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Initial jobless claims plummeted 35,000 to 466,000 for the week ending Nov. 21, and continuing claims continued to decline as well, falling 190,000 to 5.42 million, the U.S. Labor Department announced Wednesday. This marks the lowest initial jobless claims total in more than a year.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had expected initial jobless claims to fall to 495,000. Meanwhile, the four-week moving average for initial jobless claims also dropped, falling 16,500 to 496,500. A year ago, initial jobless claims totaled 520,000 and continuing claims totaled 4.02 million.

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Can Washington break the deflationary spiral?

By Peter Cohan | Nov 25th 2009, 11:40AM EST Filed Under: Columns, Economy

A lot of economists and commentators are having trouble figuring out what to call our current economic situation. Should it be the Great Recession, the Financial Crisis, the Greatest Depression? I don't really think we'll know what to call it until we get some historical distance from it. And we won't get much historical distance until we figure out why it's continuing and then do something positive to get out of it.

I recently conducted a webinar, "The Economic Outlook for the U.S. and Key Industries." My basic conclusion was that when you have an economy which depends so heavily on consumers for growth -- personal consumption expenditures accounted for 67% of the GDP growth in the third quarter -- and millions of those consumers are unemployed, this creates a deflationary spiral that is hard to escape. Without income from jobs or easy credit for debt-fueled spending, it's hard to see how consumers can drive a recovery.

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House of cards: Home prices may be headed back down

By Lita Epstein | Nov 25th 2009, 11:00AM EST Filed Under: Economy, Wells Fargo & Co., Real Estate

house-of-cards-after-artificial-rise-home-prices-may-be-headed-down

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief as the latest S&P/Case Shiller U.S. National Home Price survey showed a price increase for the fifth straight month. Home prices may finally have hit bottom, but Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy is not so sure. In his weekly Housing Market Monitor, he says he thinks the boost may only be temporary, driven by the first-time homebuyers tax credit.

"Sales are clearly headed sharply lower in the months ahead," Baker warns in his Wednesday report. "The extension and expansion of the first-time buyers credit will have a positive impact, but it will not be sufficient to prevent a downturn." John Silvia, chief economist of Wells Fargo (WFC) agrees. He told the The New York Times that he forecasts a new decline in prices of as much as 10%.

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A flurry of scams accompany Black Friday shopping

By Tracy Coenen | Nov 25th 2009, 3:20PM EST Filed Under: Economy, McAfee

You can be very careful when shopping but you will still be at risk. Each time you hand your credit card to someone or transmit your credit card number over the Internet, you're putting yourself at risk. The Privacy Rights Clearing House tracks data breaches, reporting publicly on incidents of merchants and vendors exposing your private data to identity thieves. Millions of consumers are put at risk because of data breaches each year.

And during the holiday season, you're at even greater risk. No longer are consumers forced to wait in gargantuan lines to get deals on Black Friday. The Internet has become a safe-haven of those who don't like crowds, but still want to get in on the deals.

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Coke thinks globally, acts socially and blogs totally with Expedition 206

By Latif Lewis | Nov 25th 2009, 3:40PM EST Filed Under: Company News, Technology, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Coca-Cola Company

There's an old saying: "Fish where the fish are." That's exactly the approach big brands are taking as the era of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube transforms how companies engage with consumers, especially the youth market.

Case in point: Coca Cola (KO). The beverage giant is taking a deep dive into experimental marketing, in line with one of the key elements outlined in the company's 2020 vision: to develop and deploy the world's most innovative and effective marketing. One key component in the charge is Expedition 206, which is being touted as the largest social media program ever.

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Google Commerce: Search giant makes an under-the-radar shopping play

By Alex Salkever | Nov 25th 2009, 1:20PM EST Filed Under: Company News, Google , Microsoft, Amazon.com Inc.

Amidst the noise over the new Droid handset, Google's new free GPS navigation application, and Rupert Murdoch's dance with Microsoft (MSFT) to put News Corp. stories exclusively in the Bing search engine, Google (GOOG) slipped in another new product that could prove to have far more impact on its bottom line. On Nov. 4, the dominant search player unveiled a new search engine product geared to help e-commerce sites provide better intrasite search capabilities to users browsing wares. The move comes at a time when the online shopping world is heating up, with Amazon (AMZN) rapidly expanding it's non-book offerings, and Walmart.com (WMT) slashing prices to show up Jeff Bezos and his Seattle team at Amazon.

