Where Are The Jobs?

This video highlights how Republicans have successfully made 'where are the jobs?' part of the national lexicon and turned it into a potent weapon against out-of-touch Washington Democrats on the most critical issue Americans are concerned about.

The recent disappointing jobs report demonstrates the pressing need to immediately enact the Pledge to America and help end the uncertainty caused by Washington Democrats' out-of-control spending spree and job-killing policies.

According to the Obama Administration's own projections, unemployment should now be at roughly seven percent on account of the 'stimulus,' but instead it now stands at 9.6 percent. In fact, unemployment is higher than the Obama Administration said it would be if we had not passed the 'stimulus' at all. Small businesses are pulling back at a time when we need them to be expanding and hiring, an uncertainty worsened by Washington Democrats' failure to stop all the tax hikes set to take effect January 1st . Near 10 percent unemployment and widespread uncertainty is a far cry from the robust recovery President Obama promised the American people.

With the Pledge to America, Republicans have offered a clear and positive plan to help end the economic uncertainty, create jobs, and make America more competitive. With the American people asking 'where are the jobs?,' Republicans' blueprint for job creation starts with stopping all of the looming tax hikes and ending Washington's out-of-control spending spree. Make no mistake, our economy will ultimately recover, but it will do so because of the hard work and entrepreneurship of the American people, not more of the same wasteful Washington spending and job-killing tax hikes and mandates.

Show Me the Jobs

This is a new year but it seems like the same old discussion is taking place in politics and that is where the jobs are. It is time for the politicians who voted for and against the unprecedented stimulus plan last year to show the American people where the jobs are. Last year's stimulus package spurred up to 2 million more jobs than the country would have had otherwise, the White House said earlier this month. White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairwoman Christina Romer called it "truly a stunning, important effect of the act."

However she needs to try telling that to the 10 percent who are unemployed and many critics argue that President Obama's stimulus efforts haven't worked and shouldn't be expanded on in the new legislation he is requesting this year in the form of the Jobs for Main Street Act which is just a continuation of the same policies that Congress passed in last year’s stimulus package.

Still a CEA report released said about half of the $787 billion stimulus bill enacted last year is spent or already promised. The stimulus bill added between three and four percentage points to economic growth during last year's third quarter and between 1.5 and three percentage points in the fourth quarter, according to the report. While Republicans have called the White House claims overblown. But Romer cited similar figures on jobs and gross domestic product growth from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and private industry experts.

While Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House Government Oversight Committee, wasn't buying it. "What's the American public going to believe? Self-serving and deceptive numbers being put out by the White House on the stimulus, or the numbers that say we're at 10 percent unemployment when the Obama administration promised the stimulus would keep it below 8 percent? Another word for it is 'propaganda,' " Issa said.

Regardless if you are a Republican or Democrat, the fact is that the jobs figures have become a political football just as Congress gears up to consider a White House request for more stimulus money for infrastructure programs like road building. Obama had promised 3.5 million jobs from the first stimulus bill. But the recession has proved a more difficult adversary than expected. In December, another 85,000 jobs were lost. But Romer said the economy was losing an average of 691,000 jobs a month in the first quarter of last year. "In the absence of the recovery act, we would be 2 million jobs lower than we are now," she said. "It has done exactly what we anticipated it would do."

Therefore the jobs battle is one that will be watched as we head in the midterm elections of this year. Many politicians will champion that without the stimulus package things would be worse while other will argue that the stimulus package hasn’t done what it was intended to do. No matter which side of the debate you are on, the fact is that with an official unemployment rate of 10 percent and an unofficial rate of close to 20%, it is clear that something has to be done about job creation in this nation that the original stimulus package failed to do in the first place.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said the job figures are pivotal in the fight over whether to spend more on a stimulus. Baker predicted that Obama will get about $30 billion to $40 billion for aid to state and local governments -- well shy of the $180 billion their budgets are short -- and maybe half the money he wants to spend on new infrastructure projects. On the other hand, David M. Smith, associate professor of economics at Pepperdine University, said the administration should be careful about ordering up more stimulus when much of the first bill is still unspent, because its effect on the economy hasn't yet been felt. Too much stimulus could end up causing inflation and increasing the nation's debt, Smith said. This is something that I have touched on previously and I am not an economists, just someone who studies the economy, politics and life like the student we all should be, meaning striving to obtain knowledge about what we don’t know.

To be fair, another set of job creation figures will come out at the end of this month from the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, the independent agency that is overseeing the stimulus funds. Romer's CEA numbers look at the impact from tax cuts, aid to state and local governments, and infrastructure programs. But the recovery figures include only jobs created or saved by contracts, grants and loans -- which amounts to only about one-third of the stimulus package. The administration estimated that about 640,000 jobs were created or saved in the third quarter by those infrastructure projects. But after complaints about how those numbers were figured, the administration quietly changed the system. In reports from recipients of the money, the job figures now will apply to any position paid for with stimulus money, even if the job was not new or in danger of being cut without the stimulus funding.

Thus critics aren't happy with the new accounting, and Issa called it moving the goal posts. "Their new definition is, 'If we spend taxpayer money, we're successful,' " he said. Recently a study done by The Associated Press looked at local unemployment figures across the country and found little impact from the stimulus spending. But Baker said that's because the infrastructure-spending portion of the stimulus is too small a percentage of the entire economy to make a dent in the employment rate. The number of jobs will continue to fall for a few more months, Baker predicted. And when things get better, discouraged workers -- who don't count as unemployed because they aren't looking for jobs -- will come back, which is a part of the 20 percent unofficial unemployed numbers. So they will keep the employment numbers depressed for a while as they are added back into the total of job seekers.

Even when the nation isn't losing jobs, Baker pointed out, the country needs to add 125,000 jobs each month just to keep up with the number of new workers in a growing population. Although Romer said she still thinks it is possible for last year's stimulus bill to add up to 3.5 million jobs, many economists say that may be overly optimistic. "I don't think it's a nutty number. Maybe it will be 3 million after two years," said Baker. The money for infrastructure programs has gone out much more slowly than aid for extra unemployment benefits and tax credits, which don't have as big an impact on jobs, Romer said. Direct spending on projects has a "bigger bang" because construction workers buy cars and restaurant meals and other items that create yet more jobs, she said. Economists say it's impossible to know the exact number of jobs created or saved by the stimulus bill because they don't have a way to measure what would have happened if it hadn't passed.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter which said of the job debate you on or if you are a Democrat or a Republican, what matters right now is that we create jobs. Living in hypothetical’s will not create jobs and debating whether or not the stimulus package saved or created 2 million jobs last year as the administration and some in Congress what us to believe or not believe will not help. The fact is that things could be worse without the stimulus package but it can also be better if the stimulus package was structured and targeted better. Thus right now it is time out for politicians to stop playing politics with job creation. Instead they need to really focus on what will work and what will give the American people a better bang for taxpayer dollars in creating jobs rather than wasting it on projects that are wasting our tax dollars.

Jobs for Main Street Act = Growth of Federal Deficit

Before the House went on holiday in 2009, they voted and narrowly passed what many call the “Jobs for Main Street Act”. In fact it was the final vote for the House of the year and decade and it passed 217-212, without a single Republican supporter. Although the House passed the bill, it might be harder to pass in the Senate due to the fact many Senators have questions in regards to how effective this bill will create job.

Thus Senators are beginning to ask themselves will the latest jobs bill really produce jobs and is it worth plunging the government even further into debt by at least tens of billions. Now the House passed a $174 billion package last month and to some degree it is referred to as the son of the stimulus, the $787 billion economic recovery plan of nearly a year ago that many especially Republicans say was ineffective in producing jobs. Therefore if the original stimulus package was to produce jobs and many of which were created immediate but will be created this year and in 2011.

While the Democratic House bill plans to spend $75 billion in infrastructure and public sector spending: tens of thousands of new construction jobs, 5,500 more police officers, 25,000 additional AmeriCorps members, 250,000 summer jobs for disadvantaged youth, 14,000 part-time jobs for parks and forestry workers. These are the same jobs that the original stimulus package was created to do but it seems as if the House Democrats feel that the stimulus has been too little and too slow in creating jobs so they hope that the son of the stimulus will help in job creation.

Another key thing to point out is that the “Jobs for Main Street Act” will use $75 billion from the Wall Street bailout fund, better known as TARP, to offset some of the costs. Still some skeptics believe this is no more than a shell game because unused bailout money is supposed to be used to reduce the deficit, which hit $1.4 trillion in the 2009 budget year. So the appetite for another costly round of economic stimulus measures seems unlikely in the Senate especially since the Senate already has a vote on tap for January 20 to again raise the ceiling on the government’s total debt just a month after upping it to $12.4 trillion.

The “Jobs for Main Street Act” is yet another reactionary measure by Congress to deal with one of the problems plaguing our nation which is jobs. While some might applaud the House for trying to create jobs but who’s to say the amount of jobs they are predicting to create will be created from this package and most of these jobs are temporary not permanent. So the real question is what are Congress and President Obama as well as American companies both big and small doing to create more permanent jobs in this jobless market?

Now President Obama has a Jobs Summit where he outlined some things that the federal government as well as the financial industry could do to help small businesses create jobs. Still two key things that Obama outlined after the Jobs Summit were not included in the House version of the “Jobs for Main Street Act. The House plan leaves out Obama's proposals to attack unemployment through tax credits for small businesses that create jobs and for homeowners who make their dwellings more energy efficient. A job-creating tax credit for small businesses has support among some Democrats in the Senate, even though critics fear it may be too complex to work. Critics argue that small business people have too much to do just to keep their business afloat than to try and figure out some fancy, complex credit. While supporters of the credit say it would empower growing small businesses and if these credits have even a marginal incentive on even a few … employers, the bang for the buck in terms of job creation would be one of the highest of any of the types of incentives that the government has created thus far.

Still not everyone is buying into such a notion and the reality is that job creation issue is complicated because of the money in the House bill goes to programs that may stimulate the economy but don’t appear to directly put people to work. For instance, $41 billion goes to extend unemployment benefits for six months and $12.3 billion to extend a health insurance subside for people who have lost their jobs. Now the unemployment benefits extension is not a bad idea but it would not be needed if Congress actually thought of ways to create jobs or to help with job creation rather than continuing to extend ideas that were put in the original stimulus package that hasn’t panned out as good as many thought it would when it was passed nearly a year ago. Also the extension of a health insurance subside for people who have lost their jobs better known as COBRA, is very costly because most people without jobs can’t afford COBRA.

