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Barack Obama has announced the single largest new investment in the nation's infrastructure since the creation of the interstate highway system in the 1950s under Eisenhower. Speculation begins to build up about the precise nature of this investment.

I have been in Singapore for the last two weeks and have been observing how this tiny country has created a superbly modern infrastructure that flows seamlessly by leveraging technology and process automation.

From the minute I walked through immigration, I began noticing the country's well-conceived mechanisms for efficiency enhancement. Singapore residents have a special smart card that lets them clear immigration without human intervention. Taxis link up via transponders to a central system through which the country implements congestion control, including peak hour and business district surcharges.

As I have watched the city in motion during my stay, it has made me think about the possibilities for infrastructure modernization in the U.S., now that we're embarking on a new era. The problems--health care, energy, traffic congestion, education, poverty and security--each have major implications when you apply smart-card-based process control in the Singaporean way.

Dominique Trempont, former CEO of smart-card firm Gemplus Corp. (now part of Gemalto), believes that the U.S. should roll out one multi-application smart card to the entire population in order to automate various government and private-sector functions. "The card can be partitioned into application segments, and the companies rolling out applications on it can pay for the privilege," Trempont says.

The first application category for a smart card is a government-owned, centralized patient record database that then becomes the heart of the U.S. health care system. A patient goes to a new doctor, and the doctor's office can access the records with the card, without the hassle of gratuitous paperwork handling by multiple office administrators and frustration on the part of the patient. Insurance claims and processing could also be integrated with this central system, closing the loop with the doctor's office and the insurance company.

A second application category could belong in the realm of security and identity. Passports and driver's licenses could be implemented on the smart card: It can enable a smooth transition through immigration and other functions, such as traffic management. After all, why do we need cops to monitor whether drivers are staying within the speed limit? If there is scientific evidence that the most energy-efficient speed at which cars should be driven is 60 mph, then drivers should pay for driving above that speed limit. Fines can be automatically charged on a smart card. Congestion-control applications can also be implemented on the same infrastructure based on time, geographical zoning, vehicle type (with incentives for fuel-efficient cars and penalties for gas guzzlers), etc.

"Not only is a smart-card-based infrastructure great for efficiency enhancement, it can be a major revenue generator," Trempont says. No kidding! If every car that drives above 60 mph is charged a fine, and there were an efficient way of collecting congestion taxes, that revenue alone could be enough to finance the $136 billion that the nation's governors need for infrastructure projects related to roads, bridges and railway. It will also generate ongoing revenue for years to come that can pay for many more ambitious projects.

Designers embraced their inner Cleopatras and Tutankhamens this season, offering fresh takes on Egyptian costume (click for slideshow). At Anna Sui, hieroglyphs provided the basis for elaborate prints, while Sophia Kokosalaki worked in a pharaoh-worthy palette of lapis lazuli and gold. Andrew Gn amped up tunic dresses with embroidered metal collars, and Sophie Buhai and Lisa Mayock of Vena Cava accessorized with slinky silver breastplates. “Fashion is about escape. It makes sense to fixate on a historical era that no one can get to,” says Mayock. “I think everyone just wants to dream right now.” We’re all for that, but it’s probably best to leave Orlando Pita’s “Nefertiti-chic” hairdos at Christian Dior to the ancients.

See a gallery of Egypt-inspired looks >

Terror Attacks Stagger the New Mumbai

The reputation of the rising Asia financial center is battered after terrorists kill 150 in the Indian city's latest violent chapter

Indian commandos assemble on the terrace of Nariman House as they prepare an assault in Mumbai on Nov. 28. Indian newspapers have slammed the government and intelligence agencies for failing to prevent the Mumbai attacks. INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images

Meet the targets of the Mumbai terrorist attacks: CEOs meeting their boards, millionaires looking to buy yachts, financiers prepping for a private equity conference, a prominent family and friends gathered for a wedding.

