Where is the US economy headed?

I've had more job seekers than ever. I average about three calls per week.

WHAT CAN BE DONE: The deficit can't be brought into line by either spending cuts alone or tax increases alone. Instead, a comprehensive approach is needed. "President Bush left the country with a wrecked federal balance sheet and progressives have no choice but to deal with it," says CAP President and CEO John Podesta. "The only way to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio and get it going in the right direction is to restrain domestic and defense spending, bend the curve on health care costs, and add new revenues. As progressives we need to debate the policy merits and likelihood of enacting a range of options -- including designing a small and more progressive value-added tax, changes to the corporate tax code, and taxing upper income earners beyond reversing the Bush tax cuts." "This will clearly require a balanced approach, and it is important that the balance is right so that the solution is not worse than the problem," write Ettlinger and Linden. Today's conference is a first step towards finding that balance.

What a bad mannered lot you must be. I suppose it's why you're so productive but is it worth it? It sounds like you're all snarling at each other as a matter of course.

My young employees can be pretty brutal when someone telephones: "You want a job? Get off your ******* butt and hit the pavement. Are you calling while taking a break from playing some ******* video game? Do you know what business we are in or are you just flipping through the ******* phone book, cold calling?"

9.8% it is. Obama, I would suggest you once again place faith in the American people, not the government, to turn this around. Quit demonizing profits and quit trying to nationalize industries.

Yes, I do very much believe Obama's attitude has the economy on the run. Talk to business people. Not all are pessimistic with Obama's policies, but a good percentage are. If you don't know what to count on in the future, it places a big damper on business moving forward.

One example, car sales, people are waiting it out, they already know cash for clunkers / slash government meddling has happened and so people don't know whether to wait for another program, or when it happens what program will it be? Government meddling produces unintended consequences. Cash for clunkers essentially front loaded sales, plus it has driven used car prices up - somebody in the business was telling me about that, plus used parts business has been screwed up. This is but one example of many. The energy business is very suspicious of Obama's intents and possible legislations, which dampens business moving forward. Housing, the housing bonus will do the same as the car business, front load sales, then setting it up for a big crash.

Your problem is the same as Obama's, you dislike business, big business. I have news for you, it is business that has produced the wealth in this country.

Big business and small business, they are what have produced wealth and provided jobs, not government. Government is a leach upon productivity.

Total and absolute baloney, cyclops, and your words demonstrate how woefully bigoted and wrong you are about business and peoples work. You are a socialist, but socialism when taken to the extreme does not work, wake up. Business is work, you cannot separate the two.