U.S. in need of a recovery plan and fast...

Now that the presidential race is over, President-elect Barack Obama is focusing all of his attention on the declining stock market and the ways that it can be improved. Since the fall of Lehman Brothers and the bankruptcy of General Motors, businesses as well as the general public are walking on egg-shells in the stock market. Although the stocks for Ford Motors rose about 10 percent and General Motors rose 5 percent, both car dealerships report that their sales declined dramatically during the month of November; General Motors sales were down 41 percent, Ford’s sales were down 30.6 percent and Toyota’s sales down 33.9 percent. With all of this loss of revenue, what can the country expect for the future?

President-elect Barack Obama spoke to the National Governors Association in Philadelphia on the problems that face the country as well as making everyone aware that he is open to ideas whether from Republicans or Democrats, on how to solve this crisis. Although Obama is making himself readily available to good ideas on how to go about this problem other pressing issues are slowing the process as well as making the issue of how to solve the stock market crash more difficult. For example the recent attacks in Mumbai have now made the situation in Iraq more complicated and have made people question if taking all American troops out of the area is the right thing to do.

On the issue of the stock market Mr. Obama said, “to solve this crisis and to ease the burden on our states we need action, and action swiftly, that means passing an economic recovery plan to help both Wall Street and Main Street, and this administration does not intend to delay in getting you the help that you need.” Action does not to come as a rapid rate as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reiterated when he made a statement on Monday saying that “the state could run out of cash within two months.”

The fall of the stock market is not just causing problems for Wall Street but also for the employees who worked for the big businesses who are now going bankrupt. On Friday the report from the Labor Department regarding the unemployment rate, which is “arguably the most important update on the health of the economy,” is thought to report that businesses will have to shed another 300,000 jobs adding more stress to the country. With these statements it comes as “no surprise, investors were told this week that the United States economy is officially in a recession, according to the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/business/03markets.html?ref=business
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/us/politics/03transition.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/business/03sales.html?ref=business