Until Wednesday night, Nov. 26, when armed gunmen sneaked in from the Arabian Sea and plunged this city into a three-day nightmare, these were the people who made up the new Mumbai; staunchly cosmopolitan, ferociously competitive on the global stage, and luminous markers of India's soaring aspirations.

Now, after three nights of gun battles and explosions that left at least 150 dead—more than a dozen of them foreigners—Mumbai may have taken a hit to its most precious asset: its reputation. "You can't keep having these events and not affect the image of the city," says Aninda Mitra, an analyst at Moody's (MCO). "But if you can't [improve things fast] the government will find itself not just worrying about the image, but the reality."

Amid an Economy Losing Steam

In recent years, Mumbai has been transformed from a city known for textiles and kitschy cinema to a financial powerhouse that serves as a gateway to India. It's the brightest beacon of the country's economic miracle, though there's still an overabundance of poverty—and no shortage of the secular strife that often threatens to rip India apart. In July 2006, 187 people were killed as coordinated bombs ripped through commuter trains in the crowded city. Three years before that, 60 people were killed by car bombs. And a decade before that, in 1992 and 1993, Hindu-Muslim riots claimed another 1,000.

Yet through it all, Mumbai has thrived, positioning itself proudly as an alternative to Hong Kong or Tokyo as the capital of Asian finance. Its stock exchange is among the world's busiest, its banking community the envy of South Asia, and its restaurants and nightlife closing in on those of any global cultural capital. "This sort of thing has happened before, and it can't stop Mumbai," says Omkar Goswami, the founder of the Corporate & Economic Research Group, and once the chief economist for India's biggest industry lobby. "Nothing has stopped our economy, nothing has changed Mumbai."

Indeed, on Friday, the Bombay Stock Exchange opened just a short distance from where terrorists still held hostages. The markets flared up in patriotic defiance, with the benchmark Sensex index closing up 66 points on a day when most expected it to drop. But India's economy has already lost steam, with GDP growth slowing to 7.6% and foreign institutional investors withdrawing more than $13 billion from its equity markets, leaving the Sensex at less than half where it stood a year ago. "The important question to ask is, what will the Indian state do now?" says Goswami. "The police, the intelligence gathering, how do you beef them up? These are the decisions which will decide what the impact of these terrorist attacks are."

Without doubt, Mumbai's economy, which contributes as much as 5% of India's $1 trillion GDP and nearly a third of its direct taxes, will take a while to limp back to normal. For three days now, trains have run empty, schools and offices have remained closed, and Mumbai residents, heeding a call from the government, have stayed indoors. On Friday afternoon, when a few people started trickling out of their homes, a false alarm about more armed gunmen at train stations sent them scrambling back. "There will be fewer board meetings, fewer deals being made, fewer people doing business," says Mitra, of Moody's. "But this won't last long." After all, says A.M. Naik, chairman of Indian engineering giant Larsen & Toubro, "Despite these issues, the world is not going to miss participating in an economy growing between 7 to 8%."

Sales of new homes fell in October to the lowest point in nearly 18 years while the median price of a new home dropped to the lowest level since 2004.

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that new home sales decreased 5.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 433,000 homes, the lowest level since January 1991, another period when the country was undergoing a steep housing downturn.

The median price of a new home sold in October fell to $218,000, down 7 percent from a year ago. It was the lowest median sales price since September 2004.

The drop in new home sales was bigger than analysts had expected and left sales 40.1 percent below where they were a year ago.

The bad news on new home sales follows other reports this week that paint a bleak picture of the housing industry.

On Tuesday, a report on home prices and downbeat earnings results from homebuilder D.R. Horton showed further deterioration in the housing market. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index said home prices tumbled a record 16.6 percent during the third quarter from the same period a year ago. Prices are at levels not seen since the first quarter of 2004.

Fort Worth, Tex.-based D.R. Horton Inc. reported a nearly $800 million loss in its fiscal fourth quarter on slower home sales and more than $1 billion in charges.

A report Monday showed sales of existing homes fell a bigger-than-expected 3.1 percent in October to an annual rate of 4.98 million units. The median or midpoint price for existing homes plunged to $183,000, down 11.3 percent from a year ago.

