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WATERTOWN, MA - APRIL 19: Onlookers, sheltering in their homes, take pictures as they watch from windows while SWAT team members search for one remaining suspect at a neighboring apartment building on April 19, 2013 in Watertown, Mass.

One of the goals of terrorists is to strike at the economy of their targets. On Friday, the high-profile pursuit of suspects in Monday’s Boston bombing brought a city of 1 million with a normally vigorous economy to near standstill.

After an overnight shootout with two suspects left one of them dead and another on the loose, authorities urged residents to “shelter in place” by staying at home.

Public transportation shut down. Most companies, along with many of the city’s four dozen colleges and universities, were closed. The streets of Boston's financial district, home to mutual fund companies with some $3 billion in assets, were nearly deserted.

"A whole city like this shuts down for the day with amazing economic ramifications," said Larry Peruzzi, who runs a trading desk at Cabrera Capital Markets in downtown Boston.

Beyond the tragic loss of life, the suffering inflicted on those injured in Monday's attack and the emotional toll on Boston's shattered peace of mind, the short-term economic impact of shutting down a city with a $325 billion annual gross domestic product will be substantial. In 2011, the latest data available, the nation’s ninth largest metropolitan economy churned out goods and services worth roughly $37 million an hour, generating wages, consumer spending and investment.

Economists say it’s all but impossible to estimate just how much business will be lost. But while the immediate impact will be severe, the longer-term losses will likely amount to an asterisk on the region’s economic data.

That’s because much of the lost business will be replaced later as Bostonians simply delay spending and make up lost work when the city gets back to business.

In the meantime, the bulk of the money flowing through the city’s economy – some 80 percent – amounts to wages that will likely continue flowing to many workers despite the shutdown.

And, no matter the cause, disasters and emergencies can even bring economic “offsets” that help minimize the damage, according to Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors.

“People have been flown in from all over the country and resources are being bought to bear and spent in Boston,” he said. “Who’s feeding all of the FBI agents and troops? That’s a net addition to economic activity.”

For example, Dunkin' Donuts said on its Facebook feed that its location in Watertown remained open Friday "to serve law enforcement and first responders with free coffee and food." The company said in an emailed statement to NBC News that its franchisees were working with authorities to determine which locations should open.

Since the horrific attack rocked the trade and transit Hub of New England’s economy Monday, those hardest hit have been companies providing services – like food, entertainment and transportation – that represent business that will be lost forever.

Restaurants in the heart of the city’s hotel and shopping district Friday continued to field cancellations, adding to lost business this week after investigators cordoned off several blocks and searched for clues to Monday’s bombing at the finish line of the 117th running of the city’s iconic marathon.

Many sporting events, including the Red Sox night game against the Kansas City Royals, were canceled. Mass transportation within the city was shut down Friday. Amtrak stopped running trains in and out of town. Intercity bus lines suspended service. Logan airport remained open, but airlines were letting customers to change plans without paying a fee.

Those cancelled services represent millions of dollars in lost revenues and wages.  

The Boston bombing will also create a new financial burden for the city from the increased costs of adding more security, especially for public gatherings. That’s money that could otherwise be used to lower taxes, or build infrastructure or invest in research and development.

“There a redistribution of money into security services which are – I hate to put it this way - nonproductive and that doesn’t help give us long-term growth,” said Naroff. “We may have made ourselves safer since 9/11 but we’ve spent an awful lot of money in ways that have not improved the economy.”

As many U.S. cities and towns are still recovering from budget gaps opened up by lower property taxes and cuts in state and federal aid, Boston’s finances are on a solid footing and better able to sustain higher security costs. Departing Mayor Thomas Menino, in his 20th and final budget, has proposed a $2.6 billion spending plan is nearly $140 million higher than last year.

Boston’s vibrant economy is also well positioned for any possible economic aftershocks from the attack, including a possible hit to its large tourism industry. With a growing young and well-educated workforce, the regional economy emerged from the Great Recession earlier and faster than the rest of the country. At 6.0 percent, the city’s unemployment rate is below the national average.

