about what has gone wrong, when an economic recovery might occur, and what it's like to work with President Obama.

Real Estate Matters
(c) Nancy Ohanian

Sell High and Buy Low Is Trickier Than It Sounds
Ilyce Glink

It's really difficult to sell high and buy low under the current economic climate -- unless you're moving to a different part of the country or from a neighborhood that has appreciated greatly to another that has not.

Housing Crisis Conundrum: Which America Do You Live In
Ilyce Glink

It almost feels as though there are two economies.

First, we have the so-called 'good news' from Wall Street, where the big financial companies are crowing about billion-dollar profits, paying $100 million bonuses, and repaying warrants. Then we have the Main Street economy, where people can't get lenders to call them back, where jobs continue to be lost, home values continue to fall, net worths shrink and foreclosures continue to rise.

Small Businesses Hold on Despite Economy
Matthew Bandyk

Conventional wisdom holds true when it comes to small businesses struggling in an economic recession. Small businesses drive the nation's economy so when the economy slows down, they take the brunt. Compared with large businesses, they have less of a cushion of capital. Tight credit makes business expansion difficult. And economic slowdowns can expose fundamental flaws in business plans. But despite all these disadvantages, the number of small businesses as a whole seems to be recessionproof.

States Where the Unemployed Are Giving Up
Liz Wolgemuth

In some states, nearly half of the job seekers who have stopped looking for work have done so because they simply don't believe they'll find anything. Indeed, the number of discouraged workers nationwide has more than doubled in the past year. This trend won't be reflected in the widely publicized unemployment rate ...

Is the Economic Marriage Between China and U.S. on the Rocks?
Niall Ferguson Interview

China and America had effectively fused to become a single economy: Chimerica. The Chinese did the saving, the Americans the spending. The Chinese did the exporting, the Americans the importing. The Chinese did the lending, the Americans the borrowing. As the Chinese strategy was based on export-led growth, they had no desire to see their currency appreciate against the dollar. The unintended effect of this was to help finance the U.S. current account deficit at very low interest rates. Without that, it's hard to believe that U.S. financial markets would have bubbled the way they did from 2002 to 2007.

Boomers, Housing and Retirement:
A Symbiotic Relationship Unravels
By Mark Miller

The housing market is showing some tentative signs of recovery. But if you're a baby boomer relying on housing wealth to help fund retirement, don't hold your breath. True, the most recent Standard and Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index showed that U.S. home prices rose in May on a month-to-month basis for the first time since July 2006. But that shouldn't be taken as a sign that the market is going to rebound to pre-crash levels anytime soon. At best, the Case-Shiller index hints that we may have found a bottom in housing. Maybe

Early Economic Recovery: Fiction or Fact
Paul A. Samuelson

Ever since the global meltdown began in 2007, Wall Street pundits and government officials have proclaimed cheery optimism that meaningful global recovery will occur by the second half of 2009, or the first quarter of 2010. So, as in an earlier time, they're telling us we have nothing to fear except fear itself. Well, we have now entered 2009's second half. The question is whether the early economic recovery is fact or fiction. Paul A. Samuelson shares his findings ...

Blame State of the Economy on the Midas Touch
William Pfaff

If one tries to draw an urgently contemporary lesson from Greek myth, the story of Midas is irresistible. It provides a commentary on our global economic and financial crisis, in which the pursuit of wealth has ruined us.

House Votes to Give Cash for Clunkers Another $2 Billion
Amanda Ruggeri

After "cash for clunkers" proved so popular that it threatened to run out of cash within its first week, the House pushed aside the other items on its agenda today to save it, passing a bill that allots another $2 billion to keep the program running. The passage of the bill, by a vote of 316 to 109, helps stave off a temporary shutdown of the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save (CARS) program.

4 Things to Know About the Cash-Strapped 'Cash for Clunkers'
Matthew Bandyk

The government set aside $1 billion for the "cash for clunkers" program, which is meant to give $3,500 or $4,500 vouchers to people who trade in their gas-guzzling vehicles for new, fuel-efficient ones. But now that the White House says the program doesn't have enough money to get through the weekend, many consumers are confused about what to do next. Here are four things that consumers can do in this rapidly-changing environment

Cash for Clunkers Program Has Its Roadblocks
Kathy Kristof

If you want to trade in your junker for a new vehicle under the federal government's 'cash for clunkers' program, you'll have to act fast. Plus, qualifying for the vouchers isn't as simple as you might think. In fact, you'll need to know three things to decide whether it's a good deal for you.

