Editor's Note: CNN Business Correspondent Christine Romans is exploring how we balance faith and finances in a time when money is tight. Watch her special series, "In God We Trust," this Saturday at 8 p.m. ET – only on CNN.

Today our Christine Romans is taking us to a church where it pays to pray. Instead of giving to the poor, some parishioners are leaving with more cash in their pockets – an incentive to keep the faith in tough times.

Loudmouth CEOs, islands in the desert and bringing dead celebrities back to life. CNN Money's annual list of the business world's bonehead plays marches on.

CNNMoney: Read the full story »

President Obama is meeting with some of Wall Street's biggest bankers today. A lot of Americans are wondering exactly what we got out of the deal for bailing those banks out last fall, because some CEOs are still collecting and handing out bonuses like the financial meltdown never happened.

On Monday's American Morning, we spoke with Diane Brady, a senior editor with "Business Week," and our own Christine Romans about how much influence the president has over banks that received taxpayer bailouts.

CNNMoney: Obama, Wall Street bank chiefs butt heads

By Christine Romans

Tim McGraw, sans trademark cowboy hat, saunters into a Manhattan restaurant and needs to find a place to throw out his gum. Finding none, he finds a clean and shiny teaspoon at a waiter station and neatly tucks his chewed gum into it. As far as I know, no one put it on eBay.

Thus begins our 35-minute sit-down with the country music star, who has a new movie, new album, a tour starting in February, and new management.

McGraw is a country music star who is bent on a “fresh start.” He’s honing his brand for a new dynamic audience. His die-hard country music fans are most-likely to buy his records from Target.

But there is a new, digitally savvy audience online, sampling tracks from various artists and genres. He has signed with Red Light Management, the people behind Dave Mathews Band and Phish, and the tour for his album Southern Voice, will be “different” from anything we’ve ever seen from him.

Has Brand McGraw set the “reset button?”

“I don't know whether it's a reset button as much as it is just an advancement button. It's just time to take this up. We've laid a tremendous platform and it is time to expand from that platform. “

That platform is 40 million country records, three Grammy awards, 10 American Music Awards, 11 Country Music Awards. You get the picture. Where he is expanding most visibly is in movies.

He co-stars opposite Sandra Bullock in "The Blind Side," opening nationwide this weekend. It’s his biggest role yet. On the red carpet at the premiere this week, Bullock told CNN about her country music co-star.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Christine Romans

The president today will sign an extension in unemployment benefits. Nationwide, it will be 14 more weeks for the jobless.

If you recently ran out of benefits, you can reapply for the extension. If you live in a high-unemployment state, with a jobless rate above 8.5%, you are eligible for 20 more weeks of jobless checks.

Many of you have asked if your state qualifies for 14 or 20 more weeks. Here are those high-unemployment states:

AL, AZ, CA, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KY, ME, MA, MI, MO, MS, NV, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, WA, WV. Also, Washington, D.C.

By Christine Romans

There is nothing more political, and fuzzy, than the math surrounding the massive $787 billion stimulus package. The administration says 640,000 jobs have been saved or created by the stimulus. That's based on $159 billion in contracts to states for roadwork, bridges, and to keep teachers in the classroom.

Using very simple math, that means taxpayers have spent about $248 thousand per job the White House says were saved or created.

$159,000,000,000 spending ÷ 640,329 jobs saved/created = $248,309 per job

Critics of the stimulus will say it shows taxpayers are getting a raw deal.

But like everything surrounding this stimulus, it is not as simple as that. And a White House economist told ABC such math is quote "calculator abuse."

Why? These are just jobs created to date. These projects will keep creating more jobs, so this cost per job number will only go down over time. The money obviously is not simply down the drain – it's creating economic activity and reflects wages, but also, supplies that are ordered, and materials manufactured, equipment rental, etc.

Still, there is an obsession with quantifying the cost to taxpayers of these jobs.

The White House has its own formula for that.

Government spending $92,136 per job-year
Tax cuts $145,351 per job-year
State fiscal relief $116,603 per job-year
Source: White House

Once the stimulus is fully deployed and working, taxpayers will have spent $92,000 per job.

You can read more of the White House Council of Economic Advisers’ math here.

All the subsequent job and cost counting is as much politics as mathematics. Supporters of the stimulus want to highlight new and saved jobs. They will say the economy is now growing again because of the stimulus spending. Opponents will say it costs too much, there is too much waste, and our grandchildren will pay for it later.

We may never know exactly how many jobs have been created or how long they will last. We will never have a list of three to four million American names who have benefited from the stimulus. But what is certain? I can tell you that $787 billion will be spent over the next two years, and political bickering over its effectiveness has just begun.

Monday November 2, 2009
Romans' Numeral: 90,000,000
Number of employees whose businesses use CIT cash

Romans' Numeral: $2.3 billion
Amount of bailout money at risk in CIT

Read more: CIT bankruptcy: 5th largest in U.S.

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The Dow has lost almost 300 points in two weeks, after a monster rally all spring and summer. Now what?

Caution ahead. The jobless rate will remain uncomfortably high. Regional banks are failing. The big banks are reeling in credit. Businesses are coping with a new normal that means less credit for them to expand and hire. What should you be doing right now?

If you have your job: keep investing in your 401 (k), especially if you have a company match. Keep investing in the 529 for college. Concentrate on your job and doing well there. If you don’t have a job, expect an extension of unemployment benefits and remember that so many people are out of work, the stigma is vanishing. In short, we are living in historic times and the only thing certain is uncertainty.

Alan Greenspan, the former fed chief who presided over a historic period of stock market prosperity, says “we are in a recovery.” On ABC’s This Week, he said this quarter the economy could well grow 3 percent. That is a dramatic improvement from two years of treacherous recession. But the jobless rate will surpass 10 percent and could linger there before finally coming back down. His great concern is the 5.4 million Americans out of work for longer than 6 months. He worries the broader economy will suffer with so much idle talent.

The longer people are out of work, they can lose their skills or not keep up with new skills on the job. “What makes an economy great is a combination of the capital assets of the economy and the people who run it,” Greenspan said. ”And if you erode the human skills that are involved there, there is a real and in one sense an irretrievable loss.” For months we have been focused on the kitchen table tragedies of job loss. But the Maestro gives us something new and potentially troubling to think about.