Called Google Commerce, it is likely a variant on Google's popular custom search engine product, which allows any site administrator to harness the power of Google to provide comprehensive search capabilities covering only content within their specific site. More broadly, Google Commerce could be part of a budding effort to insert the search giant more squarely into online shopping and grab reams of data to help it sell more ads.

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Free vs. fettered news: The battle lines form

By Jeff Bercovici | Nov 25th 2009, 12:35PM EST Filed Under: Media, Google , Microsoft, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, News Corp.

In Stephen King's novel The Stand, when the apocalypse arrives, the forces of good gather in Boulder while the hosts of evil flock to Las Vegas. In real life, in the midst of apocalyptic times for the media industry, the proponents of paid content are massing under the banners of Rupert Murdoch and Microsoft, (MSFT) while those who think the news ought to be free and ubiquitous can rally behind the BBC and Google (GOOG).

Murdoch, as you may have read here or here or here or here, is talking to Microsoft about a deal under which News Corp. (NWS) would withdraw its news sites' pages from Google's search listing while keeping them available through Bing, Microsoft's search engine, in return for unspecified millions. It's a mark of how fed up the newspaper industry is that other publishers are already making similar noises: Executives from MediaNews Group and A.H. Belo Corp. (AHC) now say they're also considering a Google block as a means of bolstering the pay walls they mean to implement. No word yet on whether Microsoft might dangle some cash to coax them along.

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Washington Post to close N.Y., L.A. and Chicago bureaus

By Douglas McIntyre | Nov 25th 2009, 12:00PM EST Filed Under: Company News

It is worth remembering that there was a time not too long ago when most large newspapers and news services got their stories about the federal government directly from their own Washington, D.C., bureaus. Some had bureaus in New York, London and elsewhere. But the era of the foreign correspondent began to end years ago. The era of the national corespondent is ending now.

The Washington Post announced Tuesday that it would shutter its last three bureaus outside its home market; New York, Chicago and Los Angeles will no longer be beats for Post writers.

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U.S. new home sales climb to highest level in a year, led by the South

By Joseph Lazzaro | Nov 25th 2009, 12:00PM EST Filed Under: Economy, Real Estate

New homes sales surged 6.2% in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 430,000, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Wednesday, as buyers rushed to take advantage of what many believed would be the end of the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers on October 30.

However, Congress has since extended the first-time home buyer credit through April 30, 2010.

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Store gift card sales plummet as consumers flock to prepaid debit cards

By Matthew Scott | Nov 25th 2009, 10:40AM EST Filed Under: Economy

Spending on private label store gift cards is projected to fall by 7% this year, as consumers tighten budgets in reaction to a weakened economy. Gift givers are also getting nervous about what retailers will have on the shelves after the holidays, as stores move to reduce inventory. General purpose prepaid debit cards are rapidly gaining favor as an alternative.

Research from financial advisory firm TowerGroup projects total gift card spending in 2009 will fall from $91 billion to $87 billion, the second straight yearly decline. Store gift card sales are projected to fall from $63 billion last year to $58 billion, while general purpose prepaid gift cards are projected to show a modest 3% increase to $29 billion from $28 billion last year. In fact, sales of general purpose prepaid gift cards, such as Mastercard or Visa prepaid debit cards, have increased the last five years in a row. Gift cards are a subset of the growing prepaid debit card business.

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Stocks in the news: AIG, Deere & Co., Tiffany, J. Crew, Microsoft

By Melly Alazraki | Nov 25th 2009, 9:00AM EST Filed Under: Company News, Investing, Microsoft, Boeing, American International Group, INC., Starbucks, Tiffany & Co., Toyota, J. Crew, Novartis

American International Group Inc. (AIG) has been authorized by its board to pay CEO Robert Benmosche's $7 million in compensation, after it laid to rest concerns that he might quit his post. This breaks down to an annual salary of $3 million in cash and $4 million in fully-vested AIG stock, which he can't sell for five years. With a performance bonus, the value of his pay package could reach $10.5 million.

Deere & Co. (DE) reported a quarterly net loss of $222.8 million, or 53 cents a share, on Wednesday on weak equipment sales, which fell 28% to $5.33 billion, and a series of one-time charges. Excluding charges, Deere would have earned 23 cents per share. The company also gave a fiscal 2010 outlook below analyst projections. Shares fell 1.3% in pre-market trading.

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