Though tourism generates more than $8 billion a year in revenues, Boston’s economy is well diversified among a broad base. Beyond its large financial services industry and world-class educational institutions, a growing health care industry that includes more than 30 area hospitals is Boston’s largest employer. Even the moribund construction industry, which is still struggling in much of the rest of the country, last year bounced back in Boston to pre-recession levels of more than $3.8 billion.

Related stories:

Timeline of terror hunt

Reuters contributed to this report.

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The Hollywood image of the care-free, freckle-faced, teenage hamburger flipper is no longer the norm.

By Amy Langfield, NBC News contributor

Wendy Lott's career has made a detour to a small-town pizzeria in South Carolina.

She works 10 hours a week making pizza for minimum wage. She has no other job, no health insurance and no idea how she can afford to go back to college, let alone pay the hospital that treated her asthma-related bronchitis.

She’s 27, lives with her mother and most of her take-home pay goes to gas and household items. “It would be nice to get off food stamps, but on $62, I can’t,” Lott said, referring to her weekly take-home pay from her $7.25-an-hour minimum-wage job.

In many ways, she is a typical fast-food worker: She's older than you'd expect, has more years of schooling and works in the industry not for entry-level experience, but to try to keep her head above the financial storm that threatens to swamp her. 

Due to the lingering effects of the Great Recession, the Hollywood image of the care-free, freckle-faced, teenage hamburger flipper is no longer the norm. Only 16 percent of fast food industry jobs now go to teens, down from 25 percent a decade ago.

And many of the older workers are educated. More than 42 percent of restaurant and fast-food employees over the age of 25 have at least some college education, including 753,000 with a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Related story: Fast food workers serve up classic role in pop culture

In many cases, teens have been squeezed out of the workforce before they even begin. While the overall U.S. population posted an unemployment rate of 7.6 in March, for teenagers 16 through 19, it was 24.2 percent, according to the BLS.

“Young people have been hit very hard by this downturn,” said Harry Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University. Studies show a worker's most rapid wage growth happens in the 5 to 10 years after graduation as you switch jobs and find what you’re good at, Holzer said. “That whole process is disrupted by this downturn.”

Ed Maker / The Denver Post file

On average fast-food employees work only 24 hours a week. Those who can get full-time hours make a median annual salary of $17,813 a year.

Fast-food workers are part of the lowest-paying major occupational group in the United States, according to government data. On average they work only 24 hours a week. Those who can get full-time hours make a median annual salary of $17,813 a year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Others find they don’t get as many hours as they need, and erratic schedules make it difficult to juggle more than one job at a time.

“I’ve been trying to find a better job,” said Lott, who has been requesting more hours for the entire year she’s been at the pizza place. Two weeks ago she was turned down for a grocery store job she hoped would supplement her 10-hour week schedule. “I was not hired because I wasn’t available enough,” she said.

The food services industry is rebounding faster than the rest of the economy, and has been creating jobs. Prior to the Great Recession, 35 percent of industry employers said their No. 1 worry was recruiting and retaining employees, according to the Restaurant Industry Tracking Survey. This year, only 5 percent said it was a prime problem.

“With the national jobless rate hovering around 8 percent and more than 20 million individuals still unemployed or underemployed, the labor pool remains sufficiently deep for most,” said the National Restaurant Association's 2013 outlook.

Restaurant industry officials have argued they provide good first-time jobs for many people, and that President Barack Obama's proposed increase in the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 by the end of 2015 would hurt them.

Related: Most memorable fast-food workers in movies, TV

“The restaurant industry is dominated by small businesses. More than seven in ten eating and drinking establishments are single-unit operations,” Melvin Sickler, who operates Auntie Anne’s Pretzels and Cinnabon franchises in New Jersey, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in March. “Food and labor costs are the two most significant line items for a restaurant. With average pre-tax margins of roughly 4 to 6 percent, increases in food and labor costs can have a dramatic impact on a restaurant’s bottom line.”

Not everyone agrees.

