Yahoo!Tech writes that “[r]olling out broadband and putting more computers in schools will be pieces of a massive economic recovery package proposed by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, he has announced. Obama, in a radio address Saturday, told listeners that he will push for the largest government-funded infrastructure program since the Interstate highway system in the 1950s as a way to stimulate the struggling U.S. economy. […] Obama's plan will include funds to make public buildings more energy efficient, repair roads and bridges and modernize schools. His plan for schools is to repair aging buildings, make them energy efficient and install new computers in classrooms, he said. ‘To help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools,’ Obama said in the address.”
In a different article, Yahoo!Tech reports that, according to the Commission for Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency, “[t]he Department of Homeland Security has failed to ensure the nation's cybersecurity […] because the threat of cyberattacks is too vast for any one agency to tackle and must be addressed by a new White House office, as well as revised laws and government practices. As President-elect Barack Obama fills the remaining cabinet positions in his administration, a Center for Strategic and International Studies commission is recommending Obama create a new office in the White House: the National Office for Cyberspace, headed by an Assistant to the President for Cyberspace. The Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency, an independent, nonpartisan group, releases its final report Monday after more than a year of exploring how to address the country's cybersecurity threats.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, “[c]ash-strapped investors are starting to renege on their commitments to venture-capital funds, dealing a blow to an industry that has been the bedrock of Silicon Valley start-ups. From pension funds to rich individuals to once-deep-pocketed financial institutions now in desperate shape, this year's plunging markets have made it much harder for some investors to come up with the money they promised to invest in venture-capital funds.”
The Seattle Times has a great article by Seattle-based venture capitalist Robert Nelsen in which Nelsen points out that “America succeeds where others fail because we value creativity over conformity. We respect the hope and naiveté of the young, because sometimes they are right. We seek risk, because it makes us stretch and break new ground. We support a free market for all good ideas and welcome the best and brightest from distant shores.” The way to get out of this economic mess, therefore, Nelsen writes, is to “use our strengths to solve our own problems. Let's harness innovation to solve the world's woes, create jobs and stay competitive. […] Let's keep on the trail of innovation. Let's take this adversity as a challenge, as our forefathers did. Let's use our strengths to seize the moment and create unprecedented change. At the end of that trail is an economically recharged America that is cleaner, healthier and stronger.”
The International Herald Tribune reports that “[i]n a rare bright spot for the U.S. retail industry, e-commerce sites had a strong Thanksgiving weekend, with online sales from Friday through Monday up 13 percent, compared with sales in the same period last year, according to data by comScore. The Monday after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday was the second-heaviest online spending day on record, comScore said, behind only Dec. 10, 2007. Online sales climbed to $846 million, up 15 percent from the previous year. ‘It was higher than I would have anticipated, but I'm not entirely surprised – just because the level of discounting was so aggressive,’ said Andrew Lipsman, a senior industry analyst at comScore, which tracks a variety of Internet data.”