"Help is on the way" was the message from Washington last week.  President Barack Obama signed into law a $787 billion economic stimulus plan last Tuesday, including federal spending of more than a half a trillion dollars over the next 2 years.  The following day, our month-old president announced details of a nationwide plan to assist between 7-9 million struggling homeowners by facilitating the refinancing or modification of their existing mortgages into less expensive monthly payments.  2 of the 3 largest US automakers told Congress late Tuesday that they may need an additional $21.6 billion of loans to survive, above and beyond the $17.4 billion that was extended to them in December.  An Oregon bank was taken over by the government on Friday, making it 8 banks that have failed this month alone (source: BTN Research).   
 
A relatively benign comment from the chairman of the Senate Finance committee about the possibility of bank nationalization sent the fragile US stock market reeling on Friday.  The S&P 500 came close to its 11/20/08 closing low of 752, but eventually finished the week at 770 (source: BTN Research).    
 
President Obama has a busy week scheduled, including a "fiscal responsibility" summit on Monday, a speech before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, and details of his first budget (fiscal year 2010) to be presented on Thursday (source: White House).

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