Corporate executives are poised to start making substantial cutbacks in their staffing, according to a new forecast by employment consulting and legal firm Career Protection. 

In fact, the firm is predicting a 37% increase in layoffs this year over last, based on a survey of more than 1,300 corporate executives and senior level officials that was conducted earlier this month. 

The layoff forecast registers as the worst in the last five years, according to Career Protection officials. They also indicated that the firm has already been “inundated” with inquiries from employees at a number of companies that announced layoffs earlier this month, including Bear Stearns, Chrysler, Citigroup, Ford, Covidien, General Motors, IndyMac and Sprint Nextel.   

Congress's Joint Economic Committee estimates that 2 million Americans will lose their home over the next two years, a figure in line with most research firms and rating agencies.

We don’t know for sure how deep the coming slump will be... But there’s a real chance not just that it will be a major downturn, but that the usual response to recession — interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve — won’t be sufficient to turn the economy around... 

And if that happens, we’ll deeply regret the fact that the Bush administration insisted on . . . a so-called stimulus plan that just won’t do the job.

Clinton blamed the economic malaise on Bush administration policies to keep borrowing from the Chinese and other governments to pay the nation's bills, declaring the country needs "to get back our fiscal sovereignty."  

"Here today, gone tomorrow. There is no guarantee they are going to keep buying our debt," she said. She also decried the home-loan mortgage crisis and resulting declining home values as foreclosures mount: "Ninety-five thousand homes in foreclosure in California," she said, shaking her head. "We are in a crisis, people."

President Bush this week declared that he has the power to bypass four laws, including a prohibition against using federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq, that Congress passed as part of a new defense bill. 

Bush made the assertion in a signing statement that he issued late Monday after signing the National Defense Authorization Act for 2008. In the signing statement, Bush asserted that four sections of the bill unconstitutionally infringe on his powers, and so the executive branch is not bound to obey them. 

"Provisions of the act . . . purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the president's ability to carry out his constitutional obligations to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, to protect national security, to supervise the executive branch, and to execute his authority as commander in chief," Bush said. "The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President."

In 2007, the median price of an American single-family home fell for the first time in at least four decades, according to the National Association of Realtors, a trade group. 

The median price declined 1.8 percent to $217,800, the first annual decline since reliable records began in 1968. “It’s the first price decline in many, many years and possibly going back to the Great Depression,” said the group’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun. 

Over all [sic], sales of previously owned single-family homes fell 13 percent in 2007, the biggest drop in a quarter-century. Last month alone, home sales dipped 2.2 percent from November, to a 4.89 million annual rate. (The group’s survey excludes newly constructed homes.)  

Inventories of single-family homes and condominiums remain elevated, as the housing industry struggles to climb out of its worst downturn since the early 1990s. Though the backlog of unsold homes ticked down slightly in December, at least one economist attributed the drop to discouraged homeowners “pulling their homes off the market in the face of continued weak demand and falling prices.” 

“We still have a long way to go before prices sink to levels necessary to balance supply and demand in the housing market,” the economist, Joshua Shapiro of MFR, a research firm, wrote.

The Financial Times reported that Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, predicted that there was a very real possibility that the US would be plunged into a Japan-style slump, with house prices declining for years. 

Professor Shiller, co-founder of the respected S&P Case/Shiller house-price index, said: “American real estate values have already lost around $1 trillion [£503 billion]. That could easily increase threefold over the next few years. This is a much bigger issue than sub-prime. We are talking trillions of dollars’ worth of losses.”

President Bush and his Republican Party really live in their own little world, don't they? They can stand in front of America and say with a straight face that our economy's strong. For example, here are three fairly recent George Bush quotes:  

August, 2007: The U.S. economy's "thriving."  

October, 2007: "This economy is strong and is setting all kinds of records." 

And amazingly, just this month: "This economy is on a solid foundation."  

To say things like that, Republicans must think we all live with our heads buried in the sand.  

Consider these facts: The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell nearly 10 percent in the first 18 days of 2008 and the Nasdaq nearly 12 percent, shaping up to be the worst January on record. The Dow's fallen more than 2,000 points, or 14.6 percent, since October. Inflation's risen the most in 17 years. New housing starts in 2007 fell 24.8 percent, the lowest level in 27 years. Foreclosures are up 72 percent over last year. Colorado's median household income decreased by 6.1 percent since 2000. In December 2001, gas in Colorado was $1.10; in December 2007, the average price per gallon was $2.92. Health care premiums rose 40.8 percent in Colorado since 2000. Also, 498,000 Colorado residents are living in poverty, an increase of 26.1 percent from 1999-2000. Between 2000 and 2006, most Americans saw their real income go down. Meanwhile, the average tax relief for millionaires under this administration is 100 times larger than the relief for the typical middle-class household. 

Unemployment's [sic] up. Foreclosures are up. Wall Street's down. Bush and the Republican Party have failed America. Whereas the major Republican presidential candidates have always stood behind George Bush, I believe a vote for a Republican in November is certainly a vote for more of the same.