US President Barack Obama summed up the core economic challenge facing his administration when he told Congress a week ago: "There will be no real recovery unless we clean up the credit crisis that has severely weakened our financial system ... if we do not restart lending in this country, our recovery will be choked off before it even begins ... the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy."...

The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 8.1 percent in February, its highest since 1983, as employers cut 651,000 jobs in what is becoming the longest economic downturn since the Great Depression...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell another 281 points yesterday, or 4%, while President Obama began his political push for nationalizing health care and Barney Frank called upon state, local and federal officials to prosecute "those people whose irresponsible and, in some cases, criminal actions helped bring about this crisis."...

One of the depressing parts of the New Deal was its willingness to help big labor and big business, a classic case of the seen and the unseen...