U.S. stocks suffered their first weekly loss since May last week, further exacerbating trader concern that the bullish surge that sent share prices up as much as 40% from their March lows may have been overdone.

As the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression continues to worsen, decades of deregulation and the growing independence at the state level are being reversed as a deteriorating national economy forces the federal government to increasingly take on responsibilities that no other institution has the power or resources to handle.

Christmas may be over, but Obama is keeping the ’season of giving’ going on the Hill…the next bubble will be in public debt… Stock prices are more ‘normal’ than they were a year ago…how many chickens can get in a plane engine? What is bad for GM is bad for America…just when you think you have things figured out, the facts change…and more!

AT&T Disconnecting 12,000 Jobs; Credit Suisse Announces 5,300; Capital One Puts Chevy Chase in Its Wallet; Argentina Announces $3.9 Billion Stimulus, Jobless Benefits at 26-year High; Dupont Cuts 2,500 Employees; Williams-Sonoma Beats Estimates; Oil Falls 5%

President-elect Barack Obama yesterday (Monday) formally unveiled his economic team, including the nomination of New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy F. Geithner as the new administration’s U.S. Treasury secretary. The team’s first challenge will be assembling an economic stimulus package that could be even larger than the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) the Bush Administration has deployed.

The U.S. economy shrank at an annualized rate of 0.3% in the third quarter – the biggest decline in seven years – after businesses cut back on investments and consumer spending experienced its sharpest pullback since 1980. And though the contraction was smaller than economists expected, they are still predicting a drawn-out downturn that could be one of worst U.S. recessions since the Great Depression.

Stimulus checks helped send retail sales up 1% in May, the Commerce Department said yesterday (Thursday), bolstering the dollar and lifted the mood on Wall Street.

In the currency market, the dollar erased early losses and firmed against the euro for the second straight day. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.5432 vs. $1.5459 on Wednesday.