The House bill also includes the extension of a child tax credit for poor families, $23.5 billion to help states cover Medicaid costs and $23 billion so states can support some 250,000 education jobs over the next two years. An additional $2.8 billion goes to clean water and environmental restoration projects. Even the investment in "shovel-ready" highway and bridge projects may not immediately translate into a reduction in the nation's 10 percent unemployment rate. Republicans cited government figures showing that, as of Sept. 30, only 9 percent of $27.5 billion for highways in the first stimulus bill had been spent. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that of the $39 billion in the new House jobs bill directed to the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, only $1.7 billion will get spent before next October.

The CBO has estimated that employment was 600,000 to 1.6 million higher in the third quarter of 2009 because of the stimulus act. The criticism over the latest jobs bill has already begun and many supporters of the bill are hurrying to show why it is needed but whenever the CBO speaks, I tend to listen considering that they are a non-partisan group and their numbers are usually close to reality than any of the numbers that other government organizations and officials give. Nonetheless the reality is that job creation must be a must this year. Most importantly if we are going to continue to grow our federal deficit and debt than we have to make sure we are getting enough bang for our buck in the short term. If we are going to grow our deficits and debt than we have to make sure we putting the money toward programs and projects that will create jobs for the American people as quickly and efficiently as possible.

While supports of the first stimulus like to say that a lot of jobs have been saved by the stimulus act but what they don’t say is that in many cases federal money is basically replacing lower levels of private or state investment. If those same supporters looked at the fact that the unemployment rate in the construction industry remains at about 19 percent, almost double the national level than they would see that despite all the upcoming construction projects, unemployment in the construction industry will remain high until states and the private sector are able to find the funds necessary to construct. Simply put the stimulus was nothing more than a needed shot in the arm, but the real solution is a long-term highway and transit investment bill which Congress has put off consideration of a six-year $450 billion infrastructure measure to replace the highway and transit act that expired in September. No one is saying that this would wipe out the double digit unemployment but at least it would put money toward something that would make America’s infrastructure stronger and faster in various ways. Nonetheless, Congress is looking at the short term problem as usual and this will only lead to our nation’s deficit and debt growing but the real question is what can we say we got for all this spending 5, 10 or 20 years from now.

Jobs for main street should be have been a priority of Congress last January but now more than ever, it is needed but it is needed in a smarter way since it is clear as a nation we will continue to spend outrageously to fix our economic woes.

References:
Information on the bill, H.R. 2847, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/
Congressional Budget Office: http://www.cbo.gov/
Background on the Jobs for Main Street Act: http://tinyurl.com/yz2ryx9

America is Broke

Were broke. Americas broke. All year long, our friends on the other side of the aisle have been on a massive spending spree that our nation cant afford. We had a trillion-dollar stimulus bill that was supposed to created jobs immediately, and yet unemployment is now at ten percent in America and three million people have lost their jobs since it was signed into law. Weve got a budget thats going to double the national debt in five years, triple it in ten years. Weve got a $12 trillion national debt. We brought a national energy tax bill to the floor thats going to cost a trillion dollars passed it. We had a health care bill here several weeks ago another trillion dollars passed it. When are we going to say, enough is enough? Here we are today wrapping six appropriations bills together. Were going to spend half atrillion dollars. And its got over 5,000 earmarks in it. Things like: $292,200 for the elimination of slum and blight in Scranton, Pennsylvania; $300,000 for music and education programs at New York Citys Carnegie Hall, where they pay the employee who oversees the props more than $530,000 in salary and benefits; and theres plenty in here for Washington as well: $150,000 for the National Building Museum and $250,000 for the Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts, a concert venue. Listen, I dont know how worthy any of these projects are, but I do have to ask a question: are they more important than our kids and grandkids, who are going to have the pay the debt because we dont have the money to spend on this? Its our kids and grandkids who are going to pay for it, and yet we cant find ways to cut spending. Before taking office, the President said he would go through the budget and these bills line-by-line, page-by-page. After Congress passed the $410 billion omnibus spending bill with more than 9,000 earmarks, the President signed it, and said, well that was last years business. Now the President says reducing the deficit is next years business that we need to spend our way out of this economic recession were in. Well I think the President ought to go through this bill line-by-line and page-by-page, all 2,500 pages of it. And then maybe hell figure out, we dont need to be spending this money that we dont have and piling more and more debt on the backs of our kids and grandkids. Instead, our bond rating, our AAA bond rating is in jeopardy and our Democrat friends want to raise the debt limit next week by $1.8 trillion. Instead, lets stop the madness and vote no.

CBS News Reports: Stimulus Funds Go to Martini Bars, Puppet shows

CBS Evening News reported on yet another revelation of stimulus waste, fraud, and abuse. The latest news of stimulus waste came courtesy of a study released by Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and John McCain (R-AZ), entitled Stimulus Checkup, which took a closer look at 100 projects funded by the Democrats $1 trillion stimulus and highlighted 100 wasteful stimulus projects worth at least $7 billion but saved or created few actual jobs.

The latest projects that taxpayer dollars are funding include: a martini bar, a Brazilian steak house, a water pipeline, a money-losing golf course in San Francisco, fossil research in Argentina, puppet shows - and much, much more.

As CBS News reported:

The public's overall assessment of the condition of the national economy remains grim; 77 percent of Americans say the economy is in bad shape. The economic stimulus package was supposed to help with that. As of the end of November, the government has spent $217 billion in stimulus, and two Republican Senators say that at least 15 percent of it has been pure waste.

You probably wouldn't guess that a martini bar and a Brazilian steak house would be on tap for stimulus funds. But in St. Joseph, Missouri the two privately-owned facilities are getting $100,000 of your tax dollars.

The contrast with the latest report of stimulus waste and a Memorandum to Head of Departments and Agencies penned by Obama Administration Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag on February 9 is remarkable. They wrote:

We cannot overstate the importance of this effort. We are asking the American people to trust their government with an unprecedented level of funding to address the economic emergency. In return, we must prove to them that their dollars are being invested in initiatives and strategies that make a difference in their communities and across the country.

Clearly, their own stimulus has failed to meet that test.

As early as next week, Democrats will move to raise the debt ceiling by as much as $1.8 trillion nearly twice what had been assumed in last springs budget resolution for the 2010 fiscal year, Politico noted today. Judging by the way out-of-touch Washington Democrats spent taxpayer money in just one year, why should the American people trust them with one more dime of their hard-earned money?

The American people deserve better than the out-of-control spending, borrowing, and taxing Washington Democrats have been offering up all year. Republicans have a better solution: a no-cost jobs proposal, which House Republican Leaders discussed just yesterday with the President.

Boehner: It's Time to Shut Down TARP

http://gopleader.gov House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement after House Democrats rejected a GOP motion-to-recommit that would have amended Democrats financial regulatory legislation (H.R. 4173) to shut down the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and require that TARP funds be used to pay down the national debt:

Today, House Democrats voted to continue TARP and go right on spending taxpayer dollars with reckless abandon. After a year-long spending spree, out-of-touch Washington Democrats are looking for money in all the wrong places to fund more of the same stimulus programs that arent working. Not only do Washington Democrats have no exit strategy for TARP, they want to keep the program alive so it can serve as a slush fund to bail out politicians.

"The American people are sick and tired of these open-ended bailouts and all this wasteful Washington spending. Taxpayer money paid back to the government should be used for debt reduction. Only Republicans are offering common-sense proposals to get government out of the bailout business and stop piling debt on our kids and grandkids.

NOTE: Democrats rejected a common-sense GOP motion-to-recommit proposal on the House floor today that would have amended Democrats financial reform legislation (H.R. 4173) to shut down TARP and require that TARP funds be used to pay down the national debt. The Republican motion-to-recommit also included a provision to lower the nations debt limit by an amount equal to that from shutting down TARP.

ABC News: 1 in 10 Jobs "Saved or Created" in the "Stimulus" Dont Exist

Last night, ABCs World News Tonight with Charles Gibson highlighted a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on misleading stimulus jobs claims. The GAO report found that More than 50,000 jobs, or one out of every 10 jobscame from projects that reported spending no money yet, according to ABC News.

The Truth About the U.S. Economy

It is time for the truth to come out about the U.S. economy and Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner seemed to recognize that the economy is rebounding but job growth lags. In fact, Geithner acknowledges the federal budget deficit is too high, but that the priorities now are economic growth and job creation. Asked repeatedly on NBC's "Meet the Press" on November 1st whether this means taxes will rise, Geithner avoided giving specifics. He did say President Barack Obama is committed to dealing with deficit in a way that will not add to the tax burden of people making less than $250,000 a year.

The White House has not decided how to reduce the red ink, Geithner said in an interview broadcast Sunday. "Right now we're focused on getting growth back on track," he said. "And we're not at the point yet where we have to decide exactly what it's going to take." He acknowledged that the economic recovery, while showing positive movement, has been shaky and uneven. "A lot of damage was caused by this crisis. It's going to take some time for us to grow out of this. It could be a little choppy," he said. "It could be uneven. And it's going to take awhile."

A bright spot in the recovery identified by Geithner is the banking system, which he said is "dramatically more stable" because of the government bailout. Geithner said that just one year ago economic activity came to a standstill as major financial institutions shut down due to lack of liquidity. Even though 115 banks have failed so far this year, Geithner said there has been a "dramatic improvement in confidence," with private capital back in the system. He said large businesses are now able to borrow again. "The banking system is dramatically more stable than it was three months ago, six months ago, nine months ago, a year ago," he said.

But Geithner said more needs to be done to assist small businesses, adding that the administration is working to help open up credit to them. These businesses, he said, "face a really tough environment on the financing side." After financial institutions were widely blamed for assuming too much risk and bringing the economy to the brink of collapse, Geithner said a concern now is that they might end up being too timid. "The big risk we face now is that banks are going to overcorrect and not take enough risk," he said. "We need them to take a chance again on the American economy. That's going to be important to recovery."

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, citing the growing unemployment rate, said the president's economic stimulus program has done nothing but increase the size of government. He said businesses are "sitting on their hands" because of government spending and proposals for health care and other initiatives he contended would increase taxes. "Business people are afraid to invest in their business, afraid to grow their business, because they don't know what's going to happen next," Boehner said on CNN's "State of the Union" on November 1st.

Geithner acknowledged the economy remains tough for many workers who have lost jobs and it's going to be some time before the employment outlook starts to brighten for many of them. "Unemployment is worse than almost everybody expected. But growth is back a little more quickly, a little stronger than people thought," he said.

Unemployment hit a 26-year high of 9.8 percent in September, and the October report due in the coming week could show it topping 10 percent. "It's likely still rising. And it's probably going to rise further before it starts to come down again." Geithner said it's too early to decide if a second government stimulus package should be offered, though he acknowledged unemployment probably will rise even more before it starts to turn around. Economists expect to see job growth after the first of the year, probably in the first quarter, he said. "You're not going to see real recovery until it's led by the private sector, by businesses," he said.