The disappointing performance for both new and existing homes showed that the country is still in the grips of a severe housing downturn.

The problems in housing have sent shockwaves through the entire economy as mounting mortgage foreclosures have cost banks billions of dollars in loan losses, creating the worst financial crisis to hit the country in seven decades.

President-elect Barack Obama has said Congress should begin working on a sizable stimulus program even before he is sworn in on Jan. 20, with the goal of creating 2.5 million jobs over the next two years to keep the economy from falling into a prolonged recession. The housing industry also is appealing for help from the new administration.

The report on new home sales showed sales were down 18 percent in the West and 6 percent in the South.

Sales posted a 22.6 percent increase in the Northeast and were up 6 percent in the Midwest.

The drop in sales pushed the inventory of unsold homes up to 11.1 months, meaning it would take that long to exhaust the stock of unsold homes at the October sales pace.

Builders, who have been slashing production in an effort to get control of inventories, are being faced with soaring mortgage defaults which are dumping more unsold homes on an already glutted market.

The National Association of Home Builders reported last week that its survey of builder confidence fell to an all-time low of 9 in November, down from 14 last month. Index readings higher than 50 indicate positive sentiment about the market. But the trade group's index has drifted below 50 since May 2006 and below 20 since April.

The housing slump already has cost the country 3 million jobs in construction and related industries, and the home builders are urging Congress to help with increased support for the industry.

Tighter lending standards, rising defaults and fear about the housing market's future have sidelined buyers, an absence felt acutely by homebuilders such as Pulte Homes Inc. and Centex Corp.

Oil prices rose Wednesday as a large interest rate cut in China and news of a possible Russian output cut appeared to counter another round of dour economic news and larger-than-expected crude stockpiles in the U.S.

Trading was very volatile, continuing a week of huge price swings from day to day.

There were no such swings for retail gasoline, however. As many Americans hit the road for Thanksgiving, pump prices fell again overnight to a national average of $1.868 for regular unleaded, according to auto club AAA. It marked the lowest price since January 2005.

The average national price has fallen 80 cents in just the past month and is down 40 percent from a year ago -- a rare bright spot for consumers in an otherwise dire economy.

"Of course, prices could go even lower than this, but this would tend to imply a far deeper global economic slowdown than we're currently experiencing and probably signal the arrival of a period of extreme economic adjustment as homes, factories and transportation systems reduce energy consumption," said AAA fuel price analyst Geoff Sundstrom.

In Nymex trading, light, sweet crude for January delivery jumped more than 5 percent, or $2.75 to $53.52 a barrel. The contract overnight fell $3.73 to settle at $50.77 after the U.S. said its gross domestic product shrank 0.5 percent in the third quarter, worse than previously estimated.

Buoyed by a surging Wall Street that reacted to news of a government bailout for Citigroup, oil prices climbed 9 percent Monday, then gave back much of the gain Tuesday amid more lousy economic news.

Crude's rebound Wednesday was not unexpected, some analysts said, noting the holiday week and relatively low trading volumes on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"This has always been a very difficult week in which to generate a trend, and traders tend to be getting out of positions more than getting into them," the firm Cameron Hanover said in its Daily Energy Hedger report Wednesday.

Crude initially gave back early gains Wednesday after a new government inventory report showed far more crude and gasoline in storage than was expected.

For the week ended Nov. 21 crude inventories jumped by 7.3 million barrels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report. Analysts had expected a boost of only 400,000 barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Gasoline inventories rose by 1.9 million barrels. Analysts expected stockpiles to rise by only 300,000 barrels. Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended Nov. 21 was 2.8 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging about 9 million barrels a day.

But in a report released a day early because of the Thanksgiving holiday, the EIA said natural gas storage levels fell more than expected last week and are 3.1 percent below the year-ago average.

In its weekly report, the government said natural gas inventories held in underground storage in the lower 48 states dropped by 66 billion cubic feet to about 3.42 trillion cubic feet for the week ending Nov. 21. Analysts had expected a drop of between 43 billion and 48 billion cubic feet, according to a survey by Platts.