The corporations have intentionally created a “disposable workforce” with high turnover rates, argues Saru Jayaraman, the author of “Behind the Kitchen Door” and director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California at Berkeley. The restaurant industry lobbies against a hike in the minimum wage and intentionally keeps workers at minimal hours with erratic schedules to prevent them from being able to organize or claim benefits, she said.

“People are piecing together jobs to work full-time,” said Jayaraman, who is also the co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers.

Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

Fast-food employees are not like they used to be. Today, more than 42 percent of restaurant and fast-food employees over the age of 25 have at least some college education. About 753,000 have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Some fast-food chains are doing it right, Jayaraman said, such as Five Guys and In-N-Out Burger.

In-N-Out, for example, starts its employees at $10 per hour and offers benefits. “We do enjoy lower turnover and that, of course, leads to a more experienced team working in our restaurants,” Carl Van Fleet, the vice president of planning and development at In-N-Out Burger, told NBC News via email. “Our associates do work pretty hard to make sure our customers have a great experience. A higher pay structure is helpful in making that happen but it is only part of our approach. It is equally important to us that we treat our associates well and maintain that positive working environment in all of our restaurants.”

As for Wendy Lott, she continues to look for another job and hopes to find a way to finish her final year at the Art Institute of Atlanta, where she was working toward a bachelor’s degree in video game art and design. But when she left, due to her father’s death from diabetes, she was already in arrears for $5,000.

A slip-and-fall at her first waitress job left her with a torn Achilles tendon and fractured ankle that still causes her pain and limits her work options. She said the one-time $800 worker’s compensation payment doesn’t help long term. “A lot of jobs in my area require heavy lifting or for you to be fast on your feet,” she said.

And she finds the competition for the other jobs is tough, especially with layoffs at the nearby Savannah River Site nuclear facility. “Everybody gets underemployed across the board. It trickles down,” Lott said.

Rebecca Cook / Reuters

A view of downtown Detroit is seen looking north along Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan January 30, 2013.

Motown is singing a sad, sad tune.

An economic review team painted a bleak picture of Detroit's economic outlook on Tuesday, sending a report to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder that declared the city is in "a financial emergency" that it is unable to fix.

The six-person state team tasked to comb through Detroit's finances has unanimously concluded that the city needs outside assistance to right its economic woes and become solvent again.

"We believe there is a financial emergency in the city and that there is no plan in place to correct the situation," Michigan State Treasurer Andy Dillon said at press conference Tuesday afternoon. 

The group's findings were sent on Tuesday to Snyder, who now has 30 days to either accept or reject the conclusion. It is likely the governor will appoint an emergency financial manager to head the effort of turning Detroit's financial situation around.

The report found the Motor City faces a cumulative cash deficit of more than $100 million by June 30, 2013 if  "significant spending cuts" are not made. Detroit has $14 billion in employee retirement liabilities and unfunded pensions, and will need $1.9 billion over the next five years to pay off other long-term liabilities. The city has been running deficits every year since 2005, according to the review team.

The city's population, and with it its tax base, has plunged in recent decades.  Detroit has been hit hard by the decline of the auto industry, foreclosures and crime -- all factors that have played a part in its economic misfortunes. "While we all know there is financial strain in the city, there is also not an ability or a mechanism in place for the city to address it absent of a finding of emergency," said Dillon.

A large portion of the review was focused on Detroit's 200-page charter, which the economic team found was preventing the city from making the necessary changes. The final report also said the city's bureaucracy is too inflexible to make the meaningful changes that would be necessary to change course. 

Dillon said the state has given Detroit opportunities to get their fiscal house in order, but city official have failed to do so. "We gave the city every chance to avoid the outcome that we're recommending to the governor today," he said.  In a statement the treasurer said "key reform measures have not occurred quickly enough, if at all."

Still, members of the review team present at Tuesday's news conference were optimistic that things could be fixed in what was once one of America's top city's.  

"A lot of the ingredients for the turnaround of the city are in place," said Frederick Headen, legal advisor for the Michigan Department of Treasury and member of the review panel. "Now we just need to execute and I do believe strongly that Detroit is fixable."

