(AP:WASHINGTON) Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the economic recovery “could be a little choppy” and it’s going to take a while. Geithner told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that bringing back jobs and the confidence of investors will be the real test of recovery. He declined to say whether the recession is over, saying economists will figure that out years from now.

Recent encouraging news in the economy “shows that _ when you act with force _ you can stabilize a crisis like this,” he said in the interview that will air Sunday.

“But this is going to be a different recovery than in the past because Americans are going to have to save more. A lot of damage was caused by this crisis. It’s going to take some time for us to grow out of this. “It could be a little choppy. It could be uneven. And it’s going to take

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Stock markets recorded another strong week as further signs of economic stabilization emerged. The S&P 500 Index worked its way back to above the 1,000 level on Friday, and more upside lies ahead said Abby Joseph Cohen, Goldman Sachs’ market strategist, as she expected the Index to reach the 1,100 mark by year end.

This week’s batch of video clips not only covers the outlook for stock markets, but also discussions about the economy’s transition from recession to recovery and other topical issues. Appearing on camera are Jeffry Sachs, Robert Shiller, Larry Summers, Lakshman Achuthan, Joseph Stiglitz, David Rosenberg and David Hickey.

The selection starts off with two academics - Jeffrey Sachs and Robert Shiller - and concludes with a discussion about the “man-cession” - older white male workers being among the hardest hit by job losses.

Fora.tv: Jeffrey Sachs - global effects of crisis “Jeffrey Sachs, Director

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It looks like this hasn't gone away yet, as the Russian newspapers opened the week with several front page stories on the Biden comments (though not so much about the Hillary response):From the Associated Press:

Some newspapers and commentators noted that Russians say the same things about themselves. The question, they said, was why Biden made the comments so quickly after this month's summit by Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev, and after Biden's own trip last week to Ukraine and Georgia, former Soviet republics whose growing ties to the West are deeply resented in Moscow.

Sergei Rogov, director of the government-funded USA and Canada Institute, was quoted in Kommersant as saying the interview was aimed in part at addressing criticism in the U.S. that the

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U.S. President Barack Obama has opened the door to a broader relationship with Cuba by loosening travel and communication restrictions. But will pressure from numerous Latin American states and a promise to usher in a new era of cooperation and dialogue in the Western Hemisphere ultimately result in the revocation of the 47 year-old trade embargo? And what would it mean if the Cuban trade embargo were actually abolished? President Obama has already loosened several restrictions enacted by his predecessor George W. Bush. Prior to his arrival at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago last weekend, Obama relaxed restrictions on travel to Cuba, making it easier for Cuban Americans to visit and transfer money to relatives on the island. “There are no better ambassadors for freedom than Cuban Americans,” Obama said in a campaign speech last year. “It’s time to ...

General Motors Corp. (GM) will meet with the U.S. Treasury department’s automotive task force as soon as this week to work on a plan to return the automaker to viability. But while company executives assert that bankruptcy is far from inevitable GM is accelerating preparations for a court filing. In its Feb. 17 presentation to the Treasury, GM proposed shrinking its debt 40% from $62 billion to $33.5 billion by modifying obligations to a union-retiree health fund, shedding 47,000 jobs, and persuading bondholders to accept less in an equity swap. Now that the Treasury has rejected those proposals as too little too late, GM must find a way to come up with new cost-cutting efforts by slashing the debt even further and cutting more jobs in 2009. The company will collect input from board meetings and the Treasury’s auto task force to ...

Bad news for car makers rallies the US$…  Yen comes back strong…  Singapore to devalue?…  German Chancellor Merkel gives warning… And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… And good Monday morning to all of you. I can’t believe March is nearly over, it seems as though it just started. March will end up being a pretty good month for the currency markets, as investors exited the safety of US treasuries and started moving funds back into higher yielding assets. But the markets continue to be volatile, and news released on Friday and over the weekend has sent these investors rushing back to the safe haven of the US dollar.

The Japanese Yen and US dollar benefited after a US Government official said Friday that bankruptcy may be the best option for GM and Chrysler. The dollar continued to gain strength this morning after US Treasury Secretary Geithner warned yesterday that some financial institutions

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Apollo Group (

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U.S. President Barack Obama has decided against naming a “car czar,” and is instead asking U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence H. “Larry” Summers to head a task force on revamping the U.S. auto industry, Bloomberg News reported yesterday (Monday).

The president was under pressure to say who would handle the issue before tomorrow, when General Motors Corp. (GM) and Chrysler LLC must give progress reports on plans to restructure as a condition of $17.4 billion in U.S. Treasury loans. The so-called car czar - an approach that had some support in the American auto industry - was viewed as a key move in the federal government’s push to revamp the U.S. auto industry. The task force puts an end to reports Obama would recruit a well-known figure from outside to serve

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President Barack Obama’s $825 billion stimulus plan heads to the floor of the House of Representatives this week, with House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, saying many in his party will vote against the package unless significant changes are made.

“Right now, given the concerns that we have over the size of this package and all of the spending in this package, we don’t think it’s going to work,” Rep. Boehner said yesterday (Sunday) on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “And so if it’s the plan that I see today, put me down in the ‘No’ column.”

The plan – detailed in a Money Morning report last week – could potentially pass the Democrat-dominated House without Republican support, The New York Times reported. But the stimulus plan will face major opposition when it comes before the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. John …

Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) is thriving as recession grips the economy. As a cost leader in the retail sector, the company is benefiting from an increase in thrift. And it continues to expand its operations overseas. Horacio Marquez says Wal-Mart should emerge stronger than ever from this crisis, making it an essential part of any stock portfolio.

This frm Money Morning:

In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT) Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott Jr. said the recession is changing consumer-buying habits.

What Scott didn’t say is that Wal-Mart is perfectly positioned to capitalize on those changes. “The No.1 issue today is [consumers'] concern about their job,” Scott said during the nationally televised interview. And because of that concern, Scott said consumers are making some of the following changes:

In the discounter’s “pharmacy ...