The labor situation has become so dire that you can now hire an American Blue Chip CEO for a dollar – and a ride to work.

I’ve already reported in these pages as to how many of the top officers of the few remaining grand old Wall Street houses are forgoing bonuses this year. Now we hear that GM’s Rick Wagoner and Ford’s Alan Mulally have cut themselves back to a mere dollar each for 2009.

They are not the only folks willing to do a lot more for a tad less. One of the peculiar byproducts of these uncertain times is a sudden 1.3% increase in U.S. worker productivity.

It’s a Recession (At Least) After All

Last month (officially the 11th in our newly christened recession) saw another 250,000 jobs eliminated, making it the worst November since 2001. With unemployment hovering somewhere between 6.5%

Adam Lass says it’s not too late to make profits in the retail sector. As an “anxious” holiday season approaches some stocks could be cut in half again. Adam says put options on the most vulnerable retailers can yield triple-digit gains. An alternative is to buy a put contract on a retail sector ETF (NYSE:XLY).

This from Taipan Daily:

Damien Hirst creates grotesqueries. Grand statues of pregnant mothers’ intestines… drowned sheep in tanks of blue water… corpses in full wedding regalia lying under a table.

His conflations of birth, love and death have made him the darling of the art world in recent years. As aberrant as it might seem to place a diamond-covered human skull in the lobby of an office building, this sort of odd behavior is actually quite the norm at the peak of an inflationary bubble.

After all, it makes about as

Taipan daily editor Justice Litle responds to some of his readers’ investment queries below. Is this the perfect time to get into the market, or is the market still a no-go zone?

In honor of this historic day – not to mention the risks of an unchecked majority in the senate – we’ll start things off with a little humor.

The inspiring message above is brought to you by despair.com, a tongue in cheek purveyor of de-motivational goods. If you’re getting ready to draw up your Christmas list, one of despair.com’s “government” plaques might be just the thing for the cranky libertarian in your life. (Nothing wrong with being cranky I might add.) Or if you work in a “progressive”

The recession is underway. The US economy shrank by 0.3% y-o-y in the third quarter. Adam Lass says politicians need to accept the truth and allow the economy to correct itself. Only then will stock markets genuinely recover. When they do, some investors will make a fortune. But to survive until then, Adam says it is essential to buy put options on weak companies.

More from Taipan Daily:

Pay no attention to the Fed announcement: Durable Goods is where the real news is hiding!

I have a confession to make: As I sit to write to you today, I don’t know what the Fed will do regarding rates. And, quite frankly, I don’t really care.

The reason I don’t know is because the deadline to send this missive in to all the fine folks who convert my barely legible

There's a lot of fear in the markets these days. Jittery investors are glued to the news, waiting for the next item to trigger a move in equities. But WaveStrength Options Weekly editor Adam Lass says the most important information is usually buried way below the headlines. He says checking these 'hidden' details is a great way for contrarian investors to find the big profit opportunities.