Michael Fernandez / AP

This July 11, 2011 photo shows a shark warning sign along the Surf Beach near Lompoc, Calif. in Santa Barbara County. A shark attack at the Vandenberg Air Force base beach has claimed the life of an experienced 39-year-old surfer, following months of frequent shark sightings along the central California coast.

Shark attacks on humans in the United States have reached their highest levels in more than a decade —  and an improving economy may be the reason why, experts say.

There were 53 shark attacks in the United States in 2012, matching the previous high set in 2000, according to the International Shark Attack File, an annual report released Monday by researchers at the University of Florida.

"I think the economy has played a major role in the sense with the downturn in the economy, fewer people had the ability to take holidays and visit the beach,” George Burgess, who heads the effort to compile shark attack data, told Reuters.

A rebounding economy meant more people went to the beach, which created more opportunities for sharks to attack.

“The numerical growth in shark interactions does not necessarily mean that there is an increase in the rate of shark attacks; rather, it most likely reflects the ever-increasing amount of time spent in the sea by humans, which increases the opportunities for interaction between the two affected parties,” the report reads.

The number of shark attacks has steadily grown each decade since 1900, which the study attributes to a constantly increasing amount of time people spend in water.

The United States typically leads the world in shark attacks. Last year, Florida was the state with the highest number of attacks with 26.

Surfers and those participating in board sports were most often involved in incidents, making up 60 percent of the attacks, the report said.

Updated 11:43 am ET President Barack Obama’s fiscal cliff negotiator, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, predicted on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that congressional Republicans will accept Obama’s plan to raise income tax rates and limit deductions on people making $200,000 and over. “I think we’re going to get there,” he told NBC’s David Gregory.

He said if Republican leaders have their own alternative ways to reduce federal deficits, they need to offer Obama their proposals.

“We need to know what they’re prepared to do on (tax) rates and revenues and we need to know what they’re prepared to do on the spending side,” he said.

So far, Geithner said, they have not said “who should pay higher taxes.”

In contrast, Geithner said, Obama has been specific, for example, about how he’d shift more of the burden of paying for Medicare to affluent retirees: his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal would increase premiums and co-payments for higher-income Medicare beneficiaries, starting in 2017.

“If the Republicans don’t like those ideas and they want to do it differently (or) they want to go beyond that, then they have to tell us what makes sense for them and then we can take a look at it,” he said.

Geithner is leading the bargaining with GOP leaders on how to avoid the “fiscal cliff” –Washington jargon for the combination of tax increases and spending reductions which are scheduled to occur under current law at the end of the year and which the Congressional Budget Office has said would tip the economy into a recession.

With 29 days left to reach an agreement on avoiding the fiscal cliff, neither GOP leaders nor the president seem to be taking steps toward an accord.

Two senators who were re-elected last month, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D- Mo., and Sen. Bob Corker, R- Tenn., also appeared on Meet the Press to comment on the fiscal cliff negotiations.

Corker said he supported “closing loopholes” which he called "a pro-growth way of getting more revenues from wealthy Americans." He predicted that ultimately “cooler heads will prevail” and the two sides will agree on a deal.

Corker said that in the fiscal cliff bargaining Obama had not yet proposed additional curbs on Medicare and other entitlement spending and he predicted “you’re not going to have a deal until that happens.”

McCaskill said if current tax rates expire at year end, then “we would come back in January first thing and pass a tax cut” along the lines of Obama’s proposal. “Are the Republicans going to vote ‘no’ on that?” she asked incredulously.

On Medicare, McCaskill said she would support “more aggressive means testing from higher co-pays from those people who can afford it.” In his Fiscal Year 2013 budget blueprint Obama proposed higher premiums and co-payments for higher-income Medicare recipients, cutting $28 billion in federal spending over ten years.

But liberal Democrats have opposed that idea, saying it could erode support for Medicare among upper-income people, leading them to opt out of the program. “This will end Medicare as we know it,” said Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D- Pa., last spring when Republicans adopted Obama’s higher premium and co-pays idea as part of the negotiations over how to offset the cost of cutting the Social Security payroll tax.

