Gary Burtless argues that the job creation numbers the administration issued underestimate the true size of the impact:

When the stimulus package was enacted last winter, the Administration said its goal was to create or save 3-1/2 million jobs by the end of next year. How closely has the Administration come to achieving that goal? A couple of weeks ago the White House issued an interim report on jobs directly created or saved as a result of one part of the stimulus package, the grants or contracts directly made by the federal government or indirectly provided through federal aid to state and local governments. The report has been subject to minor carping and major criticism...

by Eric Ames

After insurance giant AIG (AIG) reported the biggest quarterly loss in history — $61.7 billion to be exact — the government is ready to give them another $30 billion to help maintain their operations. In addition, the government is restructuring past bailout deals to ease the burden on AIG. This new $30 billion will bring the total bailout tab to around $180 billion. That is, and should be, a difficult number to swallow. We will have invested $180 billion in ONE company. There are only two U.S. companies that even have market caps above $180 billion (Exxon (XOM) and Walmart (WMT)). AIG’s market cap is about $1.2 billion, in case you were wondering.

by Eric Ames

Companies in the U.S. laid off over 2 million jobs in 2008, but another expense cutting measure which is less often utilized also saw a major increase. A growing number of companies are choosing to cut pay rather than cutting jobs. Layoffs are typically preferred over pay cuts because among other things firms are afraid it might lead to an exodus of top workers. However, in this job market that isn’t a big worry. The last time there were nominal pay cuts was back in the Great Depression according to Price Fishback, an economic historian at the University of Arizona, as stated in the Wall Street Journal.

by Eric Ames

Yes, that headline is correct. U.S. household debt actually decreased in the third quarter of 2008—the first time it has happened since the measurement started being tracked in 1952, according to The Wall Street Journal. While I knew that Americans have a grand propensity to spend freely, I certainly did not know that we have increased our debt load every quarter of every year for over 50 years.

by Eric Ames

I was reading through some blog posts yesterday morning and came across one on housingdoom.com that just reaffirms my anti-bailout position. The blog post is simply a rental listing that was posted on Craigslist in Tampa, and while a rental listing in itself is nothing to rant about, you really need to read this particular one.

by Eric Ames

In the midst of worldwide reports of falling economies, Brazil’s economy has been remarkably strong. According to Bloomberg, Brazil’s GDP grew 6.8 percent in the third quarter of this year compared to last, up from 6.2 percent growth in the previous quarter year over year. Considering the state of the worldwide economy those numbers are staggering—so staggering that they beat the estimates of all 31 economists polled by Bloomberg. Compared to the constant underperforming of estimates in the U.S., this must be truly exciting for Brazil. On the downside, though, economists are predicting a slowdown for Brazil’s economy, and Morgan Stanley is even predicting a recession for Brazil, according to Bloomberg.

By Eric Ames

Real estate has been a tremendous wealth builder over the years, but now that we are seeing record price falls is it still the best path to wealth? 91 percent of homeowners surveyed by real-estate-services firm Realogy Corp. thought that owning a home was the best long-term investment they could make, according to the Wall Street Journal. Looking at those numbers, it seems as though people still think that real estate investment is a good road to wealth, but what about the experts?

by Eric Ames

The job report released by the Labor Department yesterday morning was dimmer than most people had projected. The expectation had been that we would see around 200,000 job cuts, according to the Associated Press (AP), so the actual number that came in--240,000--was a little surprising.

by Eric Ames

According to a study commissioned by the Center for Automotive Research, a failure in the U.S. auto industry could cut up to 2.5 million jobs and reduce personal income in the U.S. by $125 billion. Obviously if this were to happen, Detroit and the rest of the cities in the U.S. which depend on automakers would be devastated.

by Eric Ames

The calls for a homeowner bailout are becoming louder and louder. After all, why should we bailout Wall Street, but not Joe Homeowner, who was the victim in all this?

by Eric Ames

In an effort to stem the financial crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is encouraging Congress to pass another stimulus package when they meet next month. To date, President Bush has said he feels as if passing another stimulus bill would be premature, considering we haven’t given the current stimulus measures time to be fully integrated into the economy, but Democrats hope that Bernanke’s blessing will be enough to change his mind.

Analysts led by Francisco Blanch at Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. wrote in a research report that gold could reach $1,500 an ounce. They also predicted that oil would reach $150 a barrel.

In the research note released earlier this week, the analysts said “the unintended consequence of the ongoing financial bailout will be inflationary pressures to the commodity markets.”

Fresh off our $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, the National Association of Realtors [NAR] and the National Association of Home Builders [NAHB] are calling for another stimulus package, this time aimed at the housing industry, according to Inman News. One of NAR's suggestions is for the government to eliminate the need for homeowners to pay back the $7,500 first-time homebuyer loan that was part of one of the previous bailout packages; in addition, they would like to see the $7,500 offered to everyone, rather than just people who haven’t owned a home in the last three years.

"Housing has always lifted the economy out of downturns, and it is imperative to get the housing market moving forward as quickly as possible," NAR President Richard F. Gaylord said in a press statement, according to Inman News. Translation: We need to inflate the price of real estate so people start buying property again and our members don’t go broke.

Yesterday I talked a bit about how, through the bailout bill, the government was given the authority to invest the $700 billion in things outside of mortgage debt, the requirement being that the investment be critical to supporting the U.S. economy.

This has led to auto finance companies lobbying the government for aid. I also threw out that we could soon be looking at credit card companies such as American Express (AXP) following suit. I thought that I should expand a bit on this and explain that mortgages are by no means the only problem assets for banks right now, and even though the other debt out there hasn’t received the same type of publicity, the threats are serious.

While most of the press surrounding the bailout plan thus far has been specifically focused on mortgages, the government was given the ability to buy up debt other than mortgages. Now the struggling finance wings of the major car manufacturers are trying to get in on the party, and the party crashing is unlikely to stop there.

Basically what the bailout bill says is that the government has the ability to buy up whatever they need to in order to save the economy. Thus, all the car companies need to do in order to receive aid is to convince the government that auto loans are vital to the U.S. economy. After that, who is to say that credit card debt isn’t just as important?

Emerging markets will not be immune from the global credit crisis and countries like Brazil are expected to see considerable downturn in growth.

According to the latest assessment by the International Monetary Fund growth in Brazil, which has been a strong 5 to 6%, is now expected to be 3.5% in 2009.