Former President Bill Clinton offered up some wide-ranging prescriptions for curing the nation's ailing economy in a speech at the National Retail Federation's annual convention Monday, from investing in new sectors for job growth to cutting taxes on business.
Now that Hurricane Irene has passed, it's time to get back to discussing the country's biggest unnatural disaster: the economy. But here, too, Irene is making her impact felt, as economists and pundits across the country debate whether the hurricane will help or hurt America's bottom line.
It's matrimony's version of a financial stimulus program. The moment Jose Matos proposed to Juan Estrada after New York approved same-sex marriage, the pair joined thousands of gay couples expected to boost the state's economy. Caterer? Check. Flowers? Check. Engraved invitations? Yup.
The departure of Christina Romer as chair of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers ought to prompt a rethink of U.S. economic policy -- but it won't, even though Friday's jobs numbers showed tepid progress on creating jobs for the millions put out of work by the recession.
