One Nevada Democratic Party insider offered this tip for candidates running for public office in 2012: "Don't get your picture taken with President Obama," he said.

The store, Cheryl Fudge, is a fave of Oprah and has praised first lady Michelle Obama's fashion flair. [Read Obama Gets Back to R&R.]

In fact according to their site, Cheryl Fudge is favored by many celebrities. Her site says, "In 2002, Cheryl Fudge left New York when she found a niche on Nantucket by transforming vintage Gucci and Chanel scarves into quirky-sexy halters favored by celebrities like Julia Roberts and Fergie."

Taxpayers are likely to end up on the hook for much if not all of that amount, a highly embarrassing development for President Obama because he was among the company's biggest cheerleaders. He visited its Fremont plant in May 2010 even though PricewaterhouseCoopers had weeks earlier raised doubts about its plans for an initial public offering by questioning whether it could continue as a going concern.

That's especially troubling because Solyndra is backed by one of Obama's key fundraisers, George Kaiser of Tulsa. Congressional Republicans were raising alarms about Obama's connections to Solyndra well before Wednesday's announcement, with GOP members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee voting in July to subpoena documents from the Office of Management and Budget on the loan-guarantee decision.

Although the editorial board generally supports alternative energy, it also offered a word of caution for the president:

But if there's evidence that political rather than business considerations played a role in funding decisions, Obama will have much to answer for.

Solar start-up Solyndra LLC, succumbing to pressure from lower-cost Chinese rivals, said it has suspended operations and plans to file for bankruptcy, 15 months after President Barack Obama visited a company factory that was to be expanded with the help of a federal loan guarantee.

The Chapter 11 filing, expected next week, will make Solyndra the third U.S. solar company to seek bankruptcy protection in the last month. Former Wall Street high flyer Evergreen Solar Inc filed for Chapter 11 two weeks ago, followed four days later by SpectraWatt Inc, a private company that was backed by Intel Corp.

Princeton University economist Alan Krueger, who will replace Austan Goolsbee as the White House’s chief economic advisor, “is likely to provide a voice inside the administration for more-aggressive government action to bring down unemployment and, particularly, to address long-term joblessness,” according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

But will Krueger’s recommendations jive with the president’s apparent economic and political agenda? Krueger co-authored a paper for the Handbook of Public Economics in 2002 that seems to undercut the economic argument for extending unemployment benefits. The paper found that those benefits tend to increase the length of unemployment by discouraging the search for a new job, and may actually encourage layoffs. Conversely, the paper also found that unemployed persons who are ineligible for benefits search harder for a job and are therefore unemployed for less time.

At some point anti-USA persons like Immelt should lose their US citizenship status and they should be forced to move to China if they pay no US taxes.

And Obama should be removed from office for what he has let GE get away with – these amount to acts of hostility to the US economy. And that is exactly how Obama and GE operate: they do whatever they want and whatever they can get away with.

"Hoover wasn't able to print gold, but can be blamed for supporting the Fed's tight money policies," writes Scott Sumner. "Obama can't print dollars, but can be blamed for not moving aggressively to put people at the Fed who understand the need for more dollars."

Alas, the clock is ticking. Bruce Bartlett reminds that the velocity of money supply (the ratio of quarterly nominal G.D.P. to the quarterly average of M2 money stock) is moving in the wrong direction again. The implications?

Chase and Bank of America hold on their books the toxic loans made by two infamous lenders they acquired: Washington Mutual and Countrywide Financial. As recently as April, Bank of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan said that reducing loan principal was out of the question, lest it send the wrong message to those struggling to pay their bills (never mind the message about socialized risk and privatized profits sent by the taxpayer bailout to Wall Street cowboys).

But on July 2, the New York Times reported that the two banks have quietly begun modifying a type of loan called the Option ARM, also known as the "Nightmare Mortgage." This odious product allowed homeowners to put off paying principal and some of the interest for up to several years, but plummeting housing prices left many owing far more than their properties were worth when the options expired.

According to the Times, some Option ARM borrowers are now getting letters out of the blue offering to overhaul their loans. Miami real-estate investor Rula Giosmas had the principal reduced on her condo loan by half, even though she wasn't behind on payments.

Borrowers in Minnesota are getting similar offers. Their reaction: "Is this for real?"