Today President Bush shed some light on how the government plans to artificially stimulate the economy.

The President said he’s looking for “direct and rapid tax relief” for both consumers and businesses. To achieve this, he plans on implementing an income tax rebate of between $300 and $600 per person, and depending on your circumstances, your rebate may be even bigger.

The white house is looking for a repeat performance from the plan implemented in 2001. It seemed to work back then, however I think the direct effect was a bit over inflated.

But this time it’s different.

We’ve got a different situation this time, with different economic pitfalls pushing the health …

So we’re going into a recession. There are few out there who have not yet accepted this, and the only thing left to debate is whether we’re already in a recession, and how deep the pain will be.

There are several periods in time when, as investors, we’ve been backed into a similar corner. Perhaps like many of you, I’ve never personally been through a recession with a highly vested interest in the outcome, but there are a vast majority that have.

Recession, the ’90s Version

If you were around in the recession during 1990 and into 1991, you might be …

President Bush is dreaming up ways to “stimulate the economy” as you read this. He will present his grand ideas on January 28th at the annual State of the Union speech.

This desire to stimulate the economy goes beyond the Oval Office, however. On Friday, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid wrote a letter to the President seeking cooperation in developing an economic stimulus plan.

As many of you know, I’m a big fan of letting a free market and free economy work. The last thing we want to do is watch the government try to stimulate the economy. Let the …

Today an employment report revealed that seasonally adjusted nonfarm payrolls rose by 18,000 in December, the weakest job growth since August 2003. On top of that, private-sector payrolls fell by 13,000, the first decline in more than four years.

Most economists, as well as the market, were expecting payrolls to increase about 58,000 in December.

I view this as a sign that the economy is starting to falter. Housing is in toilets, unemployment is rising, consumer spending is in limbo, gas prices are high and going higher, and to cap it all off, our credit cards are maxed out (and by “we” I mean Americans in general).

It doesn’t help that …

Well, by now the 25 basis point rate cut is old news. It’s interesting to see the mixed reaction to the cut; some say it wasn’t enough and that The Street was expecting 50 points, others say that the Fed should quit trying to save the economy from recession and let the free market play out.

A few highlights:

This Fed continues to display their cluelessness. They will definitely have to cut more times, so just GET IT OVER WITH now. Silly Fed. -Jordan, In The Money

What is the right number for interest rates? 4%? 3%? 2%? No one knows for sure, and that’s the problem. Investors are …

Read more…

It seems our good old government is setting a course to bail out those who weren’t responsible enough to take care of their own financial house.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said today that the Department is “aggressively pursuing a comprehensive plan” to aid as many homeowners as possible. He went on to offer fresh details about a nearly complete government and private-sector effort to stem a huge number of foreclosures next year.

“We are leading the industry to develop a systemic means of efficiently moving able borrowers into sustainable mortgages,” Mr. Paulson said today in a speech to the Office of Thrift Supervision’s housing forum.

OK, so in not so many …

Verizon Wireless announced yesterday that they will be revising their policy on allowing free-market cell phones to be used on their network. The change will take affect by the mid part of next year.

In effect, it will allow you to buy just about any cell phone, from any vendor, and activate it on the Verizon network.

This is big!

Not just because it gives you more freedom to use whatever cell phone fits your needs, but it also signals that the free market does have an effect, even in the highly competitive wireless industry.

What’s next? Perhaps more flexibility in pricing and plans, and even better, …

Things aren’t looking half bad in the stock market these days. The volume of the NYSE listed shares that rose in price is more than 94% of the total volume on that exchange, which means the chances are good you made some money today.

Those in the “know” call these 9-to-1 up days. Days where there is a drastic imbalance of shares trading up over shares trading down.

Martin Zweig worte in his 1986 book, “Winning on Wall Street” that “Every bull market in history, and many good intermediate advances, have been launched with a buying stampede that included one or more 9-to-1 up days.”

A bull market? Seriously?

Existing-home sales fell …

I’ve always been skeptical of the true value of running a vehicle on ethanol. I feel that the next great propulsive fuel must have a net energy content greater than gasoline. Scientifically, this means that the energy content of a given amount of future fuel must be greater than gasoline. Currently, I believe the prime candidate for this is hydrogen.

But I digress. Back to the ethanol farce.

I came across a Consumer Reports revelation from 2006 presenting the results of their gasoline vs. ethanol tests. They ran a battery of tests on a new (2007) flex-fuel …

A Sunday report from ComScore Inc revealed that retail spending on the Internet during the Thanksgiving weekend is up 29% to $272 million from from the same period last year.

For so-called Black Friday, e-commerce sales amounted to $531 million, a 22% gain from e-commerce spending in 2006. ComScore expects “Cyber Monday,” the first workday after the holiday weekend, to post sales exceeding $700 million.

I’m not sure how an increase in on-line spending will affect our economy, but one thing is for certain: On-line or off-line, it seems higher fuel costs, a staggering housing market, and credit problems  are not curtailing consumer spending just yet.