Obama’s initial fiscal cliff bargaining position has been that income tax rates and tax preferences enacted since 2001 should remain in effect for single earners making less than $200,000 a year and for married couples filing joint return who make less than $250,000.

In a statement Sunday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi urged House Speaker John Boehner to bring to the floor a bill already passed by the Senate to continue current income tax rates for people making less than $200,000.

She said if Boehner "refuses to schedule this widely-supported bill for a vote, Democrats will introduce a discharge petition to automatically bring to the floor the Senate-passed middle class tax cuts." A discharge petition is procedure by which a bill may be forced out of a committee and onto the House floor for a vote. The Democrats would need to get 218 members of the House to sign a discharge petition in order for this procedure to succeed.

Republican leaders oppose any tax increase, although they would agree to a redesign of the income tax system that could raise more revenues for the federal government by ending or curtailing some deductions and other tax breaks.

The GOP leaders also want some plan for reductions in spending on Medicare and other entitlements.

The fiscal cliff refers to:

• The expiration at year end of tax reductions enacted in 2001, 2003, 2009, and 2010.
• A 27 percent cut in Medicare’s payment rates for doctors’ services.
• A ten percent cut in defense spending and an 8 percent cut in nondefense spending -- cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act which Obama signed into law in 2010 as a part of a deal with Republicans to get them to agree to raise the federal government’s borrowing limit.
• The end of emergency unemployment benefits.
• The end of a temporary reduction of 2 percentage points in the Social Security payroll tax which was in effect this year and in 2011.

In addition the Affordable Care Act will impose, starting in January, a new 3.8 percent Medicare payroll tax on income above $200,000 and will expand the tax to cover investment income as well as wage and salary income.

About two-thirds of the fiscal cliff comes from the impending tax increases scheduled to take effect at the beginning of 2013 under current law.

According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, "Taxes would rise by more than $500 billion in 2013—an average of almost $3,500 per household—as almost every tax cut enacted since 2001 would expire."

A report issued in October by the Center found that almost 90 percent of Americans would see their taxes rise unless Congress and the president agree to change current law. "For most households, the two biggest increases would be the expiration of the temporary cut in Social Security taxes and the expiration of the 2001/2003 tax cuts," the report said.

The economic impact of the housing bust on homeowners who live near a foreclosed property comes to about $2 trillion, according to a new accounting by a consumer advocacy group.

In a report released Wednesday, the Center for Responsible Lending estimates that more than half of that “spillover loss” occurred in communities of color, which the study’s authors define as census tracts where more than 50 percent of the residents are Hispanic, African-American or otherwise non-white. Those losses, the authors note, reflect the high concentrations of foreclosures in those neighborhoods.

The study looked only at the indirect impact of foreclosures on properties within one-eighth of a mile of a home in foreclosure. The total loss of home equity since the housing market collapsed is more like $7 trillion, the consumer advocacy group said. That figure  doesn't include additional indirect costs.

“Communities with high concentrations of foreclosures lose tax revenue and incur the financial and  non-financial costs of abandoned properties and neighborhood blight, while homeowners living in close proximity to foreclosures suffer loss of wealth through depreciated home values,” the report’s authors wrote.

Related: New-home sales jump to two-year high

Households near a foreclosed property lost or will lose an average $21,077 in wealth or about 7.2 percent of their home value, the report found. In minority neighborhoods, the families lost an average of $37,084 or 13.1 percent of their home value.

To arrive at its estimate, the group combined statistics collected by the government, Mortgage Bankers Association and a private database maintained by Lender Processing Services, a company that provides services to mortgage lenders.

Related: Are you still having mortgage trouble with your bank?

The authors note that over time some of the losses inflicted by the spillover effect of foreclosures will be offset by rising home prices. The estimate covers foreclosures started between 2007 and 2011.

