House refinancing costs do not make it attractive to go for lower rates and people, unsure of the future don't find the historical lower rates attractive. If the government forces the banks to refinance for free people would save billions of dollars and the money would be available to reignite the economy.

White House's website provides more details about the new Economic Recovery Advisory Board that the president Barack Obama has created. The board will be lead by Paul Wolcker. The details and the work of the new Economic Recovery Advisory Board is explained below from the information provided by the White House.

Cheer up America and the global economy! The U.S. pending housing sales are up showing signs of life. The data is released by the National Association of Realtors. Pending home sales increased as more buyers took advantage of improved affordability conditions, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Big gains in the South and Midwest offset modest declines in other regions.

It looks like the party will go on! The House of Representatives has passed the stimulus bill, with a vote of 244 to 188.

As the House just passed the $819 billion stimulus bill to push the U.S. economy it seems that the bill is popular only in the democratic party. The Republicans did not favor the bill at all.

Barack Obama's proposed $825 billion stimulus package has met with some concerns from the Republicans. The Republicans says would the $825 stimulus economic plan do the job of creating jobs and moving the economy. Therefore, Obama has decided to host a meeting with the members of the House of Representatives and Senate at the White House Friday.

Although President-Elect Barack Obama will be sworn in Tuesday, inauguration celebrations started Saturday and, especially, Sunday. Yesterday, Washington was crowded with people celebrating Obama’s victory and the end of the Bush presidency. Many artists, singers and actors joined the crowd and performed live on stage to pay respect and gratitude to the man who will become the leader of the most powerful country on earth.

By Paul Kiel, ProPublica

In a report today, the Congressional Budget Office tried to put a price tag on the bailout [1] (PDF) through the end of last year. The answer: $64 billion.

In the next 60-90 days, we will know whether or not we have started the first full-fledged deflationary wage-price spiral in over 70 years. If that happens, it will make the entire crisis up until now feel like a walk in the park. This morning the BLS reported that Consumer prices in December fell ( - 1.0 %) on a non - seasonally adjusted basis.

Since Obama released the first draft of his economic stimulus plan last week many progressive-leaning figures among pundits, congress people and economists have pointed out that much bigger investments need to be made in infrastructure and the proposed tax cuts must be smaller or done away with.

For almost a year and a half the global financial system has been under extraordinary stress--stress that has now decisively spilled over to the global economy more broadly. The proximate cause of the crisis was the turn of the housing cycle in the United States and the associated rise in delinquencies on subprime mortgages, which imposed substantial losses on many financial institutions and shook investor confidence in credit markets.