Wheeeeeeeeee! 

— Via Duncan: Jobless Claims Rise 36,000 to 667,000; Durable Goods Orders Fall More Than Expected Down 5.2% (story developing).  More from Reuters via CNBC:

Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits increased to a seasonally adjusted 667,000 in the week ended Feb. 21 from a revised 631,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said. It was the highest reading since October 1982, when claims reached 695,000.

The year-long U.S. recession has savaged the labor market and sent the unemployment rate soaring, with some economists fearing it will pierce 9 percent in 2009 from 7.6 percent in January and mount further next year….

The four-week average of new jobless claims, a better gauge of underlying labor trends because it irons out week-to-week volatility, increased to 639,000 from 620,000 the week before….

Calculated Risk has more.

— New home sales fall to record low; prices tumble.  Calculated Risk has more.

— Reports offer snapshot of slowing economy.

— After everything else, AIG now considering breaking up to stay afloat.   

— For the econ wonks, the Fiscal Year 2010 budget proposal will be available online starting at 11 am ET.   Now, complete with real DOD action figures!  (as in budget numbers, not GI Joes…duh!)

— Angry Bear says Boehner is mostly a liar about taxes. 

— And Gail Collins is making sense:

Louisiana has gotten $130 billion in post-Katrina aid. How is it that the stars of the Republican austerity movement come from the states that suck up the most federal money? Taxpayers in New York send way more to Washington than they get back so more can go to places like Alaska and Louisiana. Which is fine, as long as we don’t have to hear their governors bragging about how the folks who elected them want to keep their tax money to themselves. Of course they do! That’s because they’re living off ours….

The Republicans can’t try to convince the country their ideas are better because of that intellectual bankruptcy problem. All they can do is make Barack Obama’s programs look feckless, plunging everyone into so much despair that by next summer the public will be ready to go live in caves and eat squirrel stew.

The apocalypse is clearly nigh. Screw the pot of tea I just made, I need a scotch.