The week’s press brings ominous economic news. Over the last five days, four reports come together to suggest tough times ahead.

ITEM: Starting on Monday the Federal Reserve announced continuing economic weakness in the banking sector associated with the sub-prime mortgage debacle. The effects of this mess continue to spill over into the rest of the economy, especially in the housing market. In 2008, the National Association of Realtors is predicting existing-home sales down almost a million units from 2006. Existing-home prices continued to fall through 2007.

ITEM: The price of a barrel of oil broke $100 driven by speculation, political unrest in Africa and the Middle East, and uncertainty in anticipation of this year’s winter weather. The near term consequence is high priced petroleum products, including heating oil. Anxiety is building around whether this barrier break is a signal of hard times to come, but the consequences are predictable. “Staying at the 100-dollar-level will mean inflation and economic hardship,” Business Week cited senior energy analyst Fadel Gheit. While opinions vary on the likelihood of high and sustained oil prices, Hitting the $100 mark Wednesday had a huge impact on the psychology of financial markets and investors around the globe. “On the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, and the Nasdaq Composite Index all plunged on January 2,due to the up thrust of oil prices above the 100-dollar threshold. By end of day Thursday the Dow had slipped below 13000. On Jan. 4, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange also plummeted.” Of course, the effects of this dramatic rise in oil prices, while perhaps a minor irritant to those with adequate financial means, will have a discernible and deleterious impact on poor and low income residents of our nation. On January 3rd, the Wall Street Journal presented an array of personal stories of the painful consequences of rising oil and gas prices on the poor and lower middle class.

ITEM: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate rose to 5.0 percent in December, while nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged (+18,000).” Rising unemployment and the lack of new job creation signal rough times ahead as consumers pull back from spending and correspondingly employers resist new hires.” Reporting from the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, Jared Bernstein offers a sobering distillation of the day’s news, “The unemployment rate jumped up to 5% last month, and non-government payrolls fell by 13,000, in a far weaker job report than was expected, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on the labor market for December 2007. Total payrolls rose by 18,000 the weakest month for job growth since August 2003, the last month of the jobless recovery.” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s adds even sharper commentary in interpreting Friday’s report: “This is unambiguously negative; the economy is on the edge of recession, if we’re not already engulfed in one.”

ITEM: The confluence of recent news has even the White House distributing press releases. So damaging is the economic news of the last four days that the President has stepped to the microphone in an attempt to calm markets and reassure investors by proposing a yet-to-be-specified economic stimulus package to help keep the economy from slipping into reverse gear. As the New York Times reports: “With the odds of a recession increasing, Bush is weighing the need for an economic stimulus package. The president, who has been plagued by low public approval ratings for his handling of the economy, isn’t expected to make any decisions until later this month. Tax cuts are under consideration, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. ‘’We’ve done tax cuts before and it’s led to growth,'’ he said.”

Tax cuts, tax cuts! How can the President be so insensitive to the current reality? The same old remedy of tax cuts, not only is too little too late even for the rich and upper middle classes, but is inexplicable folly in the face of the current negative cascade of economic news. What is more tragic though is the continuing blindness of this President to the lived experience of almost 75 million Americans who don’t own stocks and who don’t work in jobs that pay living wages. How is it that he can remain simultaneously oblivious and yet informed of the fact that the plummeting economic numbers hurt the economically insecure in ways so obvious and so embarrassing that our international partners around the world are openly wondering what kind of a nation we are becoming.