533,000 Jobs Disappear in November:

Not since December 1974, when Gerald Ford was placed into the White House after the failed Nixon coup, has the American economy seen a month as bad as the last month has been. According to The New York Times, almost 2,000,000 jobs have been lost in the past year, and even George Bush is now using the term "recession."

Can the Gov't Run the Auto Industry:

Was it really almost twenty years ago that people were celebrating the fall of communism, the failure of governments to run their countries' economies? America's big three auto makers are on the verge of collapse and in Washington, where they are trying to convince congress to give them 34 billion dollars. It's hard to imagine the government dumping that kind of money into an industry without imposing oversight. (See The New York Times' story.)

Apparently, it doesn't matter just a whole lot what sort of economic system is in place. People seem to be prone to screwing things up no matter what.

Honda announced that it is pulling out of Formula One racing, after its November sales fell off by 32 percent compared to November of last year. Even good cars, it appears, are having difficulty selling.

So Is It a Good Time To Buy a House?

Ron Lieber suggests in today's New York Times that this might actually be a good time to buy a house if you're a first time buyer. Nobody knows for sure when the market is going to bottom out, but when it hits that point, it will be the right moment, provided your job is secure. At some point, the economy will rebound. Will that be in six months? Or six years?