Another year has come and almost gone. It's been a tough one for the entire country, but I think we're doing our best, and so has our entire Team Crooks. I've also been a volunteer for Blue America and the support you have shown our Campaign for Health Care Choice and the many great progressive candidates we've endorsed like Alan Grayson has been incredible.

We're reaching out to our readers again and asking for help so that the MSM doesn't overrun the blogosphere. They are pouring millions of dollars in to try and compete with bloggers. Their new twist to fool America is that they have the nerve to call themselves "bloggers." Paid journalists from corporations are trying to co-opt the term.

C&L has been expanding and improving the site and we need your help to continue to make improvements. We're almost finished with a new design that will also include a "diaries" function for people that are registered C&L users which will have a neat video format that will be open to you also. More shall be revealed when we unveil the new design. We hope to have it ready in January. This has taken a lot of time and a lot of dedication from many, many people. Please donate what you can.

In the coming year we're also trying to reach out into the blogosphere to hire more people to make C&L an even better site. We'll be looking for video bloggers, a researcher, site monitors an investigative journalist and interns as well, but we can't do it without your help. (You can email resumes at crooksandliars@gmail.com) I'll post more about that soon.

In 2009, TIME Magazine called us one of the Top 25 Blogs of the year.

In 2008, C&L won the Web Blog award for Best Political Blog on the net.

Dean Baker makes an astute observation:

Okay, I'm not on vacation, but this is a BTP flashback. My original write-up of this NYT news article was way too positive. This article was essentially a diatribe against Germany's welfare state. To make its case, it turned an incredible success story -- Germany's relatively low unemployment rate -- into a failure.

The basic deal is that Germany adopted an explicit policy of encouraging employers to shorten work hours rather than lay off workers. The government allows unemployment benefits to be used to pay workers to cover most of the loss in wages due to the shorter workweek.

As a result, Germany's unemployment rate has barely changed in the downturn. Its unemployment rate at present is 7.7 percent. This is down from 7.8 percent earlier in the year. Germany's unemployment rate in 2007 was 8.4 percent, 0.7 percentage points higher than the current level.

This is an incredible success story. Imagine Barack Obama's approval rating if the unemployment rate today was anywhere close to its 4.7 percent average for 2007. Think of the millions of unemployed workers who would not be struggling to pay their rent or mortgages or meet other bills if only our leaders were as smart as Germany's leaders. We could do something along the same lines in the U.S.

But NYT readers will be spared such thoughts because the article described the policy as a complete failure. To make its case, the NYT even used the German government's measurement of unemployment (which counts part-time workers as being unemployed) rather than the harmonized OECD measure that is directly comparable to the unemployment data in the United States.

This was not news reporting.

Dean is one of the best economists we have.

Last night, before select audiences in places like Los Angeles and Chicago out to see other films, Michael Moore played a special trailer for his new movie about the financial meltdown. But this wasn't just any trailer:

Hi, I’m Michael Moore. Instead of using this time to tell you about my new movie I’d like to take a moment and ask you to join me in helping our fellow Americans. The downturn in the economy has hurt many people, people who have had no choice but to go on government assistance. Yet our welfare agencies can only do so much. That’s why I’m asking you to reach into your pockets right now and lend a hand. Ushers will be coming down the aisles to collect your donations for Citibank, Bank of America, AIG, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and a host of other needy banks and corporations. Won’t you please give generously? Now, I know what you’re thinking - I already gave at the bailout. And I know you did, but even if you’ve given in the past, give some more. It will make you feel… good.

Sure enough, ushers came down the aisles:

And started passing out the collection cans:

More to the point, audiences laughed and gave:

A writer for FirstShowing was taken aback, and called it "pretty damn crazy." Slashfilm's writer wondered what would happen to the money.

We're told that it actually will be donated to local food banks in the donor cities.

[H/t Jonathan for the pics.]

More bad news for those of us who are already out here struggling to stay afloat - and for the people trying to hold onto jobs:

WASHINGTON — Nearly one in 10 U.S. workers will be unemployed before the job market starts to improve, economists in a USA TODAY survey predict. Most expect continued deterioration in the overall economy over the next six months.

The unemployment rate will peak at 9.8%, according to their median forecast, up a full percentage point from the prior survey in January. Twenty-one economists predict the unemployment rate will top out at 10% or higher, according to the survey of 51 economists by USA TODAY April 16-22.

Economists also predict the jobless rate will rise for a longer time. Two-thirds say it won't stop rising until 2010 or later, vs. 51% in January.

The unemployment rate in March was 8.5%, the highest in a quarter-century. The rate of underemployment — adding in part-timers who wanted full-time work or those who had stopped looking for a job — hit a record 15.6%.

"Even after we come out of the recession, I expect the unemployment rate to go higher and stay there for a while," says Sean Snaith, director of the Institute for Economic Competitiveness at the University of Central Florida. Given the severity of the downturn, he says, "Firms are going to proceed with caution when it comes time to staff up."

Offhand, I know maybe six people who want divorces but can't afford to get them - and since the divorce rates are down, I'm guessing the two things are connected to this story:

Stranded by the nationwide slump in housing and jobs, fewer Americans are moving, the Census Bureau said Wednesday.

The bureau found that the number of people who changed residences declined to 35.2 million from March 2007 to March 2008, the lowest number since 1962, when the nation had 120 million fewer people.

Experts said the lack of mobility was of concern on two fronts. It suggests that Americans were unable or unwilling to follow any job opportunities that may have existed around the country, as they have in the past. And the lack of movement itself, they said, could have an impact on the economy, reducing the economic activity generated by moves.

Joseph S. Tracy, research director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said the lack of mobility meant less income for movers and the people they employ and less spending on renovation and on durable goods like appliances. But, Dr. Tracy said, the most troubling prospect is that people were no longer able to relocate for work.

“The thing that would be of deeper concern is if job-related moves are getting suppressed and workers are not getting re-sorted to the jobs that best use their skills,” he said. “As the labor market started to improve, if mobility stays low, you can worry about the allocation of workers.”

How long will the downturn in mobility last? Michael J. Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Indiana, said, “I think it will be well into next year before we see any growth in migration, and that still may be optimistic.”

“If the stock market rebounds before the housing market, we might see a scramble for retirement housing,” Professor Hicks added.