The pace of home new foreclosure filings has been falling this year, falling 7 percent in September compared with the previous month and down 16 percent from September 2011, according to RealtyTrac, a research firm. That was the lowest total since July 2007.

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Students march on Hollywood Boulevard while protesting the rising costs of student loans for higher education on September 22, 2012. The average college student who graduated in 2011 had $26,600 in student loans, according to a new report, which estimates two-thirds of last year's college graduates had student loan debt.

The average college student who graduated in 2011 had $26,600 in student loans, according to a new report, which estimates two-thirds of last year’s college graduates had student loan debt.

The average debt is the largest since the Institute for College Access and Success began compiling the figures in 2005, and it comes amid soaring college costs, record loan defaults, and a persistently difficult job market for college graduates.

While unemployment among college graduates is only slightly higher than the overall rate, the study found a stunning 37.8 percent of recent graduates are working in jobs that do not require a college degree. The study said that means wages are depressed, making the situation for graduates even more difficult.

“Recent college graduates have entered an enormously difficult job market, which poses particular challenges for those who need to begin paying back student loans,” the study said.

Most expensive colleges 2012-2103

Indeed, the report cites recent U.S. Department of Education Data which show the federal student loan default rate at its highest level in 14 years. The New York Federal Reserve recently reported more than five million student loan borrowers have at least one loan past due.

For the Class of 2011, the study said, graduation has been an especially rude awakening.

“Most students in the Class of 2011 started college before the recent economic downturn,
but the economy soured while they were in school, widening the gap between rising college costs and what students and their parents could afford,” the study said.

Should college students have a credit card?

The nation’s soaring student debt — which recently topped $1 trillion — has sparked debate over whether a college education is worth the price in the current job market. But the study noted that unemployment for young workers with only a high school education is more than twice the rate of their college-educated counterparts.

Compounding the problem, the study said, are state budget cuts, which have led to large tuition increases, fewer grants, and an increasing need for college students and their families to borrow money to finance their education.

Colleges that bring the highest paychecks

The study found wide variations in indebtedness from state to state, with the largest debts concentrated mostly in the Northeast.

The most indebted state is New Hampshire, with an average debt of $32,440, followed by Pennsylvania at $29,959, Minnesota at $29,793, Rhode Island at $29,097, and Connecticut at $28,783.

The state with the smallest average debt is Utah at $17,227, followed by Hawaii at $17,447, California at $18,879, Arizona at $19,950, and Nevada at $19,954.

Alabama A&M University, a public college in Huntsville, and the College of Mount St. Joseph, a private non-profit college in Cincinnati, were among those who had the highest average debt, according to the study.

Students face their own debt bubble

The study found 20 colleges it listed as “low-debt,” averaging between $3,000 and $9,750. While it did not rank the colleges by debt level, the list includes Yale University, Hunter College in New York, and the California State University Campuses in Bakersfield and Sacramento.

Missing from the study are for-profit colleges, which critics say have worsened the student debt crisis. The study cited data showing 96 percent of graduates from four-year, for-profit colleges took out student loans, borrowing 45 percent more than graduates of other types of colleges.

But the study said so few for-profit colleges report their data that it is impossible to include them in the results.

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As a contentious election season enters its final weeks, a flurry of communication from corporate leaders to rank-and-file workers strongly implies that voting for Obama could imperil their jobs and their financial stability.

Employees of a paper company owned by the outspoken billionaire Koch brothers received a mailing warning that they could “suffer the consequences, including higher gasoline prices, runaway inflation, and other ills" if they voted for candidates not supported by Koch-owned companies or its political fund-raising arm.

The company also provided workers with a list of those candidates it supports. At the top: Mitt Romney, according to media outlet In These Times, which broke the story. “The packet also included an anti-Obama editorial by Charles Koch and a pro-Romney editorial by David Koch,” it said.

“This is in no way an attempt to ‘intimidate’ employees,” Greg Guest, senior director of corporate communications at Georgia-Pacific, said in a statement on the site kochfacts.com.

"It's free speech. On the other hand, while it's maybe not directly intended to be intimidating, it can be intimidating," said Izzy Kushner, president of consulting firm HR Impact and president of the Human Resources Association of New York.