The treasury chief added that with about half of the stimulus money left, along with tax cuts and investments ahead, "there's a lot of force still moving its way through the system now" and that will keep providing economic support. "It's working. It's delivering what it should result." Plus two weeks ago, Christina Romer, who heads the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said the government's economic stimulus spending already had its biggest impact and probably wouldn't contribute to significant growth next year.

Geithner also said the administration supports steps being considered by Congress like extending unemployment insurance and the homebuyer tax credit. In addition, he complimented Obama's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, for his work in reining in pay for senior executives at the top seven recipients of government bailout money. Geithner played down concerns about government interference in executive compensation and the potential for the most talented and productive executives to leave their companies. "We were very concerned about that from the beginning. And he had to balance some very difficult kind of choices. I think he's found a very good balance among them," Geithner said.

Asked if he saw an exodus at those companies, he said he didn't, but added, "I worry about this a lot." Boehner disputed Vice President Joe Biden's recent assertion that the economic downturn has bottomed out. "I don't think anybody knows whether we've hit bottom," Boehner said.

However what is clear from Geithner’s interview on Meet the Press is that while Geithner recognized the national budget deficit is too high and it really is not his or the administration main priority right now is what one can take from Geithner’s statements. In fact Geithner said, “The federal budget deficit is too high, but that the priorities now are economic growth and job creation.” So one could interpret that Geithner was speaking for himself or for the administration and I for one think he is speaking for the administration because he didn’t say in his opinion.

Therefore the truth about the U.S. economy right now is while the Obama administration acknowledge the federal budget deficit being high and the national debt overall being enormous, their main priority right now is to deal with economic growth and job creation in hopes that those solutions will help decrease the federal budget deficit and stabilize the overall national debt to a degree. Still even when there is job creation and economic growth, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the federal budget deficit will decrease unless Congress and the White House really curve our nation’s spending habits in ways that fit into the mold that President Obama promised during the campaign and even earlier this year that he will only look to spend on programs and projects that work not those that don’t.

Still some people argue that many of the programs that have been spent on thus far this year by the Obama administration have done some good for the economy but not the way it should have. For example, the cash for clunkers program was suppose to help the American auto industry car sales as well the environment by customers turning in their gas guzzlers for fuel efficient vehicles. But early data of the program show that many customers bought trucks and SUVs instead of fuel efficient vehicles, thus the American people didn’t care to think about the economy. Also another problem from the early data shows that most customers bought non-American cars rather than American vehicles. So this is yet one of many examples of how government spending although it helped the economy to a degree but millions of U.S. dollars went to foreign companies rather than American companies.

Thus, right now the U.S. economy has some positive signs but just as many negative signs within it with the major concerns being job creation and pending inflation that this nation has never seen before. So finally here’s some truth to the U.S. economy that some economists don’t want to discuss but it is time that the truth comes out so we the American people can know what exactly is going on with government spending in regards to the federal budget deficit and the national deficit.

Factory Towns slow to see Stimulus

As the jobs in this nation continue to vanish, it seems as if factory towns are slow to see stimulus dollars. Many communities hit hardest by job losses, those built around dying factories and mills, have been slowest to see relief from President Barack Obama's stimulus plan, underscoring how hard it is for Washington policymakers to create lasting work in areas that need it most. The manufacturing industry has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs during the recession as plants have closed or scaled back. Places such as the southwest Missouri city of Lamar, tucked amid endless fields of winter wheat and soybeans, have seen the cornerstones of their economies disappear, leaving a gap that even billions in roadwork and government aid cannot fill.

Lamar began feeling the recession ahead of the rest of the country, when the furniture-maker O'Sullivan Industries closed its doors in mid-2007, immediately leaving 700 workers unemployed and turning its factory into a million-square-foot vacancy. That began what city manager Lynn Calton calls "a slow death." Stores folded. A 50-year-old car dealership went under. One in 10 jobs disappeared last year. Everyone suffered, from the downtown florist to the dentist who cleaned the factory workers' teeth. Even Mayor Keith Divine filed for unemployment when his furniture store went out of business. He now sells carpet and mattresses and says he hasn't seen evidence of the 640,000 jobs saved or created nationwide thanks to the $787 billion stimulus. "What work? Where?" Divine asks.

For the Obama administration, Lamar is as much a problem of expectations as it is of policy. For all the items contained in the stimulus, from tax cuts to road work to new schools, nothing could quickly replace what factory towns like Lamar had lost. That's why the White House says it's unfair to judge the stimulus by the unemployment rate because no amount of stimulus was going to keep Lamar's unemployment rate from approaching 12 percent.

Nationwide, only 2,500 of the 640,000 stimulus jobs announced Friday were in the manufacturing industry, and many of those appear to be mislabeled. Teachers were the biggest winners because states used federal aid to fill budget gaps, then credited the money with avoiding layoffs — even if no such layoffs were planned. "We haven't seen any improvements in our town," said Gary Macklem, the mayor of Croswell, Mich., a small city in a county built on farming and factories, where unemployment has hovered just below 20 percent all year. "We lost two factories and the other factories are hanging by a shoe string."

One of the goals written into the stimulus was to help "those most impacted by the recession." And there are provisions to do just that, from increasing unemployment and Medicaid benefits to paying for worker retraining. Places such as Croswell and Lamar also probably would have been worse off if their states had endured their budget crises without federal help. And there are billions of dollars to upgrade the electrical grid and encourage alternative energy, an historic investment expected to spur manufacturing of wind turbines, solar panels and clean-running buses. "Will the stimulus program by itself turn around the decades-long decline in that sector? Of course not," said White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein. "But it will help, and it will help in some of the most key areas, where manufacturing can shift from contracting to expanding." Such benefits are harder to see than a job and a paycheck. In manufacturing towns, those have been difficult to create. When they appear, they're not what the town is used to.

O'Sullivan Industries was the kind of company that hired kids right out of high school, a company where workers could eventually pull down $16 an hour and work overtime when the plant was running six days a week. Some employees had been there for 30 or more years. People who wanted to start a family and put down roots in their hometown could go get jobs at O'Sullivan. The stimulus can't create those types of jobs, at least not directly and not right away. So despite Lamar's need, the county saw just 22 jobs from the stimulus. They are temporary positions working on a local highway project, not the kind of thing someone from O'Sullivan could easily walk into. "They were building ready-to-assemble furniture. Somebody out there pouring concrete is a whole different job," said Calton, the city manager. "I don't know if those people were able to get on with someone doing a highway project."

They weren't. The highway contract went to a company that brought in crews from hours away. Those workers count themselves as lucky, but already fear what may come next. One man has a toddler and said he'll take dishwashing jobs to get by once the stimulus project is over. Word down at the union hall is that things haven't been this bad in 10 years. "You put your name on the list, and you're No. 90 or No. 106," said Bob Williams, who has worked construction since 1968. "You ain't going to work tomorrow."

In Monroe County, Ala., Georgia-Pacific Corp. idled its plywood mill this year, leaving 300 workers without jobs. In August, Fruit of the Loom closed its dye plant, laying off more than 100. These were good jobs with benefits and retirement plans, said Mike Kennedy, the mayor of the county seat of Monroeville, the childhood home of author Harper Lee and the likely inspiration for the town in her book "To Kill a Mockingbird." Unemployment is approaching 19 percent and the city budget is strained. Kennedy said he's hoping to receive stimulus money to make buildings more energy efficient. That would create some jobs. But so far, Monroeville has seen just 8 jobs from the stimulus, according to the latest data. "We got stimulus money to build sidewalk," Kennedy said.

Thus factory towns are not seeing the stimulus fast enough but still some of these towns probably would still be in bad shape even with stimulus dollars flowing in. Thus the stimulus dollars in this nation was not and is not intended to help all parts of America but more so, it will help many states in some ways and in other ways, it will do nothing. It is clear that more needs to be done to create jobs in this nation but the plan for how to create such innovative jobs has not yet been produced by any economists or government official.

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On the Net:
Stimulus spending by industry and county: http://bit.ly/4oQLIW

Goldman Sachs Executive are Primed to Get Lucrative Bonuses

A celebrated Goldman Sachs partner, Gus Levy, coined the maxim that long defined the bank, the savviest and most influential firm on Wall Street: “Greedy, but long-term greedy.” But these days that old dictum is being truncated to just “greedy” by some Goldman critics. While many ordinary Americans are still waiting for an economic recovery, Goldman and its employees are enjoying one of the richest periods in the bank’s 140-year history.

Goldman executives are perplexed by the resentment directed at their bank and contend the criticism is unjustified. But they find themselves in the uncomfortable position of defending Goldman’s blowout profits and the outsize paydays that are the hallmark of its success. For Goldman employees, it is almost as if the financial crisis never happened. Only months after paying back billions of taxpayer dollars, Goldman Sachs is on pace to pay annual bonuses that will rival the record payouts that it made in 2007, at the height of the bubble. In the last nine months, the bank set aside about $16.7 billion for compensation — on track to pay each of its 31,700 employees close to $700,000 this year. Top producers are expecting multimillion-dollar paydays.

The latest tally came Thursday, when Goldman reported another set of robust results. But its strong financial showing — a profit of $3.19 billion in the third quarter — was overshadowed by Goldman’s swelling bonus pool. Goldman set aside nearly half of its revenue to reward its employees, a common practice on Wall Street, even in this post-bailout era. But despite Goldman’s success or, perhaps, because of it, the bank has come to symbolize for many a return to wanton Wall Street excess. Even in 2008, the most tumultuous year in modern Wall Street history, Goldman employees reaped rewards that most people can only dream about. Goldman paid out $4.82 billion in bonuses last year, awarding 953 employees at least $1 million each and 78 executives $5 million or more. The rewards for 2009 will be far greater.

Goldman executives know they have a public opinion problem, and they are trying to figure out what to do about it — as long as it does not involve actually cutting pay. Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, finds himself in the unusual position of defending a successful company in a nation that normally celebrates success. Goldman said Thursday that it would donate $200 million to its charitable foundation (that figure represents 6 percent of its third-quarter profit, or about six days of earnings).

Rumors are swirling on Wall Street that Goldman might donate even more money to charity, perhaps as much as $1 billion, in an effort to defuse public resentment directed at the bank. Mr. Blankfein has even urged his free-spending bankers to be mindful of conspicuous consumption. Goldman is also weighing changes to some of its compensation practices. Its executives receive a significant portion of their total compensation in stock. But like other banks, it is considering increasing that portion for all employees, giving deferred payments and introducing provisions that would enable the bank to claw back bonuses if trades go wrong.

