The press has widespread coverage of President Obama’s meeting with his economic advisers (including Timothy Geithner, Ben Bernanke, Lawrence Summers, and Sheila Bair) from Friday, with most quoting Obama hopeful remark that “what you’re starting to see is glimmers of hope across the economy.” What’s the evidence? “Increased refinancing of home mortgages, money flowing from the $787 billion stimulus package and a 20 percent increase in government-backed loans to small businesses over the last month alone.”

But with that is increasing talk of the need for still more stimulus measures. There’s only $134 billion in TARP funds left, according to the Treasury, with new demands on the kitty coming from a number of financial industries. And a New York Times cover article warns of a coming “showdown” between banks and the government: “Some of the healthier banks want to pay back their bailout loans to avoid executive pay and other restrictions that come with the money. But the banks are balking at the hefty premium they agreed to pay when they took the money.” Indeed, six small banks have successfully returned the TARP money. Yet there’s still a fundamental disconnect: While banks claim to be doing better (pre-announcing profits, in the case of Wells Fargo) in the hope of averting greater government interference, the stress tests due to be announced in the next three weeks could show otherwise. The Times says that “[i]ndustry analysts estimate that United States banks alone have more than $1 trillion of such mortgages on their books but have recognized only a small share of the likely losses.” What’s more, “economists at Goldman Sachs estimated recently that banks were valuing their mortgages at about 91 cents on the dollar, far more than investors are willing to pay for them.”

One of those advisers who star has dulled, and who wasn’t at the meeting, is former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who hasn’t seen Obama in almost a month and whose Economic Recovery Advisory Board has yet to meet formally. Here’s some of the scoop, according to the Wall Street Journal: “Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled the administration’s plans for handling troubled financial institutions and the housing crisis without seeking input from Mr. Volcker, associates say. ‘Paul was surprised’ at the failure to consult him.” Obama White House adviser Austan Goolsee talks to him regularly, but Volcker’s stamp on policymaking has, as of yet, been hard to see.

On the other hand, the Wall Street Journal looks at Fed Vice-Chairman Donald Kohn, Ben Bernanke’s “loyal No. 2 and trouble shooter,” who has been at the Fed for nearly 40 years and has in the last 18 months helped transform the institution into a nimble, more transparent, more political, and more central player. It’s praises all around, as Alan Greenspan calls him “my first mentor” and former Fed governor Laurence Meyer anoints him “the most important nonchairman of the board in the history of the Fed.” The profile has him at the table doing the unwilling (helping arrange the Bear Stearns rescue, allowing AIG to disclose its counterparties) because “the mission now is to provide more information about its activities without giving away so much that it undermines its mission to be a lender of last resort.”

By the way, all the spending already out the door, spurred by the Fed and Treasury, is adding up, if you haven’t noticed. The Treasury Department released figures on Friday increasing the deficit by $192.3 billion in March. There’s little good news anywhere on the balance sheet: Tax revenues are down 13.6 percent in the last six months, and benefit payments from the unemployment trust fund have almost doubled in the last year.

The government’s micromanagement of the auto industry continues apace. It’s managing negotiations, “directly and not-so-directly”, with GM, Chrysler banks, and bondholders as they prepare for possible Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings, reports the Wall Street Journal. Instead of an exchange of bonds for cash and 90 percent of the company’s equity, the government wants GM to offer bondholders only a small portion of shares in the automaker. Stay tuned: “Treasury officials, many of whom are now working on GM’s restructuring from an office in Detroit, plan to meet in coming days with a committee representing GM’s bondholders.” At Chrysler, the concessions will be no less breathtaking: “[T]he U.S. wants banks and investors who control its bank debt to give up about 85% of the nearly $7 billion they are owed.” But some Chrysler bondholders still think they have a better chance in court, where, the Journal reports, they think they could get as much as 70 cents on the dollar back. That might not be so realistic, though: “With Chrysler bank debt trading at around 12 cents on the dollar, the government view has been, ‘Why offer more than 15 cents?’ said a person involved in the talks.”

If we’re expecting a helping hand from our trading partners in bailing us out, some of today’s pieces provide little