Although the Koch brothers are known for their outspoken support of the GOP, “Our support is not based on party affiliation, and we support both Republicans and Democrats who support market-based policies and solutions,” Guest’s statement said.

“In the flyer sent to Oregon employees, all 14 Koch-backed state candidates were Republicans,” In These Times reported. A request for examples of Democratic candidates included on the list of Koch-supported candidates was not answered by press time.

In recent days, other reports have surfaced of company heads telling workers to vote for Romney in the upcoming election,

Last week, owner of Westgate Resorts David Siegel sent workers a pro-Romney email that said, "If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company ... I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone."

MSNBC program Up w/ Chris Hayes reportedSunday on a leaked email from Arthur Allen, president and CEO of ASG Software Solutions, that took a similar tone. “If the US re-elects President Obama, our chances of staying independent are slim to none. ... I don't want to hear any complaints regarding the fallout that will most likely come,” he wrote. The company did not respond to the program’s request for comment.

And two weeks ago, in a letter to employees obtained by Michigan media outlet MLive.com, president and CEO of auto-parts manufacturer Lacks Enterprises Richard Lacks warned workers that sticking with the current administration would hurt them. “The more government takes the less there will be available to spread around to the working people of this company,” he wrote in reference to “talk of additional tax increases.”

“It is important that in November you vote to improve your standard of living and that will be through smaller government and less government,” he said.

On the other side of the political spectrum, nonprofit group Cause of Action called on the Office of Inspector General to investigate reports that two managers at the Federal Aviation Administration told attendees at a departmental meeting to vote for Democrats in presidential and Congressional races “in order to preserve the FAA budget and, consequently, their jobs and pay,” according to a letter it submittedto the OIG.

In the private sector, though, such instances skew pro-Romney. The candidate himself suggested that business owners adopt this practice during a virtual town hall meeting with the National Federation of Independent Businesses back in June.  

“I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections," he said, telling the audience, "Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I believe that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision." 

Some companies aren’t waiting until after the election to carry out their grim predictions. Darden Restaurants, parent company of Olive Garden and Red Lobster, started testing schedules with more part-time workers that would help it avoid costs for full-time employers under forthcoming provisions of the Affordable Care Act. 

"Whatever the reason, more corporations do seem to be getting involved in the political process to a greater degree these days, said Jerry Glass, president of HR consulting firm  F&H Solutions Group. “I think it’s a reflection of … the polarization of the process,” he said. “This is a very decisive and divisive election.

"Messages like this are horrible for a corporate culture. It's a fear tactic," Kushner said, and it can make workers "feel uncomfortable that they're being directed about how to live." 

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Previewing Tuesday night’s debate between President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney, Democratic Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that Obama must “step up” in his confrontation with Romney.

In the first debate between the two candidates on Oct. 3 – widely viewed as a major victory for Romney – Reed said, “It took the stench of defeat to free Mitt Romney from the Far Right of the Republican Party; he got to move away because he was in such a desperate position that he got to say whatever he wanted to say.”

In their second meeting, Reed said, Obama must “stand up and every time sharply address him and not let him get away with” any evasions or any camouflaging of his positions.   

Another prominent Democrat, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, said Romney is “a good pitchman, for sure. And that’s why in the second debate, I think it’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out because he can sell something; that’s sort of what he’s been doing. But the reality is: Who is this man and what’s really behind the facade?”

Granholm compared Romney to “a Trojan horse coming in to occupy the city of (Washington) D.C., but inside the Trojan horse are trickle-down generals and neo-cons, the same people who wrote the Bush plan.”

But Republican campaign strategist Alex Castellanos said, “Something big happened in that first debate that was beyond President Obama not showing up. And that was that President Obama hasn’t really been trying to get elected again, he’s been trying to stop Mitt Romney from getting elected.”

That strategy failed in the first debate, Castellanos argued, because Romney didn’t resemble the portrait of him that Obama and his campaign had been attempting to paint, but instead was “a reasonable, practical problem-solver.”