Mr. Blankfein laid out such ideas in a speech in Germany last month that drew wide attention on Wall Street. Despite the news of Goldman’s strong quarter, David A. Viniar, the chief financial officer, was on the defensive Thursday. Talk of bonuses, and whether they were justified, dominated what in another era might have been a celebratory call with the media. “We are very focused on what is going on in the world,” Mr. Viniar replied to a barrage of questions about whether the bank should pay outsize bonuses in these hard economic times. “We are focused on the economic climate. We are focused on what is going on with other people.” But he said Goldman had a duty to its employees and to retain staff. By paying big bonuses, he said, the bank was trying to make a difficult trade-off between “being fair to our people who have done a remarkable job” and “what’s going on in the world.”

Goldman, Mr. Viniar said, was being unfairly singled out over its bonus culture. “Yes, I think that is too big a focus,” he said. “I would prefer people to be focused on the success of our business, how well we’re doing, and how well our people are performing.” Still, some outsiders wonder if Goldman, which is so adept at reading the markets, is misreading public opinion, and whether the gilded Goldman name will be tarnished by this episode. Goldman is no different from most Wall Street firms: it rewards bankers and traders who make lots of money. “They do it because they can,” Michael Useem, professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, said of the bonuses. “But strategic thinking requires that you think not only about trading but also about reputation and where the bank stands in the court of public opinion.”

This much is indisputable: Goldman Sachs is minting money. Its third-quarter profits were powered in large part by aggressive trading in the fixed income and equity markets. Its earnings were also bolstered by mark-ups in its own private equity stakes and other corporate investments, which have risen as markets have rallied this year. Its earnings from investment banking were down from the second quarter, it said, because of the seasonally weak summer months and because the second quarter had been enhanced by underwriting business as other banks had rushed to raise capital.

While Goldman has been a vocal proponent of reforming pay practices, the bank has not yet shown its hand and will only describe any major changes in its compensation structure when it announces final bonuses at the end of this year. Meanwhile, other banks, like Morgan Stanley, have moved ahead in reform, by introducing three-year clawback provisions, for example. Brian Foley, a compensation consultant in White Plains, said of the possible reforms like delayed payments and clawback provisions: “I definitely think they ought to be doing it, and I assume they will be doing it. They have got to arrange the chairs on the deck so things look different.”


However Top aides to President Obama upbraid Wall Street. “Bonuses after the bailout 'A year ago . . . these institutions were teetering'” said one Obama aide. Top Obama administration officials sharply criticized Wall Street firms planning to pay big bonuses, pointedly contrasting the soaring profits some financial companies have recorded in recent days with continuing high jobless rates across the country. The firms are benefiting from government efforts, some initiated by the Obama administration, to stabilize and restore confidence to the capital markets after a global financial crisis that began last year. With their fortunes rebounding, the Wall Street firms plan to pay tens of billions of dollars to executives.

"The bonuses are offensive," Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on ABC's "This Week," adding that banks must do more to support lending across the country and should stop their lobbying efforts aimed at blocking the passage of new financial regulations that are being prepared in Congress. "They ought to think through what they are doing, and they ought to understand that a year ago a lot of these institutions were teetering on the brink, and the United States government and taxpayers came to their defense," Axelrod said. "They have responsibilities, and they ought to meet those responsibilities."

The Obama administration has defied popular opinion in backing huge government bailouts to try to rescue much of the nation's auto industry and stabilize the financial system, steps it saw as critical to fostering an economic recovery. At the same time, it has attempted to tap into popular anger at corporate America with outspoken criticism of bonuses, perks and other practices that have long been staples of big business. Many banks and other firms have been enjoying fat profits this year in their trading and investment arms. But much of this success has come as a result of new government policies that have kept interest rates low -- on debt and mortgages, for example.

The White House has been taking an increasingly confrontational tone against Wall Street bonuses and lobbying efforts to prevent its broad plan for new financial regulations. Obama has given at least two high-profile speeches in recent weeks urging the financial industry to stop lobbying Congress not to pass laws that would, among other things, create a new agency to police credit card and mortgage lending. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel chided Wall Street firms for neglecting their responsibilities "in the short period of time where they have a level of normalcy because of what the government did to help them." "Not only do they come for a bailout . . . they're now back trying to fight a consumer office and the type of protections that will prevent another type of situation where the economy is taken over the cliff by the actions taken on Wall Street and financial market," he said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Recent news of a pay package for Bank of America's outgoing chief executive, Kenneth D. Lewis, illustrates the challenge facing the White House and Treasury. The Treasury's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, persuaded Lewis not to take any compensation for his work this year after the bank received $45 billion in government aid. But because of Lewis's contract with the bank, he is still on track to receive nearly $70 million in retirement money, something Feinberg can't prevent.

The administration's criticism of corporate bonuses highlights the quandary it faces as the nation slowly emerges from the steepest economic downturn since the Great Depression. While Wall Street has regained some of its old swagger as profits have returned and other parts of the economy show signs of new life, unemployment continues to rise despite the huge economic stimulus plan enacted in February. With unemployment at 9.8 percent and projected to go higher, Obama is facing mounting political pressure to take further government action to create jobs, but at the same time he is confronted by a near-record budget deficit that cries out for fiscal austerity.

Aides called joblessness a daily concern for Obama but added that the administration is constrained by the ballooning budget deficit, which hit a post-World War II record of $1.4 trillion in the fiscal year that ended last month. "There is this conundrum -- you've got this huge national deficit; we've got to do what we can to bring that down. At the same time, it's important to stimulate the economy, and the federal government has to do its part," said senior adviser Valerie Jarrett on NBC's "Meet the Press." ". . . So let's wait and see. Let the recovery bill do its job, and then we'll see."

Administration officials have stressed that the $787 billion economic stimulus package is only about half spent, and they are counting on coming expenditures to boost the job market over the next year. With midterm elections looming in just over a year, Obama is coming under pressure from congressional Democrats to do more to create jobs. While the pace of job losses has slowed considerably since Obama took office, unemployment has crept up to a 26-year high, and about half those out of work have been jobless for six months or more.

Labor Department statistics show that there are about six unemployed people for every available job. Many Democrats are concerned that voters will punish them at the polls for the continued problems in the job market. Last week, Obama approved $250 payments to Social Security recipients who otherwise would have seen their payments remain flat. His administration also is backing legislation pending in Congress to extend unemployment benefits. Obama's economic advisers also are weighing a range of other measures that would save or create jobs or help those out of work, including another round of aid to fiscally strapped states, tax credits for small businesses that hire new workers and extension of federal help for jobless workers who buy health insurance. "Everything is on the table," Jarrett said.

Therefore it is clear that the White House is not happy with Wall Street executives getting lucrative bonuses as Main Street continues to suffer in the form of the jobless rate being increasing and the fact Social Security payments will be set at $250 makes things even gloomier for some. So the need for financial regulations and reforms to our financial institutions can’t wait, they must happen now but the reality is that in a capitalism system, lucrative bonuses are bound to happen when rules are created and then bended to benefit Wall Street but hurt Main Street. Hopefully Goldman Sachs is the last to give such bonuses but let’s hold our breath and see what happens.

States Feeling Fiscal Pinch Despite Stimulus

Despite the nearly $40 billion infused into state coffers to help steady state education budgets under the federal economic-stimulus package, some states remain in dismal fiscal straits, forcing further cuts to K-12 programs. States such as Pennsylvania that recently wrapped up protracted legislative sessions were forced to make sometimes-painful adjustments to cope with declining revenues, despite the unprecedented aid under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the stimulus law. Lawmakers in other states, including New Mexico, are heading back for special sessions to consider further reductions to their budgets for the current fiscal year.

And many states are looking ahead to a time in the federal 2011 fiscal year when money from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, a key part of the stimulus program, will no longer be available. That funding, which was intended primarily to backfill cuts that states had already made to education programs, is spread out over two years. In some cases, states have diverted resources from K-12 programs and replaced their own dollars with stabilization funding from the federal government. ("States Stung by Criticism on Use of Stimulus Aid," October 12, 2009.) “K-12 education has come under pressure that it has not seen in decades,” said Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures, based in Denver. “The only bright note is the money provided under the ARRA.”

That cloudy fiscal forecast appears unlikely to brighten any time soon. A report released Oct. 15 by the Nelson A. Rockeller Institute of Government, the public-policy-research arm of the State University of New York, shows that state revenues are faltering and are likely to remain shaky for the next several years. The study found that those revenues nationwide dropped a record $63 billion in the fiscal year ending June 2009, or roughly twice the amount of money states have gained from the stimulus program so far. That may help explain why, even with the extra cash, some states still have reduced or eliminated education programs.

For instance, this week Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, was expected to sign the state’s K-12 budget for this fiscal year by Oct. 20, in time for payments to school districts to be doled out. The budget came after lawmakers had passed a continuing resolution to keep programs afloat while the legislature hashed out its spending bills. The budget includes a cut of $165 per pupil in grants to school districts for K-12 students.

In Michigan, the governor has line-item veto power, and it is still unclear whether Gov. Granholm planned to use it on any portion of the education spending bill. Although state lawmakers sought to give districts flexibility in determining how to find the savings, school officials are struggling to figure out what to trim next, said Brad Biladeau, the associate executive for government relations at the Michigan Association of School Administrators. “We’ve been cutting administrative expenses and support services to school districts,” he said. “Now school districts are faced with significant cuts that could impact the classroom."

Pennsylvania wrapped up an exhausting legislative session when Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a Democrat, signed the final budget Oct. 9. The measure, which came in more than 100 days behind schedule, offered a mixed picture for K-12 education, said Ronald Cowell, the president of the Education Policy and Leadership Center, a nonprofit organization in Harrisburg, Pa. “The good news is that there is a $300 million increase,” to $5.5 billion, for basic education funding, which provides the largest amount of aid for school districts, Mr. Cowell said. That amount represents a 5.7 percent increase over last year.

The move was in keeping with a plan, enacted in 2007, to overhaul Pennsylvania’s school finance system. But it will be tough to keep up that level of funding once the state-stabilization dollars provided under the recovery act are gone, Mr. Cowell said. And other programs that school districts depend on saw substantial reductions, he said. For instance, a $44.7 million program called Classrooms for the Future, which provides technology to schools, was eliminated. A high school reform program was reduced to $3.7 million, from $10.7 million. “There’s a story to be told about each one of these program cuts,” Mr. Cowell said.

