| Primary Choices: Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton, the brilliant if at times harsh-sounding senator from New York; and Barack Obama, the incandescent if still undefined senator from Illinois. The remaining long shot, John Edwards, has enlivened the race with his own brand of raw populism. As Democrats look ahead to the primaries in the biggest states on Feb. 5, The Times's editorial board strongly recommends that they select Hillary Clinton as their nominee for the 2008 presidential election. .
The Fed Fiddles While Stocks Burn and Crash
A lot of that was dead wrong, a theft of our children's future, coming at an unnecessary time. However, when economic crises hit, the government must inflate. Must. Aggressively, preemptively, not reactively, or else calamity will strike, deflation will result, a black hole sucking until depression hits. It is a lot easier to stop inflation during boom times than to reinflate an economy during a major bust. Japan taught us that. Ironically, this is supposed to be Bernanke's strong suit. He has written papers on the mistakes of the Fed that exacerbated the Great Depression of the 30's. The stock market is warning that we are approaching a bust. Yet faced with an economic threat potentially larger than has ever hit mankind, Ben suddenly gets inflation-restraint religion. Who cares about inflation right now? It happened.
Clouds of doubt over Black Friday
Economists expect shoppers to spend less this year on holiday gifts since they're paying more for things like gasoline and food.
And with no "must have" new item - like the years of the Wii video game system or Tickle me Elmo doll - retailers don't have a trendy product that's exciting shoppers and drawing them into their stores.
A Consumer Reports holiday poll released this week found that 24 percent of consumers plan to shop tomorrow - up 4 percentage points from 2006. But the national poll of 1,009 people also found that fewer consumers expect to wait in line for early-bird sales this year - 12 percent compared with 14 percent last year.
However, Britt Beemer, of America's Research Group, said he expects consumers to come out in larger numbers tomorrow because they anticipate better bargains this year due to the slow economy.
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