Readers of this space know that the emphasis is placed on the economic, on commerce, and business trends, with a general avoidance of goings-on inside the beltway.

However, the financial crisis (which spawned federal bank bail-out legislation) and the nation's pronounced recession (which requires fiscal stimulus to end), has meant that things occurring in Washington once again have great relevance for investors.

And one current D.C. development must be evaluated: the House Republican leadership's decision to seek a federal spending freeze for the fiscal 2010 federal budget, The AP reported.

New York Times (NYSE: NYT) columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman argues, in so many words, that, indeed, the United States must go back, to get to the future.

Krugman's advice for President-elect Barack Obama? Think big. Contrary to selected, conservative arguments about President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, the reason the New Deal had limited, short-term success was the fact that FDR's economic policies were too cautious, he said.

The New Deal: new life

The New Deal's long-term success and achievements, including the structural changes to the U.S. economy (including Social Security and bank deposit insurance), have proved to be both durable and essential, most economists, including Krugman, agree.

Hence, President-elect Obama should think big from the get-go, Krugman says, and avoid the mistaken belief that 'government spending made the Great Depression worse,' and Obama should move forward with a large fiscal stimulus to put people back to work, for work that needs to be done in these United States.

It's only been a few weeks since Henry Paulson begged Congress for $700 billion to bail out Wall Street, but Americans already seem to be coming to terms with the mountain of cash that they have had to lay out. Then again, one can only maintain self-righteous anger for so long and, with the onset of winter, finding ways to pay for heating and Christmas trumps the desire to set fire to the local bank. Still, as today's outrage becomes tomorrow's history, it is vital that America find a way to package this episode.

The first struggle has been to come up with a name for the Wall Street meltdown (I still like "Bernanke Panky"). However, as that plays out, it's time to begin finding a villain to blame. This is tremendously important stuff. For history to be written, complex events must be boiled down to a single cause, preferably an individual who can take responsibility for everything. For example, as every schoolchild knows, LBJ caused Vietnam, Hoover caused the Great Depression, and Nixon caused Watergate. Never mind that these men were the products of their ages or that history is a complex process. Children need villains, history demands explanations, and Americans crave resolution. Never mind that millions of homeowners signed up for mortgages that they couldn't pay, that millions of investors blindly purchased worthless securities, and that the groundwork for this disaster was laid by Democrats and Republicans demonstrating an impressive, albeit bipartisan, ignorance. History must be written and blame must be laid. Chances are, it will end up falling on one of the following people:

The pricing power of larger discount chains like Wal-Mart Stores,Inc. (NYSE:WMT) and the Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) is being cited as a main reason that Whirlpool has sold its Hoover line of floor care products to Chinese-based Techtronics Industries.

This should really come as no surprise given that ultra-low prices -- even in Target Stores with it's recently-revised image of mid-tier svelte -- are the going rage in certain categories of goods. Whirlpool NYSE:WHR) said that the sale of the Hoover floor-care business "allows us to focus on our core appliance business." I'll take that as a grain of salt.

Most likely, Whirlpool could not continue to operate profitably with the pricing structure of low-end floor-care products that continue to see price declines on a regular basis. In fact, Whirlpool announced several months ago that it intended to sell the Hoover operation -- as the division has had difficulty competing with a surge of low-cost imports -- mostly form China (where else) due to the vacuum manufacturer need to deal with relatively high labor costs.

What else is new -- this is the standard operating procedure these days in the goods manufacturing field of any industry. Add that to the ever-lower prices discounters require for these products and wham -- off to China we go.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) is now targeting price cutbacks on selected small home appliances for the Christmas season. Its rollbacks are on nearly 50 home appliances from brands including GE, Hoover and Sharp.

Here are some of the listed items and price cuts:
-Hoover fusion cyclonic upright vacuum (was $112/now $98)
-Mr. Coffee 12-cup programmable coffee maker (was $42.48/now $37.88) and espresso maker (was $29.86/now $24.88)
-Sharp .08 cubic foot black microwave (was $54.88/now $49.88)
-GE 1.1 cubic foot microwave (was $64.72/now $59.88)
-Black & Decker Quick 'N Easy 8-cup food processor (was $29.72/now $24.88)

Wal-Mart will continue to roll back the prices of toys, electronics, apparel and more this holiday season. While this is not as extreme as the select electronics price cuts, this is just one more initiative that the company is willing to do whatever it can from keeping those November same-store sales from being as FLAT as the company recently forecast. These cuts are not on such expensive items that they will bite into margins, and they probably got GE, Hoover, and Sharp to take some juice out, ,too.

But this is still a trend toward more and more lower-priced items that are driving margins down in an effort to keep from posting flat or negative same-store sales. It has to make you wonder that if the economy is slowing into 2007 what the monster retailer can do to keep its same-store sales higher in 2007.

It also makes you wonder now if Wal-Mart will actually endorse a higher minimum wage. If they have to get into the spiral of only worrying about same-store sales instead of raw profits, that would actually make sense. It would increase their labor costs drastically and therefore affect operating costs, but it might result in higher spending from their demographics in 2007.

Jon C. Ogg
November 10, 2006

Jon Ogg is a partner in 24/7 Wall St., LLC; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.