Castellanos contended that “Barack Obama now has no campaign for the future” and no argument for “why he’s indispensably needed. Now his campaign against Mitt Romney has cracked -- this is man with two empty holsters.”

 Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association said on Meet the Press that Romney’s upward movement in recent polling to either tie Obama in some battleground states, or even surpass him, reflected not merely Romney’s strong performance in the first debate but “a sharp contrast between the vision of Mitt Romney and the record of Barack Obama. It was the first time that 60 million Americans live got to see the two and another 60 million or so through social media got to see them.”

McDonnell said Romney’s momentum in recent polling “is a sustainable trend.”

But Granholm argued that Romney’s momentum will be slowed “not just by the president’s performance in the second debate, but by the economic numbers that are coming out that demonstrate that there has been clear progress. When we’ve got the lowest unemployment rate (at 7.8 percent last month) since the president took office and you’ve got a huge boost in consumer confidence,  the highest in five year, highest housing starts in five years, lowest foreclosure rate in five years, the number of jobs that have been created – I think that will seep in.”

McDonnell argued that the Obama campaign had been trying to divert voters’ attention from the still sluggish economy by pointing to secondary issues, such as Romney’s opposition to taxpayer funding for the Public Broadcasting System – epitomized by his comment in the first debate that, “I like PBS, I love Big Bird.... But I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for.”

McDonnell said, “The top issue facing the country isn’t Bain Capital, it isn’t Mitt Romney’s tax returns, it isn’t Big Bird – it’s how to do we get the greatest country on earth … out of debt and back to work.”  

Municipal bankruptcies are spreading like a “disease” in California, one public finance expert warned Wednesday as the city of Atwater declared a fiscal emergency with a budget gap of more than $3 million.

The city’s council approved the move on Wednesday night, putting it on the path to becoming the fourth city in the state to declare bankruptcy this year.

With a population of 28,000, Atwater fell on hard times after its housing market imploded and sent property tax revenue plummeting. Furloughs and a hiring freeze had not been able to stem Atwater's losses.

San Bernardino becomes 3rd Calif. city in 2 weeks to file for bankruptcy protection

Municipal debt market analysts are keeping a close eye on the finances of local governments in California out of concern that some could use fiscal emergency declarations as a way to speed Chapter 9 filings to attempt to shed financial obligations.

"In California, we have a disease, and the disease is spreading," David Kotok, chief investment officer at Florida-based Cumberland Advisors, told the State & Municipal Finance Conference conference in New York on Wednesday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

"I suspect we're going to see wholesale warnings and downgrades" among bond rating issuers in the state, he said.

If it went bankrupt, Atwater would follow Stockton, San Bernardino and Mammoth Lakes by making a Chapter 9 filing.

San Bernardino, California's city council in July authorized a bankruptcy filing after declaring a fiscal emergency. The city of 210,000 residents 65 miles east of Los Angeles, filed for bankruptcy on August 1.

By contrast, Stockton, a city of 300,000 located about 62 miles to the northwest of Atwater, became California's first city to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection this year after 90 days of inconclusive mediation with its creditors.

Mammoth Lakes, a resort town of about 8,000 residents in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, followed Stockton into bankruptcy court, saying it could not afford a $43 million legal judgment against it. Mammoth Lakes has since reached a settlement with the property developer in the legal dispute and later this month will seek to have its bankruptcy case dismissed.

City officials in Atwater are looking into options for increasing revenue such as raising 20-year-old rates for water services and 10-year-old rates for garbage collection services while clamping down on costs, all while considering whether to pursue a bankruptcy filing.

Union representative Nancy Vinson said 38 of Atwater's non-safety employees have received layoff notices and that 12 are sure to lose their jobs as part of the city's efforts to pare spending.

Vinson told Reuters by telephone that she believes Atwater's financial troubles are so severe that the city will not be able to avoid a bankruptcy filing.

"I believe they're heading straight to bankruptcy," she said.

Mayor Joan Faul could not be reached by Reuters for comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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