Economy, Billion | featured news

Things are looking up for most of the nation’s commercial casinos, as gambling revenue increased by nearly 5 percent last year and jobs held roughly steady. According to the annual survey of casinos by the American Gaming Association, America’s nontribal casinos took in $37.3 billion from gamblers last year, an increase of 4.8 percent over 2011.

Europe has spent hundreds of billions of euros rescuing its banks but may have lost an entire generation of young people in the process, the president of the European Parliament said.

Cyber Monday online sales beat forecasts by nearly half a billion dollars. ComScore on Monday predicted that Cyber Monday would generate $1.5 billion in online sales, but according to Adobe, the shopping day ended up raking in $1.98 billion, which was a 17% increase compared to last year.

The Federal Housing Administration, which has played a crucial role in stabilizing the housing market, said it ended September with $16.3 billion in projected losses -- a possible prelude to a taxpayer bailout.

U.S. manufacturing increased slightly last month, while construction spending rose 0.6% to an annual rate of $851.56 billion. Meanwhile, October consumer confidence climbed to its highest reading since early 2008.

China has approved an estimated $156 billion in new infrastructure projects in recent days, giving markets a boost, even as economists are fretting that the country is behind the curve in responding to the economic slowdown.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage-finance giants, this week reported some of their best quarterly results since the real estate collapse. On Wednesday, Fannie Mae posted second-quarter net income of $5.1 billion. That is up from $2.7 billion in the first quarter of this year and an improvement from a net loss of $2.9 billion in the second quarter of last year. Fannie requested no additional money from the Treasury and said it would pay a $2.9 billion dividend to taxpayers.

Think way beyond zombie movie ticket sales. Think about DVD sales, video games, comic books, novels, Halloween costumes, zombie walks, merchandise, conventions and even zombie art. And more.

President Obama this evening rolls out a plan to inject $447 billion into the ailing economy through tax cuts aimed at working families and small businesses and spending to rebuild infrastructure, proposing a larger cash infusion than expected – and, perhaps, more than Congress will seriously consider.

Forget the struggling economy. There's one U.S. industry -- Big Politics -- that is looking ahead to a record year in 2012.