In equities trading, Wall Street extended its gains into a fourth session Wednesday as investors digested mixed economic readings on jobless claims, orders for big-ticket items and personal spending.

Among the reports, the Labor Department said initial requests for unemployment benefits fell to a seasonally adjusted 529,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised figure of 543,000. That is lower than analysts' expectations of 537,000. Still, the initial claims remain at recessionary levels.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods plunged in October by the largest amount in two years as the economy weakened. The 6.2 percent drop was more than double the 3 percent decline economists expected.

The Commerce Department also said Americans cut back on their spending in October by the largest amount since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Consumer spending plunged by 1 percent last month, even worse than the 0.9 percent decline that had been expected.

Overseas, China's biggest interest rate cut in 11 years -- and the fourth in three months -- was expected to lead to increased demand for oil.

"This could help speed up the Chinese economy's recovery from the current slowdown and therefore encouraging for oil demand growth in the future," said a report from Sucden Research in London.

Also affecting prices was news that Russia, one the world's largest crude producers, may join OPEC in output cuts, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said in New Delhi on Tuesday, Press Trust of India news agency reported.

JBC Energy in Vienna noted that it's been nearly seven years since non-OPEC oil exporters Russia, Norway and Mexico last made coordinated moves to cut output.

In London, January Brent crude rose $1.72 cents to $52.07 on the ICE Futures exchange.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures rose 5.26 cents to $1.1525 a gallon. Heating oil gained 4.78 cents to $1.7466 a gallon while natural gas for January delivery jumped 37.6 cents to $6.762 per 1,000 cubic feet.

The government released a quartet of reports Wednesday that paint a bleak picture of the nation's economy: Jobless claims remain at recessionary levels, Americans cut back on their spending by the largest amount since the 2001 terrorist attacks, orders to U.S. factories plummeted and homes sales fell to the lowest level in nearly 18 years.

The Labor Department reported that initial requests for unemployment benefits fell to a seasonally adjusted 529,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised figure of 543,000. But claims remain at recessionary levels. The four-week average, which smooths out fluctuations, rose to 518,000, its highest level since January 1983, when the economy was emerging from a steep recession.

One minor bright spot showed the number of people continuing to claim unemployment insurance dropped unexpectedly to 3.96 million, from the previous week's 4.02 million, which was the highest level in 25 years. The labor market has grown by about half since 1983.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported that consumer spending plunged by 1 percent in October, even worse than the 0.9 percent decline that had been expected. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of total economic activity.

Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods also plunged last month by the largest amount in two years. Orders for durable goods dropped by 6.2 percent, more than double the decline economists expected. The Commerce Department report showed widespread declines throughout manufacturing led by decreases in autos and airplanes.

The department also reported that new home sales decreased 5.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 433,000 homes, the lowest level since January 1991, another period when the country was undergoing a steep housing downturn.

The median price of a new home sold in October fell to $218,000, down 7 percent from a year ago, and the lowest since September 2004.

Wall Street appeared ready to give back some of its recent gains as investors reacted to the downbeat economic readings. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 60 points in early trading Wednesday. The stock market is coming off of three sessions of gains, so some giveback, especially with disappointing data, is to be expected.

With the economy showing further signs that it is headed into a steep swoon, the administration and the Federal Reserve rolled out two new programs Tuesday that would provide up to $800 billion in an effort to get more loans flowing in such critical areas as mortgage lending, credit cards, auto loans and small business loans.

Credit markets liked the new efforts, but private economists said the new moves were not likely to be the last changes in the government's vast rescue program, which has already undergone significant alterations since it was passed by Congress on Oct. 3.

Analysts believe more work will need to be done because of their expectations that the economy's vital signs will continue to worsen as the country slips into what many believe could be the worst recession since the early 1980s.

The unemployment rate has hit a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, putting pressure on personal incomes. The government reported Tuesday that the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, shrank at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the July-September quarter, reflecting the fact that consumer spending fell at the fastest pace in 28 years.

