The private non-good producing industries account for approximately 70% of total economic activity in
the United States. These non-good producing industries include retail trade, wholesale trade,
and the service industries. The U.S. Bureau of the Census currently measures the total output of
most of these industries in its retail, wholesale, and services surveys.
Jan 2009
The services industries account for 55% of economic activity in the U.S. Most of these
industries are surveyed in the Quarterly Services Survey and in the Service Annual Survey.
Jan 2009
Obama: U.S. automakers must transform industry
President is still committed to helping the Big Three but calls for a "plan that works,"
The Detroit Free Press reports.
Obama said he was awaiting plans from Chrysler and General Motors
to justify a $17.4 billion loan to the two automakers, the newspaper reported on its Web site.
The automakers were due to report their plans to the government next Tuesday, the report said.
AIG suffers $62B loss, bailout revamped
Stocks set for drubbing
HSBC cuts 6,100 jobs
World's 50 most admired companies
$800 billion - where the waste will be
Obama's - First 100 Days
First 100 Days will follow President Obama's initiatives and policy directions.
We'll look at new presidential orders, policies on the economy, alternative energy and foreign affairs,
and his use of new media.
We’ll review the new president's progress and governing style, take a look at the challenges
of governing the United States, and keep you informed about the fun moments as well.
We encourage you to share your thoughts on the president’s job.
Large majorities of Americans support President Barack Obama's plans to revive the economy and his efforts to work across party lines,
according to a pair of public opinion polls .
One month into his presidency, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found 68 percent of Americans approve
of Obama's job performance.
Sixty-four percent of respondents supported the administration's $787 billion economic
stimulus package and the same percentage backed his proposal to prevent housing foreclosures.
Obama's Banking Crisis Plan
Obama On Banking Crisis: We Can't "Prolong The Agony"
PRESIDENT OBAMA:
Well, you know, Wall Street I think is hoping for an easy out on this thing and there is no easy out. Essentially what you've got are a set a banks that have not been as transparent as we need to be in terms of what their books look like.
And we're gonna have to hold out the bandaid a little bit and go ahead and just be clear about some of the losses that have been made because until we do that, we're not going to be able to attract private capital into the marketplace. And so, you know, I think that you have two choices in this situation: you can prolong the agony and shareholders will be happy until they're not happy and that could be a year from now or two years from now or in the case of Japan, eight years later.
Or you can just go ahead and acknowledge that yeah, there's, there's a lot of work that has to be done to put these banks back on a firmer footing.
The Raleigh speech kicked off a planned two-week push by the Obama campaign on the economy — most of it
taking place in battleground states that went for Bush in 2004. This week he's talking mainly about
short-term fixes "to help working families who are struggling to keep up"; next week, his aides say,
the focus will be on the long run.
The latter plays to Obama's strengths, as he can wax eloquent about
the nation's need for investment in education, infrastructure and clean energy. For now,
he and his advisers are reciting the details of his three big short-term priorities:
a new $50 billion stimulus program, much of it routed into extending unemployment insurance
beyond the current 26-week limit and helping struggling state governments; a more aggressive
foreclosure-prevention effort, with $10 billion in funding; and a tax cut for Americans making
less than $150,000 a year — to be financed with tax increases on those making more than $150,000 a year.
