Bill Manzi.com

A historic moment for the country, and certainly a very fine speech by president-elect Barack Obama. I thought that John McCain made a very good speech as well, and his call to find areas of agreement in the sea of partisanship was very appropriate. Did you stay up late for the speech? Did Obama hit the right themes?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/27546437#27546437

Senator Barack Obama, making history and re-writing the electoral map, defeated John McCain to become the 44th President of the United States. Senator McCain has just offered a gracious concession, and Obama is poised to speak in front of a huge crowd in Chicago. History has been made. I will post the Obama and McCain remarks shortly.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/27545964#27545964

MSNBC will post results on this newfangled electoral map posted here. We will also post Methuen results as soon as they come in. Lets get ready to rumble!

Notables so far: Jeanne Shaheen defeats John Sununu in New Hampshire, and Liddy Dole looks beaten in North Carolina. Obama has captured the key battleground of PA.

Obama has been projected the winner in Ohio, and if that holds you may as well say goodnight to John McCain, because it is over.

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As we prepare to elect a new President today the magnitude of the job facing that person is becoming clearer by the day. Circuit City, one of the nations largest electronics retailers, announced plans to shutter 155 stores and lay off scores of employees. From the Washington Post:

Circuit City is shutting down 155 U.S. stores and laying off 17 percent of its workforce as sales continue to slump along with a sharp slowdown in consumer spending, the company said yesterday.

The struggling Richmond-based electronics retailer said it hoped the moves would help cut costs and conserve cash. Several of its vendors have begun to limit credit, including requiring payment before the goods are shipped, the company said. Some vendors have also refused a traditional increase in Circuit City’s credit to purchase holiday merchandise.

Measurerments of manufacturing activity in the United States also plunged to lows not seen in decades.

Activity in the nation’s manufacturing sector, beleaguered by tightfisted consumers and the global credit crisis, declined last month to the lowest level in more than two decades, offering economists more evidence that the country is entering a deep recession.

The Institute for Supply Management’s index of conditions in the manufacturing sector is at its lowest level since the nation was in a recession in September 1982. Export orders have collapsed, and businesses appear to be struggling to sell inventories of items ranging from appliances to tobacco products, the report said.

“The bottom line is that this a very negative survey result and probably does spell a deep recession,” said Abiel Reinhart, an economist at J.P. Morgan Chase.

The survey’s index registered a score of 38.9. That figure, while probably obscure to most Americans, is a clear indication to economists that the manufacturing sector is shrinking markedly — in fact, any figure below 50 indicates a contraction. The index was 43.5 in September.

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist with High Frequency Economics, which advises institutional investors, called the new figure “hideous” and added that “when you see a number like this, it’s very alarming.”

The United States auto market continued its free fall, with staggering declines in the monthly sales figures just released.

Automakers reported yet another month of steep sales declines yesterday — the worst in 17 years. Industry-wide, they sold 838,156 new cars, minivans and trucks in October, a collapse of about 32 percent compared with October 2007, according to preliminary data released yesterday by the industry research firm Autodata.

General Motors, Toyota, Ford and Chrysler, the four largest automakers in the U.S. market, all reported double-digit nosedives. GM said sales plummeted 45 percent compared with October of last year. Toyota’s sales eroded 23 percent, and Ford’s fell 29 percent. Chrysler reported a 35 percent drop.

U.S. sales total 11.6 million for the year so far, down about 15 percent, according to Autodata.

“It’s really an unsustainably weak level for all manufacturers,” said Mike DiGiovanni, GM’s executive director of global market and industry analysis. “This is clearly a severe, severe recession for the U.S. automotive industry and something we really can’t sustain.”

General Motors, the linchpin of American manufacturing for decades, is burning cash at over one billion a month and is careening towards a bankruptcy filing sometime next year absent some major change. In Massachusetts the Globe is reporting that Tweeter Etc, a high end electronics retailer that emerged from bankruptcy a year ago, is permanently closing its doors.

Hudson Capital Partners and Tiger Capital Group are planning to liquidate the merchandise at the company’s 94 stores. Already, Tweeter’s distribution centers and headquarters in Canton are shutting down. Tweeter, which opened its first shop next to Boston University in 1972, will stop its high-end installation services on Nov. 14, said employees at six Massachusetts shops who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on behalf of the company

The new President will face a daunting economic picture that is going to cause us all a lot of pain. Whoever wins this race the American people have a right to expect a period of serious business from its elected leaders in Washington. That may be a naive expectation, but this is not your run of the mill recession.

I have not seen the full version myself, but the Peterson Foundation has just released a shorter version, suitable for blogspace. As we all argue about which segment of society is entitled to tax breaks I read a line in Tom Friedman’s column today in the New York Times that really hit the nail on the head. From Friedman:

Since the last debate, John McCain and Barack Obama have unveiled broad ideas about how to restore the nation’s financial health. But they continue to suggest that this will be largely pain-free. McCain says giving everyone a tax cut will save the day; Obama tells us only the rich will have to pay to help us out of this hole. Neither is true.

We are all going to have to pay, because this meltdown comes in the context of what has been “perhaps the greatest wealth transfer since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917,” says Michael Mandelbaum, author of “Democracy’s Good Name.” “It is not a wealth transfer from rich to poor that the Bush administration will be remembered for. It is a wealth transfer from the future to the present.”

Never has one generation spent so much of its children’s wealth in such a short period of time with so little to show for it as in the Bush years. Under George W. Bush, America has foisted onto future generations a huge financial burden to finance our current tax cuts, wars and now bailouts. Just paying off those debts will require significant sacrifices. But when you add the destruction of wealth that has taken place in the last two months in the markets, and the need for more bailouts, you understand why this is not going to be a painless recovery.

Maybe it is an overblown concept, but we appear to be arguing on the deck of the Titanic about who will get that last glass of water. And it appears to be a universally accepted theory that speaking the truth about difficult times ahead is politically undoable. I do not believe that is true, but I am a distinct minority on that subject.