San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen has a bearish economic outlook:

I agree with [Martin Feldstein] that the current downturn is likely to be far longer and deeper than the “garden-variety” recession in which GDP bounces back quickly.

She consequently recommends that government come to the rescue:

If ever, in my professional career, there was a time for active, discretionary fiscal stimulus, it is now. Although our economy is resilient and has bounced back quickly from downturns in the past, the financial and economic firestorm we face today poses a serious risk of an extended period of stagnation–a very grim outcome. Such stagnation would intensify financial market strains, exacerbating the problems that triggered the downturn. It’s worth pulling out all the stops to ensure those outcomes don’t occur.

It appears that President-elect Obama is taking heed:

President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are crafting a plan to offer about $300 billion of tax cuts to individuals and businesses, a move aimed at attracting Republican support for an economic-stimulus package and prodding companies to create jobs.
The size of the proposed tax cuts — which would account for about 40% of a stimulus package that could reach $775 billion over two years — is greater than many on both sides of the aisle in Congress had anticipated. It may make it easier to win over Republicans who have stressed that any initiative should rely more heavily on tax cuts rather than spending.

Obama has a massive government economic intervention in the works, and this looks like a sop to get as many Republicans as possible on board.

William Gale, a tax-policy analyst at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, said the scale of the whole package is larger than expected. He called the business offerings a true surprise, since most attention has been focused on the spending side of the equation, especially the hundreds of billions of dollars being discussed for infrastructure and aid to state and local governments.

One thing you can bank on in 2009 is that experts will continue to be “surprised” by the measures government employs to keep the economy on life support.

For several months I’ve been using the social media site Twitter. I use it for four primary purposes:

• To connect and chat with other local users
• As an outlet for random utterances and announcements
• Entertainment
• As a newsfeed

In general it’s a useful tool. When I first signed up I would sometimes encounter a service failure or “Fail Whale,” but I’ve I’ve rarely gotten any of those since September.
HubSpot compiled a statistical look at Twitter use in its “State of the Twittersphere – Q4 2008 Report.” Some of the findings:

* Twitter is dominated by newer users – 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008
* An estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened per day
* 35% of Twitter users have 10 or fewer followers
* 9% of Twitter users follow no one at all
* There is a strong correlation between the number of followers you have and the number of people you follow

Interestingly, the report also indicates that Twitter use is highest at mid-week.
I’m currently following 117 users and have 100 followers. I follow several news and other websites–perhaps too many, as it’s annoying when those sites fire off a bunch of tweets in a row.
I’ll continue following more users, but not too many more. There’s a balance to strike between having a steady flow of content and being overwhelmed. I’m thinking that following more than 200 feeds is closer to the latter.

Dr. David Beckworth, a former college classmate of mine who is now an assistant professor of economics at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, wrote a paper entitled “Praying for a Recession: The Business Cycle and Protestant Religiosity in the United States.” His research suggests that during economic recessions, evangelical churches grow at an accelerated rate, while mainline Protestant churches continue their long-term decline, albeit at a slower rate.
The paper was featured in a recent NY Times article. Yesterday he was interviewed on CNN’s morning program to discuss his findings. Video:

Congratulations to Dr. Beckworth for his timely research.

It’s getting increasingly difficult to simply imagine the amount of money the federal government is committing to get us out of the financial crisis.
Barry Ritholtz tries to put it in context by comparing it to the cost of previous big ticket government expenditures:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion
TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

According to his estimate, the government has pledged $4.6165 trillion for this bailout. On Monday Bloomberg reported the government is prepared to make $7.76 trillion available to deal with the crisis.
Whatever the total, it’s almost an unimaginable sum.
UPDATE: Full post on Barry’s blog.

Atrios, on the media’s speculation regarding the future Obama cabinet:

Most of it is even more useless than campaign horse race journalism. If they must do it they could at least provide more useful information about the people they’re speculating about, but instead it’s all just a soap opera.

I assume he’s talking about the Senator Clinton for Secretary of State rumors, which have dominated TV news this week. And I agree–it would be nice for pundits to focus on what Clinton (or any other candidate) brings to the table for a specific position, rather than an endless rehash of the political power play by play.
Instead, the potential appointment is viewed merely as a primary postscript. If I received a dollar for every time a TV talker said “team of rivals” or “keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” I’d get a nice check this week.