Nariman Behravesh, an economist at IHS Global Insight, said he was expecting GDP to shrink at a 4 percent rate in the current quarter, reflecting the battering consumers are taking from the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. He predicted that the economy would remain in recession through the first half of next year.

"We are in the early stages of one of the worst recessions in the postwar period, even factoring in a massive stimulus program," Behravesh.

To revive the economy, President-elect Barack Obama has said a top priority will be working with Congress to enact a stimulus package with the goal of creating 2.5 million new jobs over the next two years. Analysts believe such an effort will require spending between $500 billion to $700 billion, a figure that would be on top of all the money being spent to stabilize the financial system.

In the latest efforts to stabilize the financial system, the Federal Reserve announced Tuesday that it will buy $200 billion in securities backed by different types of debt including credit card loans, auto loans, student loans and loans to small businesses. That market essentially froze in October. These types of loans as a result have become harder to obtain and have carried higher interest rates

The Fed also announced that it will spend $500 billion to buy mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and another $100 billion to directly purchase mortgages held by Fannie, Freddie and the Federal Home Loan Banks.

This would greatly expand an initial modest effort announced in September with the goal of creating increased demand for mortgage-related assets. The hope is that this will drive down the price of mortgages and make home loans more available.

Analysts predict the Fed program could send mortgage rates down by as much as one-half to a full percentage point in coming months, helping to spur demand in the beleaguered housing market, which is suffering its worst downturn in decades.

The latest federal moves raised U.S. commitments to contain the financial crisis to nearly $7 trillion -- though no one thinks the government will actually spend anything like that figure.

In the case of the Federal Reserve, the amount covers huge loans that financial institutions will have to pay back. In the case of the Treasury rescue effort, the government will at some point sell the stock it owns back to the banks, presumably when the banking system is doing better and the stock will be worth more.

The government said yesterday that it will deploy up to $800 billion to make it cheaper for Americans to get a home mortgage, take out a car loan or borrow money through a credit card, as the government's intervention in the financial system expands to directly address the impact of the credit crisis on consumers.

The Federal Reserve will launch a program by the end of the year in which it will buy up to $500 billion of securities backed by mortgages, which are guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Fed will also buy up to $100 billion of debt in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which should let them more easily expand their lending.

With the moves, the Fed will be pumping money into the economy through unconventional new means, steps that analysts said should reduce the rates that people must pay to take out a mortgage loan by as much as a full percentage point. In anticipation of the program yesterday, rates on mortgage securities fell about a third of a percentage point, a drop that is likely to be passed through to borrowers in the near future.

The Fed and Treasury Department are also creating a $200 billion program that will lend against highly rated securities backed by auto loans, student loans, credit card lending and small-business loans backed by the Small Business Administration. Lately, there have been few buyers for packages of those loans, making it difficult for consumers to borrow money.

Previous interventions have focused more on the inner workings of global credit markets -- injecting capital into banks, for example, and lending money to large companies. But those efforts have failed to spur the flow of lending to ordinary Americans, contributing to a steep decline in prospects for the overall economy.

Estimates varied on how much the Fed action will lower interest rates for ordinary home buyers. Jim Vogel, an analyst with FTN Financial, estimated that the Fed's facility could lower mortgage rates to between 5.5 percent and 5.75 percent for 30-year, fixed home loans. Recently rates have been hovering over 6 percent and have been nearly as high as 6.75. Other analysts expected a steeper drop, to roughly 5 percent.

Either scenario would help the economy. It would allow some people to refinance their mortgages, saving money on their monthly payment that they could then use for other things. And it might prompt others to enter the housing market as buyers, helping make the decline in housing less severe. "The market has been so volatile with rates changing from week to week that it has a depressing effect on the market," Vogel said.

In a normal recession, the central bank cuts the federal funds rate, a bank lending rate, to encourage growth. Two things are different this time. For one, the downturn appears likely to be more severe than recent recessions. So although the Fed has already cut the federal funds rate to 1 percent -- and may well cut it to zero percent by January -- it may not be enough.

