We’d be remiss in not mentioning that today is the three-year anniversary of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. So what do we know about the stimulus, three years later? Well, we know that the economy is still lousy, with millions of Americans out of work. But it’s hard to know what the counterfactual is. The University of Chicago’s Booth business school recently surveyed the nation’s top economists, and the vast majority agreed that the economy would be in worse shape today without the stimulus. How much worse? One possible clue comes in this graph from today’s Economic Report of the President , showing that the recent U.S. recession was far less severe than the average downturn associated with past financial crises: Read full article > >

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The stimulus bill, three years later

New data showed five countries including Italy fell into recession, but output in Germany fell less than had been expected, and France posted a slight increase in growth.

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Euro Zone Economy Shrank in Fourth Quarter of 2011

WALL STREET IS recovering from the Great Recession, but the U.S. financial sector might not exist at all if Congress had not enacted a $700 billion bailout, the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), on Oct. 3, 2008. In President Obama’s view, the financial industry owes the American taxpayer not only a debt of gratitude — but a debt, period. His fiscal 2013 budget proposal includes a plan to charge large banks $61 billion over the next decade, to recoup the expected net cost of the TARP program. Read full article > >

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Banks aren’t liable for auto industry woes

Italy unveils a 5.5bn euro investment package in a bid to stimulate the country’s economy and stave off recession.

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Italy unveils new spending boost

Kit LaCroix credits two things with her recovery from a psychological breakdown that became the bleakest chapter of her life: the steady love of Bennett Mace and the rise of the Occupy movement. LaCroix had been happy in Chicago, where she failed to finish art school but found work waiting tables in a pub. She tamed the social anxiety that first appeared during college and relished the banter with customers as much as the solitude of her studio apartment. Then the recession hit, her tips dried up and for two months in a row she couldn’t make rent. Read full article > >

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On Love: ‘I see in you the fire of life’

Britain is already technically in recession, and unemployment will rise further, economic forecaster the Item Club warns.

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UK in recession, says think tank

During recession, then kept it secret.

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Obamas Threw ‘Wonderland’ Bash

Ben Johnson recently huddled with fellow Occupiers. How, he asked them, could they maximize their impact on the Iowa caucuses? “I have a lot of friends hurt by the recession, who deserve to go to better colleges than me,” said the American University freshman. “They’re a lot smarter than I am, and have more to offer the world. But they are being held back by their parents’ poor finances.” “An educational system that privileges people by wealth, but does nothing for talented people whose families are not wealthy is screwing over a lot of good people. I’m not getting the shaft. But my country is.” Not bad for an 18 year-old Iowan who was doing only the third interview in his life. You could even say that he was learning his major – Journalism – from the bottom up, as a spokesman first, a reporter second. Still, Johnson and his fellow Occupiers could not find a single Republican candidate who reflected their concerns. So they hit on an unorthodox strategy. They would caucus for the most overlooked candidate on the ballot: Uncommitted. If “Uncommitted” (alias “No Preference” or “None of the Above”) places in the top three, the Occupiers would have scored. And they have precedent – on the Democratic side. When President Jimmy Carter ran for election in 1976, “Uncommitted” won 14,508 votes (37%) to Carter’s 10,764 votes (27%). A weak one term presidency followed.

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The Occupiers’ Plan to have “Uncommitted” Win the Iowa Caucus

Most economists polled by the BBC say recession will return to Europe next year, while UK interest rates will stay at 0.5%.

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Recession ‘to return’ to Europe

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti calls for a “united response” to the eurozone debt crisis as he outlines plans to get Italy out of recession.

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Monti: ‘Unite to save eurozone’

Technically, the financial crisis began in late 2008, with the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. But 2009 was the year we really felt it. It was in 2009 that we lost more than 5 million jobs — the majority of the total job losses caused by the recession. By 2010, we seemed to turn the corner. The economy added more than a million jobs. Growth returned. The financial markets stabilized. Many forecasters looked to 2011 with real optimism. Read full article > >

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2011, the year of the aftershocks

A monthly survey showed consumers’ confidence in the economy surged in December and was near a post-recession peak, although home prices fell in October in most major U.S. cities.

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Confidence Rises Sharply, but Home Prices Fall

As part of Friday’s plan to save the euro, member states now have to wrestle their “structural deficits” (what their deficits would be without a boom or recession) to 0.5 percent of GDP. What’s more, the nations need to start hacking down their public debt drastically — each year, reducing debts by one-twentieth of the difference between their current debt-to-GDP ratio and the target of 60 percent. That all sounds complicated, but the bottom line, for many analysts, is that this is going to prove extremely difficult to pull off. Read full article > >

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Are Europe’s new debt rules impossible?

Unemployment dropping, not on the verge of a recession.

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U.S. Economy Improves

Seemingly democratic and certainly affordable (if not free), the tote might be the ideal carryall for these recessionary times.

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Noticed: Tote Bags Replace Purses as Status Symbols