WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. federal deficit of the 2009 fiscal year reached a record high of 1.42 trillion U.S. dollars, the Treasury Department announced Friday.

    The U.S. government imbalance for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009, more than tripled last year's record. As a portion of the economy, the deficit accounted about 10 percent, the highest since World War II.

    For fiscal year 2009, the government collected 2.1 trillion dollars in revenues, a 16.6 percent drop from 2008, while government spending jumped to 3.52 trillion dollars, up 18.2 percent over 2008.

    The Treasury Department projected that the deficits would total 9.1 trillion dollars over the next decade unless corrective action is taken.

    Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner pointed to the skyrocketing federal debt as a result of the government's actions to tackle the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

    The Obama Administration launched a 787-billion-dollar stimulus bill to boost the economy and another 700 billion dollars to stabilize the financial system since the president took office at the beginning of the year.

    Besides, Geithner said, the debt was also a heritage of the George W. Bush period.

    The 2009 deficit was largely the product of the spending and tax policies inherited from the previous Administration, according to the department.

    "This year's deficit is lower than we had projected earlier this year, in part because we are managing to repair the financial system at a lower cost to taxpayers," Geithner said.

    "It was critical that we acted to bring the economy back from the brink earlier this year," White House budget director Peter Orszag said in a statement. "The president recognizes that we need to put the nation back on a fiscally sustainable path."

    President Barack Obama has vowed to reduce the deficit once the economy returns to growth and the unemployment rate starts falling.

    But critics said the government lacks of the political will to take necessary steps to balance its budget, such as raise taxes and cut spending.

    The U.S. federal deficit is unsustainable if the government does not impose fiscal discipline, observed William Gale, senior fellow of the Washington think tank Brookings Institute.

    Other economists believe that the debt and unemployment are key problems that will test the future of the Obama administration.

Wall Street retreats on disappointing earnings, economic data

   NEW YORK, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Wall Street retreated on Friday, as earnings results from General Electric Co. (GE) and Bank of America Corp. disappointed investors.

   GE, the world's biggest maker of jet engines, lost over 4 percent as the company said its profit dropped 44 percent in the most recent quarter, hurt by weakness in its financial unit, GE Capital, though results were slightly better than analysts' estimates. Full story

U.S. foreclosure activity sets new quarterly high

    WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. properties foreclosure activity set new high in the third quarter mainly due to high unemployment, according to a report released Thursday by a leading real estate market tracking company.

    RealtyTrac- (realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties said in its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report for the third quarter in 2009 that one in every 136 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing during the quarter, the highest since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in the first quarter of 2005. Full story

U.S. retail sales drop 1.5% in September 

    WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Retail sales in the United States fell a seasonally adjusted 1.5 percent in September, smaller than the fall of 2.1 percent economists had expected.

    The figure, released by the Commerce Department on Tuesday, was mainly affected by the fall of auto sales since the end of the government's popular "cash for clunkers" program, which lifted auto sales in the past several months. Full story

U.S. inventories drop for 13th straight month in August

    WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Inventories held by U.S. businesses on shelves and backlots fell for the 13th straight month in August, the longest stretch in seven years, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

    U.S. business inventories declined by 1.5 percent in August, more than the 0.9 percent drop economists had expected. Compared with a year ago, the August inventories dropped 13.3 percent. Full story

U.S. Federal Reserve launches new credit card rules    

     WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) Board on Tuesday proposed new rules to protect consumers who use credit cards from a number of potentially costly practices.

    "This proposal is another step forward in the Federal Reserve's efforts to ensure that consumers who rely on credit cards are treated fairly," said Federal Reserve Governor Elizabeth A. Duke. "The rule bans several harmful practices and requires greater transparency in the disclosure of the terms and conditions of credit card accounts." Ful story