Moreover, because this downturn is the result of a profound financial crisis that has caused lending to dry up, those interest rate cuts have not passed through to consumers. Since January, the Fed has cut the rate from 4.25 percent to 1 percent, yet the rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage has barely changed.

The major reason is that banks and other financial institutions are suffering huge losses that make them reluctant to lend. So the Fed is effectively printing money and funneling it to home buyers. In contrast, under previous recent bailout efforts, the Fed has swapped Treasury bonds for other, riskier assets, meaning it was not creating new money.

The Bank of Japan used this latest strategy in the 1990s, but too slowly, according to many economists, creating a downturn that lasted 15 years. The Fed's actions could stoke inflation in the future, particularly if the Fed is slow to remove the new programs as markets return to normal. But with prices for many goods falling, Fed leaders are more worried about a sharp decline in the economy.

The Fed will only purchase mortgage securities backed by government-sponsored companies Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, which have high standards for credit quality and caps on how large the loan can be. Because the Treasury took over mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September, the government effectively already is guaranteeing the debt of those institutions.

The program announced yesterday commits the Fed to spend nearly 100 times as much to buy mortgage-backed securities as the government envisioned in early September, when the Treasury said it would buy $5 billion in mortgage-backed securities. Analysts said yesterday that nothing short of hundreds of billions of dollars of purchases will significantly bring down interest rates.

After seizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government intended to push those companies to lower mortgage rates. The government instructed the companies to increase their purchases of mortgage securities by up to $100 billion over the next year. But that effort ran into trouble.

Despite the government intervention, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac still had high borrowing costs, and they passed those costs on to borrowers.

Investors here and elsewhere were confused about the government's backing for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt. The government said it was "effective," not "explicit," and that the companies' future remained unsettled. As a result, investors pulled back from the debt.

Fannie Mae warned in a public disclosure that it might not be able to do what the government asked without additional support for its debt.

Analysts said the package of actions aimed at consumers is a dramatic escalation of the government's battle to force credit to flow through the economy. "They're not messing around here," said Julia Coronado, a senior U.S. economist at Barclays Capital. "This is a very aggressive effort. They're not going to prevent a recession, it's too late for that, but they're trying to prevent a catastrophe."

The government, still struggling to manage a severe financial crisis, unveiled two new programs Tuesday that will provide $800 billion to try to help unfreeze the market for consumer debt from home mortgages to credit cards.

The announcements by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department represented the latest modifications to the largest government bailout in history, a program designed to keep the troubled financial system from dragging the country into a deep and prolonged recession.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has been criticized for continually revising the focus of the government's response to the crisis.

Paulson on Tuesday defended all the changes, saying that there was no one response adequate by itself to deal with what he termed a once- or twice-in-a-century financial crisis. He said that was why the government was having to keep modifying its response.

"It is naive for any of us to think that when you are dealing with a situaiton of this magnitude that a bill could be passed or a single action taken to make all the issues go away," Paulson told reporters at a briefing on the new programs.

To try to increase the availability of home loans to borrowers, the Federal Reserve said it will buy up to $100 billion in direct obligations from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the Federal Home Loan Banks. The Fed also will buy $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities, pools of mortgages that are bundled together and sold to investors.

The program on consumer debt will lend up to $200 billion to the holders of securities backed by various types of consumer loans. It will be supported by $20 billion of credit protection from the $700 billion bailout package that was enacted last month.

The government, while looking to reduce fear in the credit markets, is eager to see lenders like credit card companies resume more normal levels of lending to help stimulate the economy. Since September, when credit markets first froze, financial institutions have been hesitant to hand over money for fear they won't be repaid.

On Wall Street, the new government efforts provided an early lift to stocks, but the Dow Jones industrials were down about 10 points in midday trading.

Meanwhile, data released Tuesday provided further proof the country is almost certainly in the throes of a painful recession.

