Disney (DIS), a media business that competes with Viacom (VIA), CBS (CBS), News Corp. (NWS), and General Electric's (GE) NBC Universal, will be talking up its fourth-quarter numbers on Thursday after the bell. Are you a shareholder? If so, are you excited? Well, don't get too excited, because we might not be getting any growth, even if the Mouse beats on the bottom line. According to Earnings.com, the call is for 40 cents per share versus the 43 cents per share made in the comparable period.

You know what, though? For the most part, I'm not so concerned with exactly how much Disney makes this quarter. I'm a shareholder, and I want to see management at least come in at the estimate, of course, but I'll be more interested in the conference call. Way more interested this time around, in fact.

We can now say that the current recession has sunk to a level even worse than the horrible early 1980s recession, as measured by one indicator: The broadest measure of U.S. unemployment -- which includes unemployed and underemployed Americans, as well as discouraged workers -- rose to 17.5% in October, according to data compiled by the U.S. Labor Department. The previous high was 17.1% in December 1982, The New York Times reported.

The index, statistically known as "U-6," totaled 17.0% in September and 16.8% in August; that's up from 12.0% a year ago, in October 2008.

For years, it's been evident that smaller airlines have had an operating advantage, particularly when they use less expensive airports. They've been able to post better numbers as a result, and in the current travel slump, they've outperformed the larger carriers. Well, they've also picked up a considerable amount of market share. According to a report by USA Today, low cost carriers now have 30% of the market in the United States. Price-sensitive consumers are turning to cheaper alternatives, even if it means (for fliers with elite status) giving up the perks they've earned through years of customer loyalty.

Southwest (LUV), JetBlue (JBLU), AirTran (AAI) and others have grown rapidly, using an approach that keeps cost in check to deliver lower fares. In an industry that's always been price-drive, this is a winning strategy. And, in the worst recession in seven decades, it's even more effective. While Delta (DAL), United (UAUA) and other large carriers are struggling in today's economic climate, their smaller, cheaper and more nimble competitors are gobbling up consumers hearts and minds wallets.

While the big news today may be the release of Activision Blizzard's (ATVI) new Call of Duty title, there's other stuff going on in the world of video games for investors to ponder. Electronic Arts (ERTS) issued its Q2 report yesterday after the bell. The numbers weren't too bad, but the market was not excited at all by them, probably because it knows that EA still has a lot of work to do in terms of better positioning itself for the future.

Adjusted revenues were up a scant 2%. Earnings per share, excluding items, actually showed a profit of 6 cents. This was a lot better than the loss of 6 cents per share seen in the year-ago frame. The company also managed to generate a small amount of cash from operations in the quarter instead of using a whole bunch like it did last time around.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global energy use is going to fall this year. That said, the group also believes that energy use will resume its upward trend, should government policies remain the same.

Looking far ahead, the IEA believes that the world's demand is projected to rise by 40% between now and 2030, when demand is estimated to hit 16.8 billion tons of oil equivalent.

The housing market is still mired in price declines during the third quarter. Prices declined in 80% of metro areas. Of the 153 metro areas surveyed, 123 still saw price declines, while 30 saw price increases. Overall, the national median price has fallen 11.2% from last year.

Let's look at specific towns and cities with the highest price declines and the highest price increases:

• Fort Myers, Florida tops the list with a 40% decline. Median home prices were $98,000.00
• Las Vegas, Nevada saw a 35% decline. Median home prices were $138,500.00
• On the up side, Cumberland Maryland saw a price increase of 19% Median home prices rose to $122,100.00
• Davenport, Iowa was next with a 14% increase. Median home prices were $115,600.00.

The vision of Clearwire (CLWR) is definitely ambitious: to "give you faster Internet at home, at work and on the go, so that people everywhere will have the magic of the Internet with them all the time." This means building a sophisticated network across the country, which does not come cheap.

Tuesday, Clearwire announced yet another financing round, which comes to $1.56 billion. The investors include Sprint Nextel (S), Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), Intel (INTC), Eagle River Holdings LLC, and Bright House Networks LLC.

Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE - option chain) stock is trading lower today after the company reported third-quarter earnings yesterday evening, posting a loss of $18.46 million, or 31 cents per share, on revenue of $31.18 million. Analysts had forecast a 30-cent loss per share on revenue of $34.96 million. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on CLNE.

