The Economy - Pushing on a String?

Neither President Obama nor his Jobs Council can lecture the economy back to health. Concrete actions are needed now.

This is a perilous moment for our country and for our economy. Job creation is sluggish, and unemployment remains stubbornly high at 9.1 percent. The housing market is still unsettled. Moreover we are beginning to see clear, unmistakable evidence of a gathering storm:

• On April 18, there was the warning by Standard & Poor's about our future credit-rating.
  
  Moody's expressed similar concerns on June 2.
  
  An adviser to the Chinese Central Bank in June warned us sternly that even a brief U.S. default would be "playing with fire."
  

And finally, the cost of buying credit default swaps on Treasury debt -- those esoteric instruments used most commonly to insure against corporate bond defaults -- recently has been at its highest level since late-March.