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WASHINGTON — When Republicans and Democrats in the nation's capital want to make a point about the economy, they often cite Mark Zandi. A middle-of-the-road economic forecaster who speaks in plain English, Zandi increasingly has become the economic oracle of record. The chief economist of Moody's Economy.com sat down Thursday with a small group of reporters and offered a sobering view of what he sees ahead for the U.S. and global economies. The short version: It could be a decade before the Dow reaches 12,000 points again, the economy will grow much more slowly than the Obama administration envisions and...

President Barack Obama now has the distinction of presiding over his own bear market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 20% since Inauguration Day, the fastest drop under a new president in at least 90 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gauge has lost 53% from its October 2007 record of 14,164.53, slipping 4.1% to 6,594.44 on Thursday. More than US$1.6-trillion has been erased from U.S. equities since Jan. 20 as mounting bank losses and rising unemployment convinced investors the recession is getting worse. The president is in danger of breaking a pattern in which the Dow rallied...

This is hilarious. A Chinese vendor is using an Obama portrait to sell buns! http://news.creaders.net/headline/newsViewer.php?nid=380922&id=879751&dcid=8

The world might be sinking into its worst recession in generations, but China is on a wild shopping spree. Sitting some $2 trillion of cash reserves, Beijing is taking advantage of the woes of others to cement its grip on new sources of commodities ranging from olive oil to crude oil —often at fire-sale prices. China's growth rate may be slowing in concert with the world economy, but even at that slower rate, its economy continues to expand, requiring a steady increase in supplies of oil, copper, aluminum and other minerals. And laying in sources of supply for those commodities...

Red ink is starting to gush in even larger quantities at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as the government wrestles with deciding what role should be played by the two biggest providers of funding for U.S. home mortgages. Fannie late Thursday reported a $25.2 billion loss for the fourth quarter, and Freddie is expected to report a huge loss for the latest quarter when it posts earnings, probably in early March. Homeowner defaults have continued to increase even as the government has redirected the two companies to focus their attention on preventing foreclosures and propping up the housing market. Gone...

A fund of hedge funds run by two members of Vice President Joe Biden's family was marketed exclusively by companies controlled by Texas financier R. Allen Stanford, who is facing Securities and Exchange Commission accusations of engaging in an $8 billion fraud. The $50 million fund was jointly branded between the Bidens' Paradigm Global Advisors LLC and a Stanford Financial Group entity and was known as the Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund. Stanford-related companies marketed the fund to investors and also invested about $2.7 million of their own money in the fund, according to a lawyer for Paradigm....

A seasoned campaigner for high political office, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton worked the crowds in Asia on her maiden tour in office, making good on a promise to reach out to the world. And though she is a tough competitor who narrowly lost the race for the US presidency last year, Clinton proved a hit with many when she showed her softer side. Appearing at a university campus in Tokyo, she charmed and inspired her audience with self-deprecating jokes about her roller-coaster public life and lofty talk about the planetÂ’s future. In Jakarta, she poked fun at her...

Hillary Clinton urged China on Sunday to continue buying US Treasuries, saying it would help get the American economy moving again and stimulate imports of Chinese goods. "By continuing to support American Treasury instruments the Chinese are recognising our interconnection. We are truly going to rise or fall together," Clinton said at the US embassy shortly before leaving Beijing. Clinton, wrapping up her first overseas trip as secretary of state, said continued Chinese purchases of treasuries were essential to financing the massive 787 billion dollar US stimulus plan. "Because our economies are so intertwined the Chinese know that in order...

In a rare interview, Mr Wen outlined in forceful terms Beijing’s approach to dealing with the global financial crisis – frenetic activity at home, cautious engagement abroad. International expectations of China are intense – almost on the same scale as those facing US president Barack Obama. But Mr Wen does not see China’s role as saving capitalism from itself. Hopes in London and elsewhere that China would hand over a large chunk of its near $2,000bn (€1,560bn, £1,380bn) foreign reserves to help recapitalise the International Monetary Fund are likely to be disappointed. Mr Wen also plays down the idea of...

China's shopping malls have stayed busy as the nation's consumers flocked into stores over the Lunar New Year holiday, retail figures indicate. Consumer spending in China rose 13.8 percent to $42.4 billion when compared to last year's week-long Lunar New Year holiday, or Spring Festival, the state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Saturday. The report said sales figures indicate the global financial crisis hasn't put a dent in China's retail growth. Much of the spending has been spurred by sales promotions in major cities as well as government subsidies to farmers for the purchase of home appliances. The Ministry of...