Making Sense of 'Cash for Clunkers'
Matthew Bandyk

With new-car sales slumping, automotive companies have been looking for ways to get consumers back into showrooms. Washington checked one item off car companies' wish list when it passed the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009 -- commonly known as 'Cash for Clunkers' ...

Nine Reasons the Economy is Not Getting Better
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

We are now looking at unemployment numbers that undermine any confidence that we might be nearing the bottom of the recession. The appropriate metaphor is not the green shoots of new growth. A better image is to look at the true total of jobless people as a prudent navigator looks at an iceberg

Why June Jobs Report Is So Depressing
Liz Wolgemuth

The brutal truth about the Labor Department's June jobs report is that it offers strong evidence companies are still hacking away at their payroll costs -- slicing hours and chopping jobs. Employers cut 467,000 jobs last month, according to the report. The unemployment rate -- a measure of the percentage of workers who are unemployed and looking for work -- rose slightly to 9.5 percent, from 9.4 percent in May.

Editorial Cartoon by David Horsey

Happy Economic Recovery vs. An Anemic One
Paul A. Samuelson

The number-one question preoccupying economists, policy agents of government and Main Street families is this:

Will "recovery" from the current U.S. financial meltdown arrive before the end of 2009? Or, failing that, will it at least arrive early in 2010?

Whistling Past the Economic Graveyard
Arianna Huffington

Is it possible to have too much hope? To be too optimistic? Yes, if that hope keeps you from facing -- and dealing with -- unpleasant realities. That seems to be what's happening regarding the financial institutions responsible for the economic meltdown.

We've Gone From Saving Wall Street in Order to Save Main Street to Just Saving Wall Street
Arianna Huffington

Remember how, when taxpayers were being asked to fork over billions of dollars to bail out Wall Street, we were told it was essential to saving Main Street? Well, in just a few months, we've gone from saving the banks in order to save the economy to just saving the banks. It's the opposite of mission creep.

Economic Crisis will Create the Social Heroes of Tomorrow
Alvin and Heidi Toffler

The economic crisis now gripping the world is going to go away. We may not know precisely when, where and how. But one thing is certain. Nothing is likely to blow away the waves of change that have marked human history

Geopolitical Consequences of the Financial Crisis
Roger C. Altman

It is now clear that the global economic crisis will be deep and prolonged and that it will have far-reaching geopolitical consequences. The long movement toward market liberalization has stopped, and a new period of state intervention, reregulation, and creeping protectionism has begun.

Future Of The Federal Reserve - Exclusive Conversation With Ron Paul
by Matthew Bandyk

The person in Congress with perhaps the most unconventional point of view on these issues in American politics is Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX), a longtime critic of the very institution of the Fed and fractional reserve banking. He recently sponsored a bill that would audit the Fed.

10 Most Dollar-Discounted Housing Markets
By Luke Mullins

As the historic real estate bust continues to gut home prices throughout the country, property owners everywhere are scrambling to attract buyers. For some home sellers, that might mean chipping in for closing costs; others might try to sweeten the deal by handing out perks, like a free parking spot. But for many homeowners, the most efficient way to sell a home in a depressed market is to simply drop the listing price.

House Prices, Mortgage Interest Rates Key to Housing Market Recovery
By Ilyce Glink

With housing prices falling and mortgage interest rates rising, it's hard to say the housing market has bottomed out. And, yet, there are some reasons for a more optimistic housing forecast, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com

Joseph Stiglitz:
Will Capitalism Survive Wall Street Apocalypse
Matthew Bandyk

A few days after writing about how the United States is not heading towards socialism, Joseph Stiglitz suggests that might not be true about the rest of the world. Stiglitz argues that the lesson many Third World nations might take from the financial crisis is that capitalism is fundamentally flawed.

A 'Kinder, Gentler' Recession for Seniors
Mark Miller - Retire Smart

Is the Great Recession bypassing seniors? The Pew Research Center poll reports that Americans over age 65 are less likely to have been forced to cut their spending by the downturn than middle-aged people.

Break Political Traffic Jam on Transportation Overhaul
Joshua Schank and Matthew Dallek

Any transportation project, including the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska, creates jobs. However, transportation has become a policy orphan amid the healthcare tsunami that's overwhelmed the news coverage of Obama's America. Thus, stalling all the economic benefits that flow from enacting a revitalized transportation policy.

