No matter how busy you are with running your online business (and for most of us, that’s plenty busy), it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on what’s happening in the larger American economy.

With that in mind, many industry watchers are anticipating a final-year economic stimulus from the Bush Administration, perhaps to be announced in the next few weeks.

With the recent and escalating concern among the financial community regarding the housing situation, many believe that a stimulus package of any sort is necessary at this point.

However, recent comments by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have been evasive. From Reuters:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Monday the Bush administration was considering how to give the economy a boost as it weathers a housing correction, but does not want to rush. …

Paulson said the housing downturn will last for some time and said its impact already was apparent in December’s weak job growth figures when only 18,000 jobs were created.

But Paulson said a correction in the U.S. housing market — characterized by slumping home prices and weak sales — was “inevitable and necessary” after years in which banks and other mortgage grantors followed “lax” lending practices and prices had risen too quickly.

“Let me be clear that no single policy or action will undo the excesses of the last few years,” Paulson said. He added that administration officials “recognize the risks we face” and will try to keep the economy “as strong as possible as we weather this housing correction.” …

A welter of recent data has shown the U.S. economy lost much of its steam as 2007 ended, including a government report on Friday that showed a meager 18,000 jobs were created in December while the unemployment rate climbed to a two-year high of 5 percent.

That has fanned fears that the economy may he headed toward recession.

Read the Reuters article here.