As the White House gets ready to infuse billions of dollars in the second part of the economic stimulus program, the jury among the experts seems to be out as to whether the first part is working properly at all. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has said that at least one part of the program would be winding down if things go according to the way he hopes.

Some officials have been talking about shutting down certain parts of the TARP program because they would rather focus the efforts on small business. Although the program could end at the end of this year, the government does have the power to extend it beyond the deadline if there is a need that they can see.

Although Geithner has made it clear that he will be happy to see the end of the program, at least one Republican made clear that he thought Geithner should resign given the state of the economy and the tremendous deficit that has been racked up.

Although there was some criticism a panel of experts to pointed out that the TARP program did avert the collapse of the entire financial system.

Under the government’s proposed foreclosure avoidance plan, only a handful of the homeowners in need are actually getting the help that was proposed by the president. This is raising new concerns about how effective the $75 billion enterprise is in actually keeping people in their homes.

By the end of September, the industry was reporting that fewer than 5% of the loans that are owned by Freddie Mac were actually converted so the people who had almost lost their homes could be allowed to stay. The problem has got the attention of the government and the Treasury Department is set to release their findings after looking into the issue.

There seems to be a little bit of ‘ back and forth’ in the process as well. Homeowners that are finding themselves in trouble are accusing the lending institutions of losing their paperwork.  At the same time, some lending institutions are saying that the homeowners never presented the proper documentation to them in the first place.

Analysts also say that the program is relatively new and the conversion rate is low at least partially because everyone is still ramping up.

Many people who’ve lost their jobs are now in danger of losing whatever income they have as their unemployment benefits start to run out.  According to a report that was released yesterday, over one million people will lose their benefits in January unless the government takes steps to extend the money they get.

“Congress has less than four weeks left on its schedule to legislate this year, and unless it acts to renew the unemployment provisions during this period, the clock will run out for a million workers,” one official said.

The unemployment rate is at a 26 year high and having these kinds of benefits run out is a concern to both the government and of course the people who might be losing the money. There had been a recent extension in unemployment benefits but that took nearly 7 weeks to pass to the president’s desk.

Of course another extension is likely to get the support it needs on Capitol Hill, but the concert is once again how much wrangling will stall the bill as it makes its way into law.

In the first good news on the unemployment for quite some time the jobless rate has not gone up recently. A government report released today said the number of people applying for unemployment insurance benefits is the lowest it’s been since January. This comes at a time when a brief survey of economists expected that there would be more new claims and the leveling off comes as some welcome news.

Although some experts point to the encouraging news that perhaps the worst is behind us and the unemployment situation is starting to level off,  there are still others who point to the fact that the trend could very well be a result of people whose claims have ended and they are no longer counted as the unemployed.

There was only one state in the union that actually had a decline in the number of people who filed for unemployment in this time period. The claims in Florida actually fell by almost 2000 people and the government their attributes the drop to fewer layoffs in the construction and manufacturing industries there.

The amount of money spent to sway either side with things like radio ads and television spots in the national healthcare debate is well on its way to becoming a legislative record breaker.  The interesting point that critics are making about all the money that has been spent on things like television ads, lobbyists and political donations is that when all the money is combined it is enough to pay for the health insurance costs of almost 50,000 American families.

It seems as the debates heat up, the amount of money that gets spent increases as well.  A report published today says that at least one third of the $600 million that has been spent so far has gone into ads and other techniques over the last several months.

The groups that are spending the money to sway public opinion to their side of the debate arent that surprising. Doctors groups and executives from the health industry themselves account for two large groups that are spending money to make sure their viewpoints are well backed up. Some of these groups oppose the government’s proposed changes.

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The prospects for recent college grads to get the jobs they are training for isn’t very good. A new report shows that the number of jobs for college grads is at its lowest level in decades and although there will be a spike with smaller firms, the overall picture is pretty bleak.

Michigan State University keeps track of these statistics and they find that the opportunities for recent college graduates plunged 40% last year alone. They also report that they are hopeful that things are as bad as they’re going to get. Phil Gardner, director of MSU’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute, had this to say:

“Things fell apart really fast last year, but it looks like the job market for graduates has hit a bottom.”

It seems that the more education these students get, the worse off it will be for them. For example, Masters Degree candidates will see a drop of  11% in the numbers of jobs they can expect to apply for in accounting this year.  It’s interesting to note that large companies are the ones that are looking to decrease their hiring numbers by at least 3 per cent.

With the economy in the bad shape that it’s in it’s no surprise that the competition for jobs is fierce, and in a tight job market you can’t afford to make any mistakes when you finally get to the interview stage. Here’s a short list of some of the things you’ll need to watch out for and how to fix them when you find yourself blundering in an  interview.

1. First and foremost you can remember that you might not be doing anything wrong. Before you go out and hire an expert to coach you in what to say and do in a job interview, remember that the unemployment rate is 10.2% nationally.  This means that there are just a little over six people looking for every available job. One of the first things you want to do is remember not to be too hard on your interview skills given those odds.
2. Try not to over explain why you lost your last job. Remember that it’s okay to mention that you lost your last job, but then move on to what you can do for the person that’s interviewing you.

One of the other things that the experts say you want to avoid is keeping too tight a rain on your emotions.  It’s all right to show all any prospective employer that you have a personality and can laugh a little and do a good job at the same time.

Bonus time is fast approaching in some of America’s biggest companies and that means the government’s pay czar is about ready to do his job  but some are saying he’s walking a difficult tightrope.  Although his job is to safeguard abuses of government money that was spent to shore up some companies, the worry is for at least seven companies that top executives will get up and leave.

Kenneth Feinberg is the man the government has given this tall order too. This isn’t the first time he has been axing the kind of money the top executives get at the firms in question.   In October, Feinberg cut the bonuses that these executives would receive by about half and transferred much of the payments they received into stock options that were performance-based.

The problem is that some of these executives have threatened to leave the already troubled firms if further cutbacks go through. This is a situation that Feinberg says that he is acutely aware of. A form last week in Washington that dealt with the matter, Feinberg said that he was very aware of the situation and would look at competitive solutions.

The author of the piece describes how he only needs to hold his iphone up and watch the camera image that tells him where he wants to go in Washington. It’s an example of what the tech world is calling augmented reality. It’s the latest thing that technology watchers are curious about.

This augmented reality is found on iphones and it can pinpoint a user’s location and feed information right on the screen about the exact spot where you happen to be at the time. It does have a big drawback, however, in that it doesn’t seem to work all that well.

There seems to be afew problems with this emerging application but hopes seems to be high that once the bugs get worked out, users will be able to point their iphones at any given building and get real time information about it. There are some misgivings about the technology finding places, however.

It seems that the icon on the screen that you will need to follow to get to where you want to go might be harder to follow in the end than just using a simple old fashioned map.