The US economy is suffering its steepest downturn since at least the 1970s and could descend into a depression, Jeff Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, warned on Thursday.
“Unlike the other downturns that I’ve been a part of, this one is faced with limited liquidity,” Mr Immelt, GE’s CEO since 2001 told a conference. “Once you break through ’74-’75, you don’t stop ’til you get to 1929.”

When asked whether he would call the current slowdown a recession or a depression, Mr Immelt joked that he would need to refer to his college economics text book for a precise answer but said “it is one of those” two.
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Immelt should be fired by the GE Board. GE stock has sunk like a stone since he has been in charge.

He said businesses and consumers alike were struggling to contend with tumultuous markets and a financial-services industry under siege.

President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.

Did you know that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin promotes the brutal aerial killing of wolves?

You didn't?

Well, that's was actress Ashley Judd claims in a new ad for the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

Even worse, according to Judd, Palin is "casting aside science and championing the slaughter of wildlife"

According to this Republican release:

Just to give everyone a snapshot of the real debate that has occurred on the largest spending bill in history, as of 2pm today:

* 315 amendments have been filed
* 20 amendments have been considered
* 9 amendments have been adopted
* 11 amendments were rejected
* 14 are currently pending

This is a 736 page senate bill, rushed through committee with no hearings, and could pass after being on the floor for less than one week.

Based on where we are today, about 90% of the more than 300 amendments have not received consideration.

The husband of President Obama's Labor secretary nominee paid about $6,400 Wednesday to settle tax liens that had been outstanding for as long as 16 years against his business, the Obama administration told USA TODAY this afternoon.

The disclosure came shortly before a scheduled 2 p.m. meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will vote on Rep. Hilda Solis' nomination as labor secretary. The hearing was postponed; no reason was immediately revealed.
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Bye bye Hilda – another withdrawal in themaking.

Has he checked in with his office lately? Or are New Yorkers completely different from everyone else?

The recent debate over the nearly $900 billion economic stimulus plan and revelations of tax problems by three Obama administration appointees have voters angrily jamming phone lines on Capitol Hill to air their frustrations to their elected representatives.

Their reactions are putting pressure on Congress and benefiting watchdog groups on both sides of the political aisle.

Capitol operators tell CNN Radio that phone lines have been jammed for the past two weeks, sometimes prompting busy signals.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, said calls on the sweeping stimulus plan jumped from eight during all of January to hundreds a day now.

In a sampling of 12 Senate offices, half had so many messages that their voicemail boxes were full.

As a Senate committee plans an initial vote on Rep. Hilda Solis's confirmation as Labor Secretary today, Solis is promising to recuse herself from dealing with matters related to American Rights At Work, a labor pressure group on whose board she sat. ARW supports the Employee Free Choice Act, or "card check." But a White House official says that "[t]he Employee Free Choice Act is not a particular matter involving specific parties" — that is, ARW is not a direct party to the legislation — and so Solis won't recuse herself from EFCA-related duties.

During the campaign, some critics of Sarah Palin ridiculed her efforts to thin the wolf population by shooting them from helicopters, painting her as cruel and anti-nature. The Anchorage Daily News reports that the caribou population might dispute that. Thanks to the limitation of the predators, the survival rate of young caribou has dramatically increased:

Obama is stumbling in the stimulus debate — and public support is dropping — because for 30 years Republicans have lied about the role of government. Now he's got to tell the truth.

Contrary to conventional Beltway wisdom, the House Republicans' zero votes for the Obama presidency's stimulus "package" is looking like the luckiest thing to happen to the GOP's political fortunes since Ronald Reagan switched parties. If the GOP line holds, the party could win back much of the goodwill it dissipated with its big-government adventures the past eight years.

At this crucial juncture in the push to pass an economic recovery package, President Obama finds himself in the most unlikely of places: He is losing the message war.
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Running against an unpopular President Bush is one thing. Governing is a whole different ball game.

Despite Obama’s sky high personal approval ratings, polls show support has declined for his stimulus bill since Republicans and their conservative talk-radio allies began railing against what they labeled as pork barrel spending within it.

The sheer size of it – hovering at about $900 billion — has prompted more protests that are now causing some moderate and conservative Democrats to flinch and, worse, hesitate.

The anxiety over lost momentum seemed almost palpable this week as the president in television interviews voiced frustration with his White House’s progress and the way his recovery program was being demonized as a Democratic spending frenzy.

When conservatives give up their radio talk shows, it's called "quitting", "termination" or "cancellation". Faced with the same circumstances, however, their liberal counterparts are simply "rechanneling energy".