Future purchases of U.S. Treasuries by China will depend on its need to protect the value of its foreign investments and a stable yuan is in everyone's interests, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Saturday. The United States said this month that all its major trading partners should operate flexible exchange rates, expressing concern that China was manipulating the value of the yuan to boost its exports. But analysts say there may be a limit to the pressure that the United States can put on China as it is the single biggest foreign investor of U.S. Treasuries, with $681.9 billion...

U. .S. Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner was not making a formal finding last week when he told senators China was manipulating its currency, a White House official said on Monday. Mr.Geithner was restating what the president had said during the campaign, not making any determinations," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters. Beijing has bristled at the suggestion it is manipulating its currency for a trade advantage and raised concern it could become a pretext for U.S. efforts to keep out its goods. Chinese anger at Geithner's choice of words. "President Obama—backed by the conclusions of a broad range of...

The conspicuous absence of Howard Dean from Thursday’s press conference announcing Tim Kaine’s appointment as Democratic National Committee chair was no accident, according to Dean loyalists. Rather, they say, it was a reflection of the lack of respect accorded to the outgoing party chairman by the Obama team. Despite leading the party in consecutive triumphant election cycles – as well as through off-year races like when Kaine was elected Virginia governor in 2005 – Dean has become all but invisible since Election Day, passed over for the Cabinet position he coveted and apparently not in line for another administration post....

So reports Matt Lewis, per Steele’s conference call this afternoon with bloggers. And that’s not the money part: Steele also warned that we shouldn’t “soft-pedal” our attacks on Barack Obama, “just because the President of the United States happens to be a Black man.” This, of course, presents the argument that Steele — an African-American — could be a more effective critic of Obama than could his white Republican colleagues. He added that “the Obama campaign played the race card beautifully.” David Harsanyi says he was more explicit than that: The most interesting aspect of the call focused on the...

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

OTTAWA - A tranquil Mellissa Fung recounted Wednesday how she secured a promise from her kidnappers that they would not kill her and that she clung to a belief that she was not going to die during her four weeks of captivity in a dark, damp underground hole in the hills of Afghanistan. "I wouldn't let myself go there because I would spiral into depression," said the CBC TV reporter as she spoke calmly for an hour about her ordeal, which began Oct.12 while leaving a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul. "I knew in my mind where I...

In Japan, exports fell nearly 10 percent in the first 20 days of October, adding to the evidence that the world's second biggest economy was teetering on the brink of recession. British retail sales fell for a fifth straight month in October and by the biggest amount in more than three years, a survey released on Tuesday showed. "These are seriously poor numbers, especially in the run-up to Christmas," said Stephen Robertson, director general of the British Retail Consortium. In South Korea, the customs service said exports in the first 10 days of November fell 26 percent from the same...

Asian markets plunged Friday, led by a 7 percent drop in Japan's Nikkei, as the global economic slowdown slashed earnings prospects for an array of companies, forcing investors to look to safer government bonds. The stronger yen has been particularly damaging to the competitiveness of Japanese exporters as it curbs their overseas profits when they are brought home and erodes the competitiveness of their products. A handful of companies that have expressed positive outlooks have not been able to turn investor sentiment around to focusing on value rather than on the uncertainty of economic factors. The yen [$$EURJPY 123.08 -2.92...

Found this interesting inside of gallup's final poll in 2004. Here's an example. Gallup's final poll before the 2004 election showed the following: Registered voters George W. Bush 46% John Kerry 48% Likely voters George W. Bush 49% John Kerry 47% Kerry was ahead among registered voters by 2 points, while Bush was ahead among likely voters by 2 points. The final election result? Bush won the popular vote over Kerry by about 2.5 percentage points, almost exactly what our likely voter estimate predicted. Had we reported only registered voters, we would have estimated a Kerry victory. In other words,...

American freepers, I'd love the share some good news for you folks! Congratulate me please! Wow, I can’t believe this. We have just defeated a 4-time, 11-year liberal incumbent, a Chief Opposition Whip in the parlimentary! This riding was considered to be a super safe riding for liberals since the liberal incumbent won last time by 43% to conservative's 32% in 2006, by 5,000 votes! Tonight, the conservative candidate won by less than 1%, 36.7% to 36%, fewer than 400 votes!! Wow, this was definitely a shocker. I initially didn’t intend to vote because I thought it’s a very long...