This week, New Mexico is slated to hold a special session to address its budget issues. Lawmakers will work to resolve a deficit of at least $400 million in a budget of $5.5 billion. Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, has suggested a 3 percent across-the-board reduction in government programs, except for K-12 education. But some New Mexico legislative leaders say cuts to schools might be unavoidable. K-12 education is receiving $2.4 billion this fiscal year. “To sit there and say we’re not going to have any cuts in education—60 percent of the budget—is that a realistic proposal or is that just political rhetoric?” said Sen. Tim Jennings, a Democrat. “There ought to be meaningful solutions.”

But districts are going to have a tough time weathering further cuts, said Tom Sullivan, the executive director of the New Mexico Coalition of School Administrators. “We have some superintendents who may be hanging by a thread who see this as the straw that’s going to break the camel’s back,” Mr. Sullivan said. And he sees further trouble ahead, particularly if the state doesn’t find a new revenue source for education. Lawmakers in New Mexico used about $165 million in stimulus money to help balance school districts’ books in the current fiscal year, he said, but revenue forecasts have been even cloudier than expected.

That might force the state to tap the remaining $90 million in stimulus funding that so far hasn’t been allocated—leaving much less of a federal cushion to help finance schools in the next fiscal year. “If that money is held back and used in building [next year’s] budget, then ... we’re not falling off the cliff yet,” Mr. Sullivan said. But, he added, “I’m not sure if they can make it through [this fiscal year] without using some or all of the $90 million sooner than they had hoped.”

Other states are bracing for tough choices in the coming legislative sessions. Florida has been hit particularly hard with the national downturn in the housing market, and that’s likely to lead to a structural deficit in the years ahead, said Wayne Blanton, the executive director of the Florida School Boards Association. “We’re sort of at a crossroads,” Mr. Blanton said. He said state-financed programs, including K-12 education, have always benefited from the revenue bump created by an influx of new residents.

But Florida recently lost nearly 60,000 people, the first population drain in decades. “We’re going to take a 15 to 20 percent cut in state services” in the coming years, Mr. Blanton said, if there isn’t a major change in the state’s tax structure. Right now, K-12 education in Florida is facing a $1 billion budget deficit, but Mr. Blanton said that amount would be closer to $2 billion without the federal help. The total budget for K-12, not including capital costs, was $15.9 billion. He’s hoping that in the next legislative session, state lawmakers will start thinking about how to finance education after the stimulus money is no longer available.

Therefore the fact that many states are feeling the pinch despite of the stimulus package makes one wonder how bad the quote unquote “Great Recession” really is. So as for now states are continuing to suffer and are forced to make some of the most difficult decisions they have ever had to make in their nation’s history. One thing is for sure, many states will have to be more fiscally organized than ever before and as a result of that, it could lead to many state programs being cut severely in order to stabilize the budgets of several states.

Grocery Prices are Set to Rise

If there's any silver lining to a recession -- albeit a thin one -- it's that consumer prices typically go down. Make no mistake, deflation is a sign of a sick economy, but at least the net effect of cheaper prices for the basic necessities -- food, clothing and shelter -- helps folks get by when they are struggling to make ends meet. But consumers should brace themselves for things to change, especially at the supermarket. As the global and U.S. economies emerge from the downturn, economists predict that there is going to be some sticker shock at the checkout line. Food prices, they say, are heading higher and when you combine that with an unemployment rate that's expected to linger near a three-decade high for at least another year, it's even more unwelcome news.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects overall food prices to rise as much as 4 percent in the U.S. by the end of 2010. Yet, some economists think they could climb by as much as 5 percent. Even using the government's more conservative numbers, the price for eggs is forecast to rise 3 percent and beef is seen increasing 2 percent. Lamb, seafood and fish? All three categories are expected to jump as much as 5 percent.

A 5 percent boost in your grocery bill may not seem terribly devastating, but consider this: If you spend $300 a week on groceries now, you'll need to squeeze a raise of about a thousand dollars a year out of your boss (don't forget withholding tax) just to keep up with higher chicken, beef, pork and dairy prices. Good luck accomplishing that little feat with a 9.8 percent unemployment rate and companies looking into every nook and cranny in order to cut costs.

No doubt it's frustrating to think that food prices will resume their long upward trend, but that's the reality of supply and demand in the global marketplace, economists say. After all, before the world economy fell off a cliff last year, food prices were soaring out of control thanks, in part, to growing demand from emerging markets like China and India and rising oil prices. From January 2007 to June 2008, global food prices rose 60 percent hitting an all-time high, according to the United Nations.

Since that peak was hit, global food prices have retreated some 15%, meaning consumers are still paying about 45 percent more for food now than they were just two years ago. Bill Lapp, former chief economist at food giant ConAgra (CAG) and now president of Advanced Economic Solutions, a consulting firm in Omaha, Neb. that specializes in analysis of food costs, says at the peak of the global food crisis, food prices in the U.S. grew 6 percent. In 2010, he thinks they could jump 5 percent. Yikes. "The challenge for next year will be the fact that pork, beef, chicken and dairy producers are all losing significant amounts of money," Lapp says. "As they reduce supplies, that will cause prices to rise. In 2008, cereal grains led food costs higher. In 2010, it will be meat and dairy." Apart from the fact that food producers will need to raise prices in order to stay in business -- and appease shareholders -- there are global macroeconomic factors at play, too, says Michael Roberts, an economist at North Carolina State University. "Commodity costs [such as corn, soybeans and wheat] are coming up because traders are speculating that the recovery is coming," he says.

While it may not feel like it here at home, the giant economies of China and India -- not to mention other emerging markets in Asia and elsewhere -- are already starting to heat up. That increased demand will cause prices to rise -- in fact, you can already see it happening in the commodity markets, he says. (The classic Eddie Murphy film "Trading Places" illustrated this well: Yes, there really are people who profit from buying and selling pork bellies and concentrated frozen orange juice.) Meanwhile, the weak U.S. dollar means we will be exporting more of our homegrown food overseas, causing prices to rise at home.

Finally, let's not forget the impact of ethanol and other alternative fuels on food prices. The U.S. will enjoy record corn production in 2009, Lapp says, but more than a third of that will be diverted to ethanol production. And, unless Congress changes the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the amount of corn going into our gas tanks will rise another 25 percent over the next five years. Cattle, chicken and hogs are fed corn and soybeans, meaning the folks who raise these animals will need to raise prices to pay their own higher feedstock bills.

Corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel also has the effect of making these foodstuffs trade like energy. As crude and heating oil prices rise, so too do the prices of corn and soy in the marketplace -- as well as the cost to produce and ship the food. Corn prices have come down substantially during the recession, but as Lapp points out, they are still 50 percent above historical norms. The end result? Consumers should keep an eye on oil prices, which not only impact what they pay at the pump but also what they pay at the checkout counter.

Therefore it is clear that consumers should be very concerned about the price of many goods going up and this could be truly a direct effect of hyper-inflation which I have previously spoken about in other articles regarding the economy and spending. So it seems as if my predictions may very well become a reality and this is not something I wanted but people needed to be aware of what was coming. So with our own American government agencies confirming what I knew was coming, now it is time for us the American people to realize that while the global recession might be over, the money that was supposed to be spent to create a recover has not been spent properly and has created the hyperinflation or soon to be super hyperinflation that is soon to come to us as Americans.

A very sad day that grocery prices are set to rise as we as Americans on main street are continuing to suffer and even find food for ourselves to the rise of goods is not a good thing for most Americans who are one paycheck away from being in poverty. Truly sad news no way about it.

Calls for a Jobs Stimulus

Some economists and even politicians have been speaking about a jobs stimulus every since the initial $787 billion stimulus was passed in February. However these calls for a jobs stimulus became even stronger after last week’s report showed that the unemployment rate in this nation went up to 9.8% after being 9.7% the month before. Nonetheless, the good news is that the new jobless claims fall to 521K, the lowest since January according to the Labor Department. The number of newly laid-off workers filing first-time claims for jobless benefits fell to the lowest level since early January, as layoffs ease a bit amid a fledgling economic recovery.

This is the fourth drop in new claims in five weeks and is a sign the labor market is slowly healing so the economic recovery is just around the corner and the recession is over according. But employers are still reluctant to hire new workers and the unemployment rate is expected to keep climbing well into next year because usually jobs are the last thing to follow after an economic recession. The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims for unemployment insurance dropped last week to a seasonally adjusted 521,000, from the previous week's upwardly revised total of 554,000. That's better than the 540,000 that Wall Street economists expected, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

The four-week average, which smooths fluctuations, fell to 539,750, the lowest since Jan. 17. Economists closely watch initial claims, which are considered a gauge of layoffs and an indication of companies' willingness to hire new workers. Thursday's total is the second lowest this year. Claims have been slowly declining since the spring, but remain well above the 325,000 that economists say is consistent with a healthy economy.

The number of people continuing to claim benefits declined by 72,000 to 6.04 million. Analysts expected continuing claims to rise slightly. When federal emergency programs are included, the total number of jobless benefit recipients dropped by about 90,000 to 8.9 million in the week that ended Sept. 19, the latest data available. Congress has added up to 53 extra weeks of benefits on top of the 26 typically provided by the states, and is considering adding another 13 weeks.

Many analysts expect the economy grew as much as 3 percent in the July-September quarter, but most employers are expected to hold back on new hires while they wait to see if such growth can be maintained. The unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in September from 9.7 percent, the department said last week, as employers cut 263,000 jobs. The recession, the worst since the 1930s, has eliminated a net total of 7.2 million jobs.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that even if the economy maintained a 3 percent growth rate for several quarters, unemployment would still be above 9 percent by the end of 2010. More job cuts were announced this week. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., which makes industrial and scientific equipment, said it will close a plant in Dubuque, Iowa, next year, costing 350 jobs.

Among the states, California had the largest increase in claims, with 4,467, which it attributed to layoffs in the construction and service industries. Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee had the next largest increases. State data lag the initial claims figures by one week. New York had the largest drop in claims, with 2,253, which it attributed to fewer layoffs in construction and services. North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Florida had the next largest declines.

However from the moment it secures a health-care bill -- yes, it will get one -- right through the 2010 midterm elections, the Obama administration will be all about jobs, jobs, jobs. While official Washington and much of the media focus on the great health-care struggle, the administration's economic advisers have been busy reviewing proposals to create jobs, aware that pressure on them will grow to deal with high unemployment that threatens to persist through Election Day next year. President Obama's aides insist that they knew all along that the original stimulus, as one of them put it, would "never fill the full gap from the recession." Whether or not they anticipated this, they're planning to act, even though -- for political reasons -- what comes next will not be called "a second stimulus."