This morning, CLNE opened at $12.25. So far today the stock has hit a high of $12.25 and a low of $11.55. As of 11:40, CLNE is trading at $11.87, down 97 cents (-7.6%). The chart for CLNE looks bearish.

Out of the kindness of its ginormous heart, Google (GOOG) is giving holiday travelers a bit of cheer this season, providing free Wi-Fi in 47 U.S. airports starting today and running through January 15. As a bonus to Virgin America passengers traveling within the continental U.S., Google is providing in-flight Wi-Fi as well.

Of course, the Web search giant has an ulterior motive. In a statement, a Google spokesperson said: "This is one of our holiday gifts to our users, and when you connect, we also hope you'll take the opportunity to try some of the latest Google products."

Analyst upgrades:

• Janney Montgomery upgraded Adobe (ADBE) to buy from neutral on expectations for a strong CS5 product cycle in 2010. The firm raised its target on shares to $43 from $33.
• Kaufman Bros. upgraded Rackspace (RAX) to buy from hold to reflect the company's "strong" Q3 results and expectations growth will accelerate in 2010. The firm raised its target on shares to $22.50 from $16. Oppenheimer upgraded Rackspace to outperform from perform and established a $24 price target on the stock.
• Stephens upgraded Ann Taylor (ANN) to overweight from equal weight as it believes the company's core brand will recover faster than originally thought. The firm raised its target on shares to $17 from $12.
• Rockwell (ROK) was upgraded to neutral from underperform at Baird.
• Taiwan Semi (TSM) was raised to outperform from market perform at FBR Capital.
• Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was upgraded to buy from hold at Deutsche Bank.

Dr. Doom is back. Last week, New York University economist Nouriel Roubini decided to speak out about the current economic recovery, warning that it cannot last. I'm not quite sure how this blog missed my radar screen, so I must thank Robert J. Samuelson for bringing it to my attention yesterday.

Roubini contends that while there was a massive rally in "all sorts of risky assets" has caused the dollar had weakened sharply and government bond yields have "increased but stayed low and stable." These risky assets that Roubini discusses are equities, oil, energy, and commodity. Dr. Doom believes that the prices for these risky assets have risen too far and too fast compared to macroeconomic fundamentals.

It's not the first time this happened, and likely not the last. The European Commission has objected to Oracle's (ORCL) acquisition of Sun Microsystems (JAVA) after U.S. authorities have approve the $7.4 billion deal.

The issue is Sun's database product, MySQL, which European antitrust authorities fear wouldn't be developed after the acquisition since Oracle has its own database and therefore it would hurt competition in the database business. Together, the two will have quite a large share of the market, the EU contends. The U.S. authorities disagrees, saying there are enough competitors in the market and that "the merger is unlikely to be anticompetitive."

North Koreans don't need DVR technology any more. The most important purpose of these devices -- to fast forward through commercials -- no longer applies, now that the reclusive Communist state has banned television commercials from the airwaves.

According to the Yonhap news agency, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was upset when he saw commercials showing up on Korean Central Television in early July. The report quotes a source close to Kim as saying the ruler's response to the ad was: "What is this? That kind of rubbish appeared when China started reforms and openness." He was obviously pissed and hasn't been open to suggestions that he follow China's lead in embracing a limited form of capitalism.

While attending the MBA program at the Wharton School, Omar Hamoui was trying to solve a big problem. Basically, he wanted to find a way to get advertising revenues from his mobile site. Then he realized that many other sites probably had the same problem. So why not start a company to solve the problem?

That what he did, creating AdMob (yes, he is still on leave from Wharton). And, it was a great move. Today, Google (GOOG) agreed to buy AdMob for a cool $750 million in stock.

Sometimes you can get an indication of market trend by looking at the prices of futures contracts in the forward months. Oil futures contracts trade out as far a 2017. Oil futures contracts for the year 2017 are trading a just a shade under $100 per barrel, while spot crude was trading at $77.65 per barrel (spot prices are cash prices.)

The International Energy Agency has said that last year's spike of oil prices to $147 per barrel was a contributing factor in tipping the world into recession. It damaged trade balances, reduced household income and dampened growth, putting pressure on inflation and interest rates.