Unemployment, oil provide sound bites

Worse-than-expected employment numbers produced a wave of gloom Friday; the president-elect called again for a huge spending initiative; and oil prices continued to plummet.

"This is maybe one of the worst jobs reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics has ever produced."

- BLS commissioner Keith Hall, on Friday's news
that employers cut 533,000 jobs in November

"Companies are sharply reacting to the economy's problems and slashing costs. They are not trying to ride it out."

- economist Joel Naroff,
on the jobs numbers

"We have recorded the largest decline in consumer confidence in our history,"

- Richard T. Curtin, director of the Reuters/University
of Michigan Survey
of Consumers, which
started its polling
in the 1950s

"Business shut down in November."

- Moody's Economy. com chief economist Mark Zandi

"Our economy has already lost nearly 2 million jobs during this recession, which is why we need an Economic Recovery Plan that will save or create at least 2.5 million more jobs over two years."

- President-elect
Barack Obama

"I don't think we're through the drop. I don't know where it stops, but I don't think we're through."

- Occidental Petroleum Corp. president and chief financial officer Steve Chazen, on oil prices

"Nobody knows the endgame right now."

- U.S. Sen. Robert Corker (R., Tenn.), above, on prospects for an auto-industry bailout