These developments are far more important than what already feels like a stale debate over the president's policies up to now. It involves those who say that the stimulus worked and those who say it didn't. In fact, the stimulus has certainly "worked" as far as it went. Just about every respectable economist believes that without it, the economy would be in worse condition than it is now, and heavy spending from the stimulus this year will prevent even more severe employment losses.

But this has been such a profound, job-destroying recession that even $787 billion wasn't sufficient. And changes made to secure some bipartisan support in the Senate last February rendered the stimulus less effective than it might have been. It should, for example, have included even more help for state and local governments, and there was no good reason to cut school construction money that the House had approved. Moreover, pretending, as Congress did, that an expensive fix in the alternative minimum tax was "stimulus" simply wiped away $70 billion that could have been used for programs or tax cuts more likely to put people to work.

The White House is in the position of defending the stimulus and urging that we do more. While the recovery act "has been a major contributor to stemming job loss and saving and creating jobs," said one administration official, "we've always known that additional measures for job creation were something the administration would support and plan for." It is a sign of the gravity of unemployment that even liberals who typically see business tax cuts as a highly inefficient way to reduce unemployment are supporting a tax credit for new jobs -- an idea that was knocked out of the original stimulus proposal.

Larry Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, does not believe that the tax credit is sufficient on its own, and he continues to favor public-works jobs, especially in areas of very high unemployment. Nonetheless, Mishel said he supports the tax credit because unemployment is so stubbornly high. "It's such a desperate situation," he said, "that we need to do things that move the dial."

The administration and the Democratic Congress are also likely to move quickly on traditional ways to pump money into the economy by helping Americans most hurt in the downturn. These include extending unemployment insurance, expanding food-stamp coverage and offering more help so the unemployed won't lose health insurance. All have a high economic return since the recipients, because of need, spend the money quickly.

With so many states being forced to cut their budgets and raise taxes -- the exact opposite of a stimulus -- more direct assistance to states is also likely to be part of a new jobs package. Like the job-creation tax credit, helping states might find some Republican support. Moreover, 19 of the 37 governorships at stake in 2010 are now held by Democrats, and many of those statehouses are vulnerable to Republican takeover. By easing the states' fiscal situations, an infusion of new federal money could also bolster the political standing of the party in power.

At least some economists, according to administration allies, are also suggesting ways of extending easy credit to American manufacturers and boosting government purchases of American-made products. A more aggressive approach to jobs is inevitable because high unemployment over a long period not only is a social and economic calamity but also stands as the biggest obstacle Democrats face in the 2010 voting. Rarely have an administration's economic and political imperatives been so closely aligned.

Therefore it is clear that the calls for a jobs stimulus will get louder once some type of good healthcare reform is passed. So let’s hope that this go round, more jobs are actually created with the next stimulus recovery plan and many Americans are put back to work permanently. This is easier said than done but the Obama administration and the Democratic Party could face a tough challenge in the 2010 mid-term election if some signs of improvement aren’t seen in terms of putting Americans back to work.

Jobless Claims rise as spending jumps

Jobless claims continue to rise while spending jumps according to sources. First-time claims for jobless benefits increased more than expected last week, a sign employers are reluctant to hire and the job market remains weak. And while consumer spending jumped by the most in nearly eight years in August due partly to the government's Cash for Clunkers program, economists worry whether that rebound can be sustained with U.S. households facing rising unemployment, tight credit conditions and other obstacles. The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to a seasonally adjusted 551,000 from 534,000 in the previous week. Wall Street economists expected an increase of 5,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

The increase comes after three weeks of declines. Weekly claims have been trending down since the spring, but the decline has been painfully slow. The four-week average, which smooths out fluctuations, dropped to 548,000, about 110,000 below its peak in early April. Economists closely watch initial claims, which are considered a gauge of layoffs and an indication of companies' willingness to hire new workers. Many economists say initial claims below 400,000 would be a signal that employers are adding to the net total of jobs.

The number of people remaining on the rolls, meanwhile, fell 70,000 to 6.09 million, the lowest level since the week of April 4. But when federal emergency programs are included, the total number of jobless benefit recipients was nearly 9 million in the week that ended Sept. 12. That's little changed from the previous week. Congress has added up to 53 extra weeks of benefits on top of the 26 typically provided by the states. Congress is considering adding another 13 weeks of benefits.

The large number of people remaining on the rolls indicates that unemployed workers are having a hard time finding new jobs. Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity, jumped in August by the largest amount in nearly eight years even though personal incomes continued to lag. The Commerce Department said Thursday that consumer spending rose 1.3 percent in August, even better than the 1.1 percent gain that had been expected. But incomes edged up 0.2 percent, the same as in July.

The surge in consumer spending is a strong signal that the economy was returning to growth this summer. But any rebound from the recession could falter if income growth does not improve, economists said. The claims data come a day before the September unemployment report due Friday. Economists forecast that report will show the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent in August. Most economists expect the rate to top 10 percent by early next year.

Employers are expected to have cut 180,000 jobs in September, down from 216,000 in August. The recession, which began in December 2007 and is the worst since the 1930s, has eliminated a net total of 6.9 million jobs. Most analysts expect the economy grew by about 3 percent in the July-September quarter, technically ending the recession. But Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last month that growth isn't expected to be strong enough to reduce the jobless rate for some time.

More job cuts were announced this week. Telecom services provider Windstream Corp., based in Little Rock, Ark., said it will eliminate 350 jobs by the end of the year. Among the states, California had the largest increase in claims, with 5,112, which it attributed to layoffs in the construction, transportation and agriculture industries. Texas, Florida, Iowa and Illinois had the next largest increases. State data lag the initial claims figures by one week. Kansas had the largest drop in claims, with 1,545. Wisconsin, Oregon, Ohio and New York had the next largest declines.

Nonetheless stocks opened to the downside after the best quarter in years as an increase in new jobless claims overshadowed upticks in spending and income. The Department of Labor said there were 551,000 new jobless claims last week, up from an upwardly revised 534,000 the week prior and topping expectations for 535,000. On a more promising note, continuing claims fell to 6.09 million from 6.16 million, undercutting expectations for an increase to 6.17 million.

At the same time, the Department of Commerce said personal income increased 0.2% in August, in line with the prior month's increase, and spending ticked up 1.3%, respectively, vs. 0.3% in July. Both readings were slightly better than expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 67 points, at 9647, while the S&P 500 slid 9 points to 1048. The Nasdaq Composite edged down 20 points, to 2102.

Those moves also came as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before the House Financial Services Committee on regulatory reform. Later in the morning, Wall Street will have construction spending, manufacturing and pending home sales data to chew on. Among stocks to watch, Bank of America shares were rising about 1% after news that CEO Ken Lewis with retire by the end of the year and will leave his position as a director on the company's board. The company said its board would "continue ongoing planning" in order to name a successor by the time Lewis steps down on Dec. 31.

Still the jobless rate reached 9.8 percent in September. The unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in September, the highest since June 1983, as employers cut far more jobs than expected. The report is evidence that the worst recession since the 1930s is still inflicting widespread pain. Persistently high unemployment could weaken the recovery as consumers, concerned about their jobs and incomes, restrain spending. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the nation's economy.

The Labor Department said Friday that the economy lost a net total of 263,000 jobs last month, from a downwardly revised 201,000 in August. That's worse than Wall Street economists' expectations of 180,000 job losses, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters. The unemployment rate rose from 9.7 percent in August, matching expectations. If laid-off workers who have settled for part-time work or have given up looking for new jobs are included, the unemployment rate rose to 17 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994.

More than a half-million unemployed people gave up looking for work last month. Had they continued searching, the official jobless rate would have been higher. All told, 15.1 million Americans are now out of work, the department said. And more than 7.2 million jobs have been eliminated since the recession began in December 2007.

Many analysts expect the economy grew at a healthy clip in the July-September quarter, technically ending the recession, but few think the recovery will be strong enough to lower the jobless rate. Most economists expect the rate to top 10 percent and keep climbing. The economy has received a boost from the Cash for Clunkers auto rebate program and other government stimulus efforts, but many economists believe that growth will slow in the current quarter and early next year as the impact of those programs fade.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday that even if the economy were to grow at a 3 percent pace in the coming quarters, it would not be enough to quickly drive down the unemployment rate. Bernanke said the rate is likely to remain above 9 percent through the end of 2010. Hourly earnings rose by a penny last month, while weekly wages fell $1.54 to $616.11, according to the government data.

The average hourly work week fell back to a record low of 33 in September. That figure is important because economists are looking for companies to add more hours for current workers before they hire new ones. The uncertainty that surrounds the recovery has made employers reluctant to hire. The Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs from large corporations, said earlier this week that only 13 percent of its members expect to increase hiring over the next six months.

While job losses have slowed since the first quarter of this year when they averaged 691,000 a month, the cuts actually worsened last month in many sectors compared with August. Construction jobs fell by 64,000, more than the 60,000 eliminated in August. And service sector companies cut 147,000 jobs, more than double the 69,000 in the previous month. Retailers lost 38,500 jobs, compared to less than 9,000 in August. Temporary help agencies eliminated 1,700 jobs, down from the previous month, but still a sign of labor market weakness. Economists see temporary jobs as a leading indicator, as employers are likely to hire temp workers before permanent ones.

Therefore the raise in jobless claims should come as no surprise as we had into the last quarter which will tell us as Americans a lot about what is ahead for 2010.

The Recession hurt America’s wealthiest, too

Forbes has released its annual 400 richest Americans list and it is clear that the economic recession has had its affect on all Americans. Almost all of America's wealthiest citizens are poorer this year. America's super rich are getting poorer. For only the fifth time since 1982, the collective net worth of The Forbes 400 — our annual tally of the nation's richest people — has declined, falling $300 billion in the past 12 months from $1.57 trillion to $1.27 trillion.

Faltering capital markets and real estate prices, along with divorce and fraud, pushed the fortunes of 314 members down and drove 32 plutocrats off the rankings. Hurt the most: Warren Buffett, America's second-richest citizen. The Oracle of Omaha dropped $10 billion from his personal balance sheet as shares of Berkshire Hathaway fell 20% in 12 months. He is now worth $40 billion.

Beating out Buffett for the 16th straight year as America's richest man is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Sluggish Microsoft shares and declining outside investments pushed the software visionary's net worth down $7 billion in 12 months. Rounding out the top 10 on The Forbes 400: Oracle founder Larry Ellison ($27 billion); Wal-Mart heirs Christy Walton ($21.5 billion), Jim C. Walton ($19.6 billion), Alice Walton ($19.3 billion), and S. Robson Walton ($19 billion); media maven Michael Bloomberg ($17.5 billion) and energy titans Charles and David Koch ($16 billion each).

