Just when you thought you had recovered from Halloween, along comes a week with a Friday the 13^th. Could the economy get any scarier – or unluckier?

Actually, there won’t be much in the way of data to make the situation appear worse, especially in the wake of Friday's employment report which came just two days after a cryptic statement from the Federal Open Market Committee There won’t be much to make it look better, either.

Readers of FOMC statements – who practice their craft by staring at the bottom of coffee or tea cups – noted the emphasis the policy makers placed on inflation rather than growth as they look to end the Fed’s aggressive monetary policy. Reading between the lines suggests the FOMC may have known the employment report -- or part of it -- could be seen as showing a labor turn with the number of jobs lost dipping below 200,000 for only the second time in the last 14 months.

But the unemployment rate undercut any optimism at the turn and pushed the President to speak openly about modifying the existing stimulus, or perhaps offering a new plan.

The FOMC in its statement may have nudged the Obama Administration in that direction.

The Fed operates under a dual mandate: maintaining price stability and fostering sustainable economic growth. By overtly favoring one of those objectives – price stability (i.e., inflation), the policy makers sought, perhaps successfully, to use fiscal policy (yes, including budget deficits) to produce growth while the Fed itself set the primary goal of monetary policy (interest rates) to maintaining prices.

Fiscal policy is a tool office-holders seem reluctant to use for growth whether it is the heavy hand of government spending or easing of the tax burden. The argument should center on what is most effective.

Surveys of millionaires and affluent investors would suggest the latter. The Spectrem Group’s reported in the week just ended it monthly Millionaire Investor Confidence Index fell two points in October to –7, the first decline in 16 months. Meanwhile, the Spectrem Affluent Investor Confidence Index, which measures the investment confidence of households with $500,000 or more in investable assets, also fell by two points, the first drop in four months.

But in trying to assess what measure or measures would have a greater, broader impact, the Keynesian answer would be the former and the President’s discussion Friday of additional public spending to create jobs is a further step in that direction. The President said his economic team is now looking at new “investment” in road and bridge construction, renovations to make buildings more energy efficient, export support for manufacturers, and other ideas.

Although lagged by a month, Tuesday’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which tracks the “ins” (hiring) and “outs” (separations) of the labor market will provide fresh evidence of what has been seen as a hiring strike by employers. One hint came in an omission from the monthly report last week by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas which tracks not only layoff announcements, but announced hiring plans. The Challenger report last week did not include any data on hiring plans because of what a spokesman said were problems with the data.

The week will also include the first report on the federal budget for the fiscal year which began in October. After running up a record deficit in 2008-09, the new year is expected to start out worse with a deficit for October 2009 significantly higher than October 2008.

Mark Lieberman is the senior economist for the Fox Business Network. Prior to joining FOX, he served as first vice president and manager of economic analysis and research at Washington Mutual in New York. Before that, he served as senior vice president at Dime Savings Bank of New York (which was later acquired by Washington Mutual), where he specialized in credit and risk management. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the New York Association for Business Economics. He has a degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

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