Government Intervention & Economic Risk
by Ian Bremmer and Sean West

It's no secret that politics affects economic markets. But in response to a financial crisis or economic downturn, political risk impacts markets much more broadly than just isolated policies and individual stocks.

Waiting for the Payoff:
Debate Continues Over Obama's Recovery Plan
by Justin Ewers

When Obama took office, many economists were skeptical about how the largely untested former senator would handle the array of economic problems before him. While there certainly has been no shortage of quibbling about the specifics of his recovery plans and there continues to be little certainty about what lies in store for the economy

Obama Blazing New Trail With His Bold Moves on Economy
by Kenneth T. Walsh

For most Americans, Barack Obama 's most vivid presidential moment came on election night. Since that electric Chicago night back in November, he has pivoted from poetry to prose, playing down charisma and emphasizing competence. And he has moved with impressive speed to focus on the nation's No. 1 problem: the recession and the collapsing financial industry, widely considered the worst economic calamity since the Depression. In the process, Obama is pushing the political pendulum from the conservative approach of Ronald Reagan, who said government was the problem, to a more liberal philosophy that holds that only Washington has the wherewithal to provide the answers.

Tax Cuts: Why Obama is Leaving the Reagan Era Behind
by Justin Ewers

As similar as the economic challenges facing Reagan and Obama may sound, the fiscal solutions proposed by the two presidents could not be more different. Obama has gone on a Keynesian spending spree, raising taxes on the highest-income earners and pouring money into energy, healthcare, and a massive stimulus bill. Reagan took the opposite path during his first few months in office, pushing through the biggest tax cuts in history, while massively increasing the defense budget. Politicians have been arguing ever since about which approach works better.

Obama Blazing New Trail With His Bold Moves on Economy
by Kenneth T. Walsh

For most Americans, Barack Obama 's most vivid presidential moment came on election night.

Since that electric Chicago night back in November, he has pivoted from poetry to prose, playing down charisma and emphasizing competence. And he has moved with impressive speed to focus on the nation's No. 1 problem: the recession and the collapsing financial industry, widely considered the worst economic calamity since the Depression.

In the process, Obama is pushing the political pendulum from the conservative approach of Ronald Reagan, who said government was the problem, to a more liberal philosophy that holds that only Washington has the wherewithal to provide the answers.

Why No One Can Guess When
Main Street Recovery will Occur
Paul A. Samuelson

Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben Bernanke glimpses a possible recovery by year end. He is a cautious scholar, backed by the best forecasters in the world at the Federal Reserve Board.

I would be a rash fool to quarrel with this quasi-optimistic view that by year end some stability will occur. You and I should hope that there will indeed be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel ahead. But shift our vision now to the future. Even if the short run prospect for a 2009-2010 recovery turns out to be good, I must warn once again that the long-run outlook for the U.S. dollar is hazardous.

Whistling Past Economic Graveyard: Audacity of Misplaced Hope
by Arianna Huffington

When Tim Geithner unveiled the Public Private Investment Program, he said that dealing with these assets was a "core" part of solving the financial crisis. But the banks would much rather keep pretending that their toxic assets are not that toxic, and worth much more than they really are -- a risky charade the relaxed mark-to-market rules allow them to continue to pull off

Wall Street, D.C. & The New Financial Euphoria
by Arianna Huffington

Insider consensus seems to be that the worst of the hard times is behind us and that the economy is back on track. Or at least on track to be back on track. Not even the latest employment stats showing that another 539,000 Americans had lost their jobs dimmed the enthusiasm. Call it The New Financial Euphoria.

Free-Market Economy Fundamentally Healthy
Global Economic Viewpoint

Last week at the Milken Global Conference, three Noble Laureates in Economics sat down to discuss the global recession -- Gary Becker (Nobel Prize, 1992), Roger Myerson (Nobel Prize, 2007) and Myron Scholes (Nobel Prize 1997).

All three agreed that this is not going to be a depression and that the free-market economy is fundamentally healthy.

Brazil, China & India Can Mitigate Global Crisis
Global Economic Viewpoint

Brazil, India and even China will not be able, by themselves, to correct the dysfunctions that produced the global crisis. But it is true that the economic power of these three countries can mitigate its negative consequences. ...