The 10 richest Americans lost a combined $39.2 billion in the past 12 months, a 14% decline. Other big losers include casino mogul Kirk Kerkorian, whose nest egg shed $8.2 billion in the past year. Shares of his gambling giant MGM Mirage have fallen 90% from their October 2007 high.

Also hitting the brakes: Enterprise Rent-A-Car founder Jack C. Taylor. The rental car titan's fortune is down $7 billion in a year as the travel industry slows and private-company valuations fall. The biggest gainer is banker Andrew Beal, who tripled his net worth to $4.5 billion buying up cheap loans and assets as the markets crumbled last fall.

Membership on the list was made easier as the price of admission dropped $350 million, from $1.3 billion last year to $950 million this year, paving the way for 19 new members and 19 returnees. Newcomers to the list include Marvel Entertainment chief Isaac Perlmutter, whose net worth soared to $1.55 billion after Disney agreed to buy the superhero outfit in August for $4 billion in cash and stock.

Other new members include Bloomberg LP co-founder Charles Zegar ($1 billion), mapping-software magnate Jack Dangermond ($2 billion) and trading titan Steven Schonfeld ($1 billion). Former New York lawyer and accountant Jeffry Picower makes his debut on The Forbes 400 with a net worth of $1 billion. A longtime investor with Bernard Madoff, he is likely worth billions more (Picower is alleged to have extracted billions of dollars from Madoff's fund before it collapsed).

Picower and his foundation are named in a lawsuit by the liquidator for Madoff's investment business, who is seeking to recover funds allegedly obtained through "fraudulent activity." Picower claims if he knew Madoff was a fraud he would not have transferred money into Madoff accounts.

In December 2008, the Picower Foundation shut down after losing its $1 billion endowment in Madoff's Ponzi scheme. The charity had given millions to MIT, Human Rights First and the New York Public Library. Picower made his first fortune selling medical device maker Alaris in 2004.

Among those returning is venture capitalist Michael Moritz, who rode Amazon's purchase of online shoe retailer Zappos and surging Google stock back onto the list. Divorce forced Google exec Omid Kordestani from the rankings, while R. Allen Stanford lost his billionaire status when the feds froze his assets after charging him with allegedly running an $8 billion Ponzi scheme.

Several Forbes 400 mainstays also fell off the list, including former Citigroup czar Sanford Weill, mall developer Matthew Bucksbaum and condo kingpin Jorge Perez. Six members died, including glass giant William Davidson and newspaper maven Frank Batten Sr.

The Forbes 400 is a snapshot of wealth on Sept. 10, 2009. Gap co-founder Donald Fisher, who ranks No. 296 on our list, died Sept. 27 at his home in San Francisco at age 81. Still the rich are not in as a bad of a shape as most Americans are but they have lost some of their wealth but not enough to come down to main street.

The Top 21 Richest Americans:
1. William H. Gates III
Net Worth: $50 billion
Source: Microsoft
Residence: Medina, Wash.
Age: 53

· --Despite losing $7 billion in 12 months, software man retains his title as America’s richest person for the 16th straight year.
· --Microsoft shares down 8% in past year but up 65% from March lows. He sells stock every quarter, redeploys proceeds via personal investment outfit Cascade.
· --More than 60% of fortune held outside Microsoft; investments include Four Seasons hotels, Televisa, AutoNation.
· --Stepped down from day-to-day duties at Microsoft last summer to focus on philanthropy.
· --Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation dedicated to fighting hunger, improving education in America’s high schools, developing vaccines against malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. Endowment: $30 billion.
· --Penned first report on foundation’s projects in January. Touted progress made on preventing fatal childhood diseases; confessed frustration at challenge of creating an affordable, effective AIDS vaccine.
· --Ramping up personal contributions: donating $3.8 billion this year, $500 million more than in 2008.

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2. Warren Buffett
Net Worth: $40 billion
Source: Berkshire Hathaway
Residence: Omaha
Age: 79

· --America’s favorite investor lost $10 billion in past 12 months on his Berkshire Hathaway shares.
· --Provided calming guidance to panic-stricken investors during financial crisis last fall; avowed enduring faith in U.S. economy, advised bargain hunting: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”
· --Shrewdly invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs and $3 billion in General Electric last fall.
· --Suffered a $1.5 billion loss in first-quarter 2009; Berkshire notched $3.3 billion profit in second quarter thanks in part to bet on Goldman.
· --Son of Nebraska politician filed first tax return at age 13, claiming $35 deduction for bicycle bought for paper route.
· --Met value investor Benjamin Graham while studying economics at Columbia.
· --Took over textile firm Berkshire Hathaway 1965, used as vehicle to invest in insurance (Geico), food (Dairy Queen), utilities (MidAmerican Energy) and recently green tech (electric-car maker BYD).
· --Believed to be grooming NetJets Chief David Sokol to eventually take over Berkshire.
· --Appearing in cartoon form on upcoming online-tutor series The Secret Millionaires Club.

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3. Lawrence Ellison
Net Worth: $27 billion
Source: Oracle
Residence: Redwood City, Calif.
Age: 65

· --Oracle founder continues his spending spree: Sun Microsystems in April for $7.4 billion; deal awaiting EU approval.
· --Database giant has bought 54 companies in the past 5 years.
· --Bought BEA Systems for $8.5 billion last year; still sitting on billions in cash.
· --Stock flat in past 12 months. Sales: $23 billion. More at Forbes.com:
· --Studied physics at U. of Chicago; didn’t graduate.
· --Started Oracle 1977; took public a day before Microsoft in 1986.
· --Owns 52% stake in business software company NetSuite; shares worth $440 million.
· --Racing junkie owns 453-foot yacht Rising Sun with pal David Geffen.
· --Recently concluded court battle with Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli over terms of next America’s Cup. Race will be next February. Planned location: Ras al-Khaimah in the UAE.

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4. Christy Walton & Family
Net Worth: $21.5 billion
Source: Wal-Mart
Residence: Jackson, Wyo
Age: 54

· --Cash-strapped shoppers holding up retail's royal family. Wal-Mart's low prices have lured repeat, new customers; shares down 10% since last August while S&P 500 has dropped 20%.
· --Still, family fortune down a combined $13.7 billion in 12 months.
· --Sam Walton started as J.C. Penney clerk. Opened Benjamin Franklin five-and-dime in 1945; lost lease 5 years later. Founded Bentonville, Ark. general store with brother James 1962.
· --Today Wal-Mart has $401 billion in annual sales, 2 million employees, 4,200 stores.
· --Christy is the richest of the Waltons thanks to late husband's early bet on First Solar; alternative energy stock up 510% since 2006 public offering.

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5. Jim C. Walton
Net Worth: $19.6 billion
Source: Wal-Mart
Residence: Bentonville, Ark.
Age: 61

· --Cash-strapped shoppers holding up retail's royal family. Wal-Mart's low prices have lured repeat, new customers; shares down 10% since last August while S&P 500 has dropped 20%.
· --Still, family fortune down a combined $13.7 billion in 12 months.
· --Sam Walton started as J.C. Penney clerk. Opened Benjamin Franklin five-and-dime in 1945; lost lease 5 years later. Founded Bentonville, Ark. general store with brother James 1962.
· --Today Wal-Mart has $401 billion in annual sales, 2 million employees, 4,200 stores.
· --Jim runs family's Arvest bank.

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6. Alice Walton.
Net Worth: $19.3 billion
Source: Wal-Mart
Residence: Fort Worth, Tex.
Age: 60

· --Cash-strapped shoppers holding up retail's royal family. Wal-Mart's low prices have lured repeat, new customers; shares down 10% since last August while S&P 500 has dropped 20%. Still, family fortune down a combined $13.7 billion in 12 months.
· --Sam Walton started as J.C. Penney clerk. Opened Benjamin Franklin five-and-dime in 1945; lost lease 5 years later. Founded Bentonville, Ark. general store with brother James 1962.
· --Today Wal-Mart has $401 billion in annual sales, 2 million employees, 4,200 stores.
· --Alice funded $100 million airport in Bentonville 1990; building Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

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7. S. Robson Walton
Net Worth: $19 billion
Source: Wal-Mart
Residence: Bentonville, Ark.
Age: 65

· --Cash-strapped shoppers holding up retail's royal family. Wal-Mart's low prices have lured repeat, new customers; shares down 10% since last August while S&P 500 has dropped 20%.
· --Still, family fortune down a combined $13.7 billion in 12 months.
· --Sam Walton started as J.C. Penney clerk. Opened Benjamin Franklin five-and-dime in 1945; lost lease 5 years later. Founded Bentonville, Ark. general store with brother James 1962.
· --Today Wal-Mart has $401 billion in annual sales, 2 million employees, 4,200 stores.
· --S. Robson has been chairman of Wal-Mart since 1992.

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8. Michael Bloomberg
Net Worth: $17.5 billion
Source: Bloomberg LP
Residence: New York City
Age: 67

· --Mayor for life? Not quite, but media mogul is running for third term as New York City’s chief executive after federal appeals court affirmed city council’s ability to allow another term.
· --Spent $37 million on campaign as of July; dropped a combined $159 million on previous runs in 2001, 2005.
· --Led challenger William Thompson by 16 points in recent polls; approval rating at 66% in August.
· --Who would want the job? City’s sales tax revenues fell 10% between January and July, and 100,000 private-sector jobs have been cut since 2008. More at Forbes.com:
· --Recently won fight with Albany, retaining control of city schools.
· --Bostonian earned engineering degree from Johns Hopkins, then Harvard M.B.A.
· --Trader at Salomon Brothers 1970s, left in 1981 with $10 million in stock.
· --Started financial information services firm Innovative Market Systems to sell financial data, analytic tools to Wall Street. Renamed Bloomberg LP 1987; added news service, magazine, cable network, radio station.
· --Owns 85% stake in firm after borrowing to buy Merrill Lynch’s 20% stake last July for $4.5 billion.
· --Said to be hiring 1,000 new workers this year.
· --Donated $235 million to charity in 2008.

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9. Charles Koch (tie)
Net Worth: $16 billion
Source: Manufacturing, energy
Residence: Wichita, Kans.
Age: 73

· --With brother David lords over Koch Industries, maker of everything from petroleum to paper towels, fertilizer to fibers.
· --Sales topped $100 billion in 2008; second-largest privately held company by revenue in the U.S.
· --Father, Fred C. Koch, developed process of turning heavy oil into gasoline.
· --Sons Charles, David, Frederick and William inherited family business after father’s death.
· --Charles and David bought out William and Frederick for $1.1 billion in 1983, igniting family feud.
· --Today company has stakes in pipelines, refineries, fertilizer, fibers and polymers, chemical technology. Employs 70,000 workers in 60 countries.
· --Bought paper and consumer products vendor Georgia-Pacific for $21 billion in 2005. Brothers each own 42%.
· --Fortune down $3 billion in a year as energy and fertilizer prices plunged.
· --Charles: chief executive.
· --Studied chemical engineering at MIT; cofounder of conservative think tank Cato Institute.
· --Concerned about government's intervention in economy: "We could be facing the greatest loss of liberty and prosperity since the 1930s."

