Barbara Kiviat
Time

The Obama Administration is out to create jobs. Let's not get our hopes up.

The day before the Labor Department announced a second month of 10%-plus unemployment last week, the White House hosted a get-together to hear from executives, labor leaders and academics about how the Federal Government can jolt job growth. "We're looking for fresh perspectives," the President said. "I am open to every demonstrably good idea."

That may sound promising, but the truth is, drumming up new jobs on short notice isn't exactly in the government's wheelhouse. In the long term, what the government does and doesn't do is incredibly important to the health of the labor market. Trade policy, corporate tax rates, the structure of health care — these things all have a real impact on economic growth. But Washington's tool kit doesn't work nearly as well in the short run. Right now companies aren't hiring for a very specific reason: there's not as much demand for their products and services. Callous as it may sound, high unemployment at the front end of an economic recovery is perfectly normal.

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Job candidates wait in line at a job fair in McLean, Virginia.

CNN

Two years into the current recession, Americans don't see economic conditions getting better any time soon, and the steady growth in optimism that previous polls measured throughout the year appears to have stalled, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday indicates that 34 percent of those questioned say that things are going well in the country today. That's 14 points higher than a year ago, but a dip of 3 points since November.

Full results (pdf)

"This the first time in Barack Obama's presidency that this number has gone down," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. Keep reading

Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

The Obama Administration is expected to slash the estimated cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program by $200 billion, effectively paving the way for a massive federal jobs program.

The latest projection, which will be officially unveiled by the White House this week, would cut TARP's price tag by $200 billion to $141 billion, according to a Treasury Department official.

And officials tell CNN that President Obama will recommend using the $200 billion to fund a series of projects - including building bridges and roads and weatherizing homes, as well as providing further aid to the unemployed and to small businesses. That’s expected to come in a speech on Tuesday.

Such a move is certain to draw fire from Republican lawmakers, who have railed against using any leftover bailout funds or money that has been paid back by banks for any new projects.

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Carbon trading is said to be one way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Graciela Chichilnisky
Author and architect of the carbon market
Special to CNN

Two market mechanisms within the Kyoto Protocol can help overcome the North-South divide, and help reach a solution between rich and poor nations while overhauling the world's energy industry and creating win-win solutions for the world economy.

The carbon market that I designed and drafted into the Kyoto Protocol is now trading $120 billion annually through the European Union Trading System. It starts by setting firm emission limits and allows those who over emit to compensate those who under emit, so far by $120 billion per year.

This secures a firm lower emission ceiling and provides market flexibility, creating incentives to introduce new clean technologies and products. Through its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) the carbon market has provided an additional $25 billion investment in clean, productive commercial projects in developing nations that are compensated with tradable carbon credits.

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CNN

Last quarter, the economy grew by the largest amount since the summer of 2007, but there are signs that things are still getting worse.

Go here and learn more about the ups and downs of the economy.

Editor's Note: This article continues our series excerpted from AC360°'s contributor David Gewirtz's upcoming book, How To Save Jobs, which will be available in December. Over the next few months, we'll be excerpting the first section of the book, which answers the question, "How did we get here?" Last time, we looked at how the dot-com bubble lost $5 trillion. This time, we begin our look at outsourcing and how its hurting American jobs. To learn more about the book, follow David on Twitter @DavidGewirtz.

David Gewirtz | BIO
AC360° Contributor
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

To many Americans, the word "outsourcing" is a four-letter word. It implies, as Ross Perot called it, a "giant sucking sound," where jobs leave the United States for less advantaged countries.

Perot was concerned about NAFTA in the early 1990s sucking good paying American jobs to Mexico, but as it turns out, he had no idea what was coming - and certainly no idea of the magnitude of the problem we'd be facing a couple of decades later. As you'll see, NAFTA is the least of our worries.

We've been actively permitting foreign companies to set up shop here, and then bring in their people to displace ours.

Outsourcing is one of our main job-related problems and I'll talk more about it later in this chapter. But it's not our only problem. In fact, the policy of the American government over the last half a decade or so has not only made outsourcing economically viable, it's all but encouraged bringing foreign workers into the United States.

And, in a shining example of your tax dollars at work, we weren't just bringing foreign nationals into the United States, we've been actively permitting foreign companies to set up shop here, and then bring in their people to displace ours.

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Amy M. Wilkinson
Special to CNN

It's the oldest trick in the political playbook: Call together a "summit" of fancy people so you'll appear to be focused on work that must get done.

Thursday, the White House convened CEOs from companies such as Boeing, AT&T, Comcast and Dow Corning, top leaders of the United Steelworkers, United Food and Commercial Workers, American Federation of Teachers unions, Ivy League academics and a few small-business representatives to brainstorm how the country might generate much-needed jobs.

A schmooze-fest is nice, but the hard work of putting America back to work will be done by entrepreneurs, not the leaders of the biggest companies in the nation and the heads of big unions.

The mom-and-pop shops, garage start-ups and small businesses across the country will put Americans back on the payroll. According to the Census Bureau, nearly all net job creation in the U.S. since 1980 has been generated by firms operating less than five years.

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Speeders doing more than 85mph in Georgia will soon pay an additional $200 in fines.

Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

Today we received the best news on the jobs front that we’ve had in about two years.

The job market showed signs of stabilizing in November as employers trimmed the fewest jobs of any month since the start of the recession, and the unemployment rate posted the biggest one-month decline in more than three years.

Still, today’s number brings job losses since the start of 2008 to 7.2 million. Additionally, 15.4 million Americans are now unemployed and seeking work. Another 6 million want jobs, but are not counted as part of the labor force because they have stopped looking. Keep reading

Chris Isidore
CNNMoney.com senior writer

The long-suffering U.S. jobs market improved significantly in November, as employers trimmed the fewest jobs of any month since the start of the recession, and the unemployment rate posted the biggest one-month decline in more than three years.

U.S. payrolls slipped 11,000 jobs in the month, far below any of the job losses posted over the last 23 months. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of 125,000 jobs in November.

The October and September job loss estimates were also revised sharply lower, trimming previous job loss estimates by 159,000 between them.

The new reading put October job losses at 111,000 jobs, and September's loss estimate was cut to 139,000. Each of those new estimates would have been the smallest declines in more than a year.

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Bank of America said late Wednesday it planned to return the entire $45 billion in bailout money it received from the government over the past year.

Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

President Obama called on business leaders this afternoon to help his administration kick-start hiring as policymakers contend with rising unemployment that’s weighing down the economy.

Some 130 executives, economists, small business owners and non-profit officials are gathering for the jobs summit at the White House on the eve of the government's November unemployment report. The nation is expected to have lost another 114,000 jobs, with unemployment remaining at 10.2%, the highest in 26 years, according to an economists' survey.

"I'm not interested in taking a wait and see approach when it comes to creating jobs," Obama said. Keep reading