The Commerce Department's updated reading on the economy's performance showed gross domestic product shrank at a 0.5 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, weaker than the 0.3 percent rate of decline first estimated a month ago, and the worst showing since the third quarter of 2001.

GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced within the U.S. and is considered the best barometer of the country's economic fitness.

Meanwhile, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller national home price index released Tuesday tumbled a record 16.6 percent during the quarter from the same period a year ago. Prices are at levels not seen since the first quarter of 2004.

That, in turn, has made it harder for businesses and consumers to borrow.

Elsewhere, the New York-based Conference Board says its Consumer Confidence Index for November was 44.9, up from a revised 38.8 in October. Last month's reading was the lowest since the research group started tracking the index in 1967.

Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected the November reading to slip to 37.9. Still, this month's figure hovers around levels not seen since December 1974, with Americans' views on the economy the gloomiest in decades as they grapple with massive layoffs, slumping home prices and dwindling retirement funds.

Consumers nationwide are reeling from job losses, tanking investment portfolios and sinking home values. They are expected to hunker down further in the coming months, making it likely the economy will continue to shrink through the rest of this year and into 2009, more than fulfilling a classic definition of a recession: two straight quarters of economic contraction.

(CNN) -- The first-ever pictures of planets outside the solar system have been released in two studies.

The box shows a planet orbiting the star Fomalhaut. The dot shows the star's location.

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Using the latest techniques in space technology, astronomers at NASA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used direct-imaging techniques to capture pictures of four newly discovered planets orbiting stars outside our solar system.

"After all these years, it's amazing to have a picture showing not one but three planets," said physicist Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.

"The discovery of the HR8799 system is a crucial step on the road to the ultimate detection of another Earth," he said.

None of the planets is remotely habitable, scientists said.

Both sets of research findings were published Thursday in Science Express, a journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

A team of American, British and Canadian astronomers and physicists, using the Gemini North and Keck telescopes on the Mauna Kea mountaintop in Hawaii, observed host star HR8799 to find three of the new planets.

Scientists estimate that HR8799, roughly 1.5 times the size of the sun, is 130 light years from Earth in the constellation of Pegasus. The individual planets in this planetary family are estimated to be seven to 10 times the mass of Jupiter.

Astronomers say the star is too faint to detect with the human eye, but observers could probably see it through binoculars or small telescopes.

"This discovery is the first time we have directly imaged a family of planets around a normal star outside of our solar system," said Christian Marois, the lead astronomer in the Lawrence Livermore lab study.

About the same time, NASA astronomers using the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope surprised the space community by locating a fourth planet.

NASA's newly discovered planet, Fomalhaut b, is estimated to be roughly three times Jupiter's mass and 10.7 billion miles from its host star, Fomalhaut. NASA's images show Fomalhaut b orbiting the bright southern star Fomalhaut, which is said to be 16 times brighter than our sun and 25 light years away in the constellation Piscis Australis (Southern Fish).

"Our Hubble observations were incredibly demanding. Fomalhaut b is 1 billion times fainter than the star," Hubble astronomer Paul Kalas said. "We began this program in 2001, and our persistence finally paid off."

Previous planet-hunting efforts have relied on the traditional Doppler, or "wobble," technique, which works by measuring the gravitational influence a planet exerts on its host, or parent, star. By studying these gravitational "tug-of-wars," astronomers have been able to study a star's velocity or brightness to infer the presence of a planet. iReport.com: Are you an aspiring astronomer? Share your photos of space

To determine whether the faint objects orbiting HR8799 were indeed planets and not other stars, astronomers studying the three newly discovered planets (HR8799b, HR8799c and HR8799d) compared images from studies conducted in different years.

In all the documented pictures, the three objects were found to be orbiting in a counter-clockwise direction around HR8799, proving that they were planets and not just background objects coincidentally aligned in the image.

According to the the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, there have been 322 planets found outside our solar system. The latest findings bring that total to 326.

The extrasolar planets found have mostly been gaseous in their composition. Both studies indicate that direct-imaging techniques can only aid our efforts in one day finding an Earth-like planet.