General Motors Co. will begin paying back $6.7 billion in U.S. government loans by the end of 2009 and could pay off that full amount by 2011, four years ahead of schedule, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of national business groups opposed to President Obama’s health-care reform effort are collecting money to finance an economic study that could be used to portray the legislation as a job killer and threat to the nation’s economy, according to an e-mail solicitation from a top Chamber official.

The e-mail, written by the Chamber’s senior health policy manager and obtained by The Washington Post, proposes spending $50,000 to hire a ‘respected economist’ to study the impact of health-care legislation, which is expected to come to the Senate floor this week, would have on jobs and the economy.

Step two, according to the e-mail, appears to assume the outcome of the economic review: ‘The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document.’

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Ed Lazear was an economic adviser to the Bush administration, and now he thinks he can backseat drive the Obama team’s economic work? What’s he gonna say? “Here, let me drive this car into a ditch, I’m an expert“?

Up next: Donald Rumsfeld explains how to kill thousands of American soldiers.

The economy grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter, the best showing in two years, fueled by government-supported spending on cars and homes.

The Commerce Department’s report Thursday delivered the strongest signal yet that the economy entered a new, though fragile, phase of recovery and that the worst recession since the 1930s has ended.

The number of newly laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits fell for the third straight week, evidence that layoffs are continuing to ease in the earliest stages of an economic recovery.

The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped to a seasonally adjusted 530,000 from an upwardly revised 551,000 the previous week. Wall Street economists expected claims to rise by 5,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

Let me be clear regarding taxes. I will sign a bill that is the product of bipartisan compromise that provides a comprehensive transportation solution. As a legislator, I have voted for a number of mechanisms to fund transportation, including a gas tax. And I’ll sign a bipartisan bill with a dedicated funding mechanism for transportation — even if it includes new taxes.

To build a bipartisan consensus to find that new revenue, and to ensure the best chance of passage, all options for funding will be on the table. We will need every legislator committed to finding a solution. In my 18 years in the legislature, I’ve learned that the best way to reach compromise is to be open to all ideas and get everyone involved.

Despite a decrease in home values in Maryland in 2008, the state remains the richest state in the nation, according to U.S. census data released Tuesday.

The state’s median household income for 2008 was $70,545, an increase of about $1,500 from the state’s median income in 2007 and slightly higher than New Jersey’s figure ($70,378). Maryland also had the highest median household income in 2007 and has been among the national leaders for much of the decade, with Howard, Calvert and Montgomery counties all regularly ranking among the top 10 wealthiest counties in the nation.

Maryland is one of 22 states that saw its home value decrease in 2008 amid last year’s economic downturn and housing collapse. Median home value in Maryland decreased from $347,000 in 2007 to $341,200 in 2008, and the national homeownership rate fell to 66.6 percent last year, the lowest mark in six years.

But, before Obama was elected POTUS and when Glenn Beck was on CNN, he was singing a very different tune. One could say that Glenn Beck was for the bailouts before he was against them. Not only was he for the bailout, but he argued that it wasn’t big enough!

On September 22, 2008, speaking about the bailouts Glenn Beck said:

The ‘REAL STORY’ is the $700 billion that you`re hearing about now is not only, I believe, necessary, it is also not nearly enough, and all of the weasels in Washington know it.

Proving once again that conservative attitudes towards bailout and spending only flipped when the White House got new residents.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday that the worst U.S. recession since the Great Depression was probably over, but the recovery would be slow and it would take time to create new jobs.

‘Even though from a technical perspective the recession is very likely over at this point, it’s still going to feel like a very weak economy for some time,’ Bernanke said after giving a speech at a Brookings Institution conference.

Oh, by the way, this all happened under the Bush administration.

All but one of the Fed’s 12 regions indicated economic activity either was “stable,” showed “signs of stabilization” or had “firmed,” according to the Fed’s survey. The one exception was the St. Louis region, which reported the economic decline is “moderating.”

Businesses in most Fed regions said they were “cautiously positive” about the economic road ahead. The survey, known as the Beige Book, does not include precise figures.

Analysts predict the economy is growing in the current quarter, which ends Sept. 30, at an annual rate of 3 percent to 4 percent. That’s mostly because businesses, which had slashed investments during the recession, are spending more.

Auto sales have been lifted by the government’s recently ended Cash for Clunkers program. Manufacturing and the battered housing market, which led the country into recession when it collapsed, have also shown signs of improvement.

But seriously, we’re not much out of the woods by far, but on the right path.

Consumers slashed their borrowing in July by the largest amount on record as job losses and uncertainty about the economic recovery prompted Americans to rein in their debt.

Economists expect consumers will continue to spend less, save more and trim debt to get household finances decimated by the recession into better shape. However, such action is a recipe for a lethargic revival, as consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity.

While it may slow the recovery some, its better to have an economy not so dependent on credit – especially for citizens.

Economists say the money out the door — combined with the expectation of additional funds flowing soon — is fueling growth above where it would have been without any government action.

Many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in the second and third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. The impact in the second quarter, calculated by analyzing how the extra funds flowing into the economy boost consumption, investment and spending, helped slow the rate of decline and will lay the groundwork for positive growth in the third quarter — something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. Some economists say the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus.

Analysts are pointing to improving indicators in the United States, China and even Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, which some observers predict is set to announce its own return to growth in the coming days. Though a host of other European economies — including Britain, Italy and Spain — are still mired in one of the worst recessions in generations, contractions are moderating even in many of those nations, an indication that they too may be close to rebounding. It underscores, analysts say, how ramped-up government stimulus spending around the globe appears to be having at least some of its desired effects.

Nobody could have predicted… (except the ones who looked up people like Roosevelt, Franklin)

Recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s has begun as President Barack Obama’s fiscal stimulus — derided as insufficient and budget-busting months ago — takes effect, a survey of economists indicated.

The economy will expand 2 percent or more in four straight quarters through June, the first such streak in more than four years, according to the median of 53 forecasts in the monthly Bloomberg News survey. Analysts lifted their estimate for the third quarter by 1.2 percentage points compared with July, the biggest such boost in surveys dating from May 2003.

‘We’ve averted the worst, and there are clear signs the stimulus is working,’ said Kenneth Goldstein, an economist at the Conference Board in New York.

If it’s anything like the last time we had a Democratic president, we’re due for an Obama Boom. But even lacking that, cautious optimism and thanks we got the right man in the job.

U.S. companies slashed their workers’ hours in the second quarter, boosting the productivity of the workplace to an annualized rate of 6.4%, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.

It was the fastest increase in productivity in the nonfarm business sector in nearly six years. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had been looking for a gain of 5.4%.