There's no doubt about it: Americans want choices. In education. In mail services. And in health care, too — even if the government is picking up the tab.

Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke learned a lesson from Media Relations 101 the hard way when they introduced a plan of action to stem the financial crises and did not suggest a catchy name for it.

It's been called a crisis of confidence. It started with bad real estate loans and highly leveraged bets on those loans. Now it has frozen credit markets. Banks aren't lending to each other. Businesses can't get the short-term loans they need to finance day-to-day operations.

The biggest problem facing the U.S. economy today is not housing or financial markets or employment, according to two of the country's leading economic analysts. It is fear. Joel L.

While businesses and consumers alike have been feeling economic doldrums all year, the National Bureau of Economic Research only recently made it official: the U.S. is in a recession, one that began in December 2007.

In the summer of 2007, after a tumultuous year in which millions of Chinese-manufactured toys and other products were recalled for reasons ranging from high lead content to choking hazards, Chinese officials launched a massive campaign to restore worldwide confidence in the "Made In China" label.

It's official: The U.S. economy is in recession — and has been since December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In the late 1980s home prices in Phoenix declined for a grueling 17 straight months before bottoming out in the early 1990s. That downturn pummeled the savings and loan industry, and it set the record for length.

Infrastructure is the foundation of an economy: schools, transportation, power plants, etc. Arizona faces challenges meeting current infrastructure needs and preparing for growth.

The U.S. real estate market, which was central to the global financial crisis, remains deeply troubled, and a full recovery could be years away, according to industry experts and analysts at the W. P. Carey School of Business.