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9. David Koch (tie)
Net Worth: $16 billion
Source: Manufacturing, energy
Residence: New York City
Age: 69

· --With brother Charles lords over Koch Industries, maker of everything from petroleum to paper towels, fertilizer to fibers.
· --Sales topped $100 billion in 2008; second-largest privately held company by revenue in the U.S.
· --Father, Fred C. Koch, developed process of turning heavy oil into gasoline. Sons Charles, David, Frederick and William inherited family business after father's death.
· --Charles and David bought out William and Frederick for $1.1 billion in 1983, igniting family feud.
· --Today company has stakes in pipelines, refineries, fertilizer, fibers and polymers, chemical technology. Employs 70,000 workers in 60 countries.
· --Bought paper and consumer products vendor Georgia-Pacific for $21 billion in 2005. Brothers each own 42%.
· --Fortune down $3 billion in a year as energy and fertilizer prices plunged.
· --David is executive vice president, chemical engineering degrees from MIT; pledged $100 million to school for cancer research in 2007, $100 million to Lincoln Center in 2008.

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11. Sergey Brin (tie)
Net Worth: $15.3 billion
Source: Google
Residence: Palo Alto, Calif.
Age: 36

· --Tech darling relatively unscathed in past year; Google fortune down $600 million in 12 months.
· --Shares of search giant up 80% since November lows.
· --Announced debut of Chrome operating system in July; rival to Windows will be available to consumers late next year.
· --Emigrated from Russia, met future partner Larry Page at Stanford; duo dropped out of computer science Ph.D. program in 1998.
· --Started Google in friend's garage.
· --K. Ram Shriram, Andy von Bechtolsheim, professor David Cheriton provided initial financing; venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital soon injected another $25 million.
· --Public 2004. Sales: $21.8 billion.
· --Recently introduced goats to Google campus lawn; animals less harmful to the environment than lawn mower.

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11. Larry Page (tie)
Net Worth: $15.3 billion
Source: Google
Residence: San Francisco
Age: 36

· --Tech darling relatively unscathed in past year; Google fortune down $500 million in 12 months.
· --Shares of search giant up 80% since November lows.
· --Announced debut of Chrome operating system in July; rival to Windows will be available to consumers late next year.
· --Raised in Michigan, met future partner Sergey Brin at Stanford; duo dropped out of computer science Ph.D. program in 1998.
· --Started Google in friend's garage.
· --K. Ram Shriram, Andy von Bechtolsheim, professor David Cheriton provided initial financing; venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital soon injected another $25 million.
· --Public 2004. Sales: $21.8 billion.
· --Recently introduced goats to Google campus lawn; animals less harmful to the environment than lawn mower.

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13. Michael Dell
Net Worth: $14.5 billion
Source: Dell
Residence: Austin, Tex.
Age: 44

· --Leader of the world’s second-largest PC maker looking to claw way back to top; recently announced plans to buy IT services outfit Perot Systems for $3.9 billion.
· --Returned 2 years ago to helm of the computer maker after PC sales shrunk, competition increased and global market share slipped.
· --Cut 9,300 jobs last year; promises to save $4 billion a year by 2011.
· --Net profits down 23% in second quarter; results beat Street expectations, sending shares up 6%. Shares down 14% in past 12 months. More at Forbes.com:
· --Started company out of U. of Texas dorm; established business with direct-sales method, took public 1988.
· --Michael & Susan Dell Foundation funds education, childhood health.

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14. Steven Ballmer
Net Worth: $13.3 billion
Source: Microsoft
Residence: Seattle, Wash.
Age: 53

· --A year after failing to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion, Microsoft chief finally has a deal with the search engine outfit. Companies agreed in July to band together to take on Google; Microsoft will pay for search technology, Yahoo will use Bing as its default engine.
· --Investors, techies mixed on how agreement actually fights Google. Ballmer: “People haven’t figured it out.”
· --Microsoft shares down 5.4% in past year.
· --Detroit native dropped out of Stanford M.B.A. program to join Harvard classmate Bill Gates 1980 as employee number 30. Became chief exec 2000.
· --Famous for impassioned stage antics: pretended to stomp on an iPhone at recent company event after an employee snapped a picture with Apple’s offending device.

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15. George Soros
Net Worth: $13 billion
Source: Hedge funds
Residence: Westchester, N.Y.
Age: 79

· --America’s wealthiest hedge fund manager stepping up philanthropy: in August pledged $35 million to help New York State buy school supplies for 850,000 underprivileged children.
· --Also donating $100 million to recession-torn countries in central Europe.
· --Has given away $7 billion since 1979, much through his Open Society Institute.
· --Survived Nazi occupation of Hungary; procured scholarship at London School of Economics.
· --Launched Quantum Fund 1969. With Stanley Druckenmiller shorted England’s currency, “broke” British pound 1992; said to have made $1 billion in one day when Bank of England stopped fixing exchange rate. Closed fund to new investors several years later.
· --Today manages nest egg via Quantum Endowment Fund. Assets: $24 billion.
· --Came out of retirement in 2007, returned 32% on bearish bets. Fund was up 8% last year, 18% so far this year.

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16. Donald Bren
Net Worth: $12 billion
Source: Real estate
Residence: Newport Beach, Calif.
Age: 77

· --Orange County real estate tycoon’s fortune flat despite meltdown thanks to new information previously unavailable.
· --Attended U. of Washington on skiing scholarship; dropped Olympics bid after injury 1956.
· --Joined Marines, then built first house on $10,000 loan 1958.
· --Planned and developed 10,000-acre Rancho Mission Viejo in California, sold to Philip Morris 1967.
· --With partners, bought 145-year-old real estate master planner and developer Irvine Co. for $337 million 1977. Became firm’s principal owner 1996.
· --Developed central Orange County, Irvine and half of Newport Beach.
· --Today owns 475 office buildings, 115 apartment communities, 41 retail centers, resort properties, new housing communities in Orange County, San Diego, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley.
· --Has permanently protected more than half of 93,000-acre Irvine Ranch, creating public parks and trails.

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17. Paul Allen (tie)
Net Worth: $11.5 billion
Source: Vulcan
Residence: Mercer Island, Wash.
Age: 56

· --Microsoft cofounder’s Charter Communications filed for bankruptcy in March. Company and lenders currently battling in court over details of reorganization plan.
· --Washington State dropout founded software giant with buddy Bill Gates in 1975; left in 1983 after Hodgkin’s disease diagnosis.
· --Sold off much of his stake to lose huge sums on far-off visions through holding company, Vulcan.
· --Funding research to scan outer space for signs of intelligent alien life; Allen Institute for Brain Science creating genetic map of mouse brain.
· --Recently launched software outfit Xiant, whose product Filer helps users keep track of e-mails in Microsoft’s Outlook.
· --Owns football’s Seattle Seahawks and basketball’s Portland Trailblazers.

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17. Abigail Johnson (tie)
Net Worth: $11.5 billion
Source: Fidelity
Residence: Boston
Age: 47

· --With father, Edward C. Johnson III, controls Fidelity Investments, America’s largest mutual fund company.
· --Swelling money market assets offsetting declines in stock market funds; assets under management up 3% to $1.4 trillion since last fall.
· --Firm also runs large brokerage business, insurance outfit.
· --Abby ran her first diversified fund 1993. More at Forbes.com:
· --Ned trimmed ownership 1995, Abby inherited 24% stake; rumored to have sold some shares back to family members years later. Ownership a mystery: family owns 49% of Fidelity, but size of individual stakes unknown.
· --Abby runs personal and workplace investing division; believed by some to be father’s chosen successor. Less likely candidate: Rodger Lawson, Fidelity president, who recently dispelled persistent rumors he was leaving the firm.
· --Company has shed 7% of workforce this year.

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19. Forrest Edward Mars (tie)
Net Worth: $11 billion
Source: Mars
Residence: McLean, Va.
Age: 78

· --Cash-strapped consumers still have appetite for the Mars family's nearly recession-proof products: chocolate (Snickers, M&Ms), pet food (Pedigree).
· --Created world's largest confectionery company by acquiring gum maker Wrigley last year for $23 billion.
· --Combined sales now exceed $30 billion; much of the deal paid with debt.
· --Grandfather Frank Mars began making chocolates 1911 in his kitchen in Tacoma, Wash.
· --Father, Forrest Sr., invented M&Ms, then introduced malt-flavored nougat, the foundation of famous candy bar line that includes Milky Way, Snickers, 3 Musketeers.
· --Third generation inherited company when dad died in 1999.

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19. Jacqueline Mars (tie)
Net Worth: $11 billion
Source: Mars
Residence: Bedminster, N.J.
Age: 69

· --Cash-strapped consumers still have appetite for the Mars family's nearly recession-proof products: chocolate (Snickers, M&Ms), pet food (Pedigree).
· --Created world's largest confectionery company by acquiring gum maker Wrigley last year for $23 billion.
· --Combined sales now exceed $30 billion; much of the deal paid with debt.
· --Grandfather Frank Mars began making chocolates 1911 in his kitchen in Tacoma, Wash.
· --Father, Forrest Sr., invented M&Ms, then introduced malt-flavored nougat, the foundation of famous candy bar line that includes Milky Way, Snickers, 3 Musketeers.
· --Third generation inherited company when dad died in 1999.

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19. John Mars (tie)
Net Worth: $11 billion
Source: Mars
Residence: Arlington, Va.
Age: 73

· --Cash-strapped consumers still have appetite for the Mars family's nearly recession-proof products: chocolate (Snickers, M&Ms), pet food (Pedigree).
· --Created world's largest confectionery company by acquiring gum maker Wrigley last year for $23 billion.
· --Combined sales now exceed $30 billion; much of the deal paid with debt.
· --Grandfather Frank Mars began making chocolates 1911 in his kitchen in Tacoma, Wash.
· --Father, Forrest Sr., invented M&Ms, then introduced malt-flavored nougat, the foundation of famous candy bar line that includes Milky Way, Snickers, 3 Musketeers.
· --Third generation inherited company when dad died in 1999.

Click here to see the full list of The 400 Richest Americans