Obama takes fiscal cliff fears to Twitter with #My2K

It's reminiscent of 1999, but with a new social media kick. President Obama is using the phrase My2K to spread fears about the fiscal cliff to the masses on Twitter.

The White House claims that if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire at the end of the year, the typical family of four will pay $2,200 more in taxes next year. The president wants to extend the tax cuts MORE

The coming 'economic renaissance'

Could an energy boom, a housing recovery and easy money from the Federal Reserve be the perfect mix for an American revival? Consulting firm Oxford Economics certainly thinks so.

New forecasts released by the firm predict the U.S. is on the brink of an "economic renaissance," with economic growth accelerating to more than 3% a year starting in late 2013. (Gross domestic product is currently growing around 2% a year.)

The key MORE

Why California is broke, and Texas is not

Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher is proud of the Texas economy and isn't afraid to let it show.

Known for colorful speeches that often include Lindsay Lohan, tequila or Washington Irving references, Fisher offered up this joke in a speech before the conservative Cato Institute Wednesday afternoon.

Here, he describes how Texas has succeeded in producing a "pro-business, pro-growth environment," versus a state like California, which he says has done just MORE

Obama's welfare-to-work firestorm

Mitt Romney is accusing President Obama of turning the clock back on welfare reform.

The Republican challenger Tuesday launched a new ad charging Obama with gutting the landmark 1996 welfare reform law that requires recipients to work to receive benefits. It's another step in Romney's strategy to paint Obama as the entitlement president.

"You wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job," says the ad, which begins with MORE

California warily watches Facebook stock price

Facebook investors and employees aren't the only ones carefully watching the company's stock price deflate.

California, which was hoping to net up to $2 billion for its cash-strapped budget from Facebook's IPO, acknowledged this week that the company's stock price has "fallen far below" the $35 level assumed in the state's revenue projections.

Facebook (FB) dipped below $20 for the first time on Thursday, a far cry from its $38 initial public MORE

The poor more likely to live with the poor

More and more Americans are living in neighborhoods surrounded by people who earn about as much as them ... whether they are rich or poor.

Segregation by income is growing, according to a Pew Research Center analysis released Wednesday.

Some 28% of low-income households lived in low-income neighborhoods in 2010, up from 23% three decades earlier. And the number of upper-income households living in upper-income neighborhoods doubled to 18% over that period.

Pew MORE

Need a job? Move to Lafayette, La.

Those looking for work might consider moving to Lafayette, La.

Lafayette is expected to have the nation's largest gain in jobs among metropolitan areas, thanks to its booming energy sector, according to a new report from IHS Global Insight. Employment is expected to soar 8.8% this year, while the area's economy should jump 7.5%.

Overall, metro economies are expected to grow 1.8% in 2012, slightly trailing the nation. Last year, metro economies MORE

Fed Beige Book notes weakness in Mid-Atlantic states

The Federal Reserve's Beige Book notes that more regions of the country have started slowing recently.

The report paints a picture of a "modest to moderate" recovery in June and early July, with better news coming from the housing market in particular. But one pocket of the country including the region surrounding New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio saw economic growth slow recently, the report said.

Previously, only the Philadelphia region had MORE

Should the U.S. be borrowing more?

If there is one advantage to the current economic malaise, it is this: Borrowing costs for the United States have reached record low levels, creating an opportunity for the government to make much-needed investments at a low cost.

The U.S. government, thanks to its safe haven status, can currently borrow at rates of 0.6% for five years, 1.5% for 10 years and 2.55% over 30 years -- yields that contrast sharply MORE

Battle of the beards: Bernanke vs. Krugman

By now, you have probably heard of the "feud" taking place between Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and Nobel-prize winning New York Times economic columnist Paul Krugman. And if you haven't, what the heck are you doing reading this blog?

Anyway, here's the lowdown in case you aren't up to speed. Krugman took Bernanke to task in a Sunday NYT magazine piece, criticizing Bernanke for not doing enough to tackle the MORE