Top of the News: During last year's campaign, Barack Obama angered Democrats by implying he wanted to be a transformative president like Ronald Reagan. Now he has one thing in common with Dutch: An unemployment rate of 10.2 percent. The last time we saw that was during the first Reagan term, when he urged the nation to "stay the course."

The course back then was the war Paul Volcker's Federal Reserve was waging -- ultimately successfully -- to kill the inflation that had been building in the economy since the 1960s and had helped make the 1970s economy so volatile. It also included big tax cuts and other measures to encourage capital formation and risk-taking. It took awhile, but these measures created a vibrant economy with 16 million net new jobs.

Reagan had things going for him that Obama lacks: An American industrial base that was still the world's strongest. America was the world's leading exporter, too. In the Reagan years, industry would be re-engineered onto a much more competitive footing, as well as become a highly profitable plaything for the leveraged buyout boyz. A Cold War buildup invigorated the defense industries at a time when the national debt was relatively light and the nation was not embroiled in hot wars.

Top of the News: Just in time for Boeing's slap in the face, deeper-than-expected layoffs at Microsoft, and a sliding commercial real-estate market, the state has issued its 2009 Economic Climate Study.

The state actually did pretty well in the "cost of doing business" categories, and improved its standing in most. Washington is below the national average in state and local tax collections per $1,000 in personal income. It's also below the 50-state average in workers compensation premium costs. Unemployment compensation premiums are above average -- but our fund didn't become insolvent and have to be bailed out by federal taxpayers, as happened in South Carolina.

Unfortunately, that's not all there is to maintaining a competitive economy. Thirty-six benchmarks were set against other states. For 2009, the state improved in 13, remained even in seven, but fell back in 16.

Quality of life yardsticks had the best showing. The scary regression: negatives or relatively little progress in the measurements of education and skills of the workforce. For example, student-to-teacher ratios are higher than the national average.

Top of the News: Any celebration over the ADP report showing the economy lost "only" 203,000 jobs last month is premature. Remember, we need to create around 125,000 net new jobs a month just to keep up with the natural growth of the workforce.

More importantly, the holiday layoff season -- when companies clear their year-end books and start serious job cutting -- is only beginning. Microsoft announced today that it is making 800 job cuts worldwide. Nokia Siemens said Tuesday it was eliminating 5,700 positions. And on it goes.

With unemployment nationally closing in on 10 percent, this chart shows how the pain has grown and spread since 2004. The hotspots: Michigan, California and the Southwest, Florida and much of the Southeast, as well as Oregon. If polling results in New Jersey and Virginia are to be believed, voters tilted to change -- the GOP candidates -- largely because of economic concerns.

Rutgers economists say it could be 2017 before we recover the lost jobs. Take the poll after the jump and give your opinion.

Top of the News: Warren Buffett's acquisition of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad is freighted with the history and future of the Puget Sound. The company is made up of several storied railroads, including the Great Northern and Northern Pacific which helped build Seattle and Tacoma. Now it's a major player at both ports and has a key role in whether they will remain competitive.

Buffett said the $34 billion deal is "an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States." Most analysis has focused on the solid profitability of BNSF, along with the strong results railroads showed mid-decade and their likelihood of an early rebound in a recovery.

I hope, however, Buffett is also talking about the future, where discontinuity once again comes into play. For example, energy costs and environmental concerns should give railroads a much greater role in hauling freight, as well as providing right-of-way for enhanced passenger service.

Top of the News: A modest recovery is beginning some places. For example, China's economy is expanding, and there's growing evidence that the nation's economic reach is such that it can recover even if the U.S. economy remains stagnant. But what about us?

Economists Simon Johnson, Peter Boone, and James Kwak lay out a good primer on The Baseline Scenario about what they consider the biggest threat to the American economy: continued sickness in the financial sector, and especially the unwillingness to address "too big to fail institutions."

Thus far, the Obama administration has been unwilling to face this clear and present danger not only to recovery, but to falling into another crash. The big institutions are bigger than ever, and still playing with derivative dynamite. (I would add the risk of the whole shadow banking system, still largely unregulated and untransparent)

Top of the News: Up 200, down 200 -- somebody made money, but it's not likely going into your 401(k). Reality caught up with Wall Street today, reinforcing concerns about a sucker's rally.

The current rally is spurred by federal stimulus, especially for the banks. It'll have to be repaid someday. And by continuing speculation and trading by the likes of Goldman Sachs. The real economy is still ailing: layoffs continue with unemployment headed for 10 percent and no jobs recovery in sight; the housing market is still sick, with foreclosures continuing; consumers remain deeply in debt and not spending much, and state governments continue to ail.

Until these economic fundamentals are fixed, the real economy won't provide stable support for the Dow. Unfortunately, because the problems were years in the making, and the economy is filled with imbalances and bad bets, a real recovery might be years off. If President Obama faced a real opposition party, he might be a one-term president.

Stick around past the jump and take the Boeing poll:

More thoughts on Boeing's choice to hike the Appalachian Trail:

--The new plant is in North Charleston, not Charleston. Fritz Hollings, the former South Carolina governor and long-serving senator had a saying: "There are two kinds of people in Charleston: Ones who don't wear shoes, and ones who look at you like you don't wear shoes." This is a place of huge income, class and racial disparity. More to the point, Boeing is not going to the wealthy, storied city on the harbor. It's going to cheap land in the homely exurbs.

--Did I mention hurricanes?

--The more I think about it and hear from sources, the more I think there was nothing Washington could have done to prevent it. Boeing is joining a race to the bottom for wages and docile workers. This has profound implications for a state such as Washington, which built a quality economy that included a strong, well-paid middle class. It doesn't mean we'll turn into Michigan. It does mean we're in a battle royal with a world that has an oversupply of workers. The world is not flat. It's spiky, as Richard Florida says, with a wide dispersal of winners and losers.

--In such a world, South Carolina has many worries. It's used the "Southern strategy" to throw massive incentives to lure Boeing, and before that, BMW. But overall, the strategy hasn't lifted most living standards there; the state continues to underperform most others. World competition has decimated its textile and apparel backbone. The Southern strategy can be used against us again, nevertheless. But in the race to the bottom, South Carolina should worry about places like El Salvador. Boeing has no loyalty.

Top of the News: This is the anniversary of Black Monday, the day in October 1929 when the stock market crashed. The Dow saw a record drop and things only got worse as the week progressed (there was a Black Tuesday, too).

It's clear now that the crash of that day was not the beginning of the Great Depression but its loudest symptom. Other areas of the economy had been faltering for years and income inequality was near record highs, but this was cloaked by the mania on Wall Street, back in the day when banks could engage in highly speculative trading.

Of course, that toxic environment was rekindled in our time by the repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, and we got just what the reformers of the 1930s would have feared.

Milton Friedman made his mark as a great economist (as opposed to a great polemicist) by work with Anna Schwartz showing how the Federal Reserve botched its response to the crash, turning what might have been a short-term panic into a deep depression. This was a lesson current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was determined to implement -- and indeed, Fed action pulled us back from the brink.