Job losses clearly on a deep recessionary path

Yet another weekly unemployment insurance initial claims number over 500,000 today shows that the U.S. economy is now clearly on a deep recessionary path. What's to be done about it? Fiscal stimulus is needed. Lots of it. Congress is focused on simply trying to make the current administration look bad rather than trying to do anything to moderate the recession during the lame duck session. All of the heavy lifting will wait until Barack Obama is innaugurated in late January and we have a new Congress that is heavily committed to making the administration look good.

My calculations suggest that we need to see about $80 billion of fiscal stimulus every month for four to ten months to give businesses a reason to hire employees and invest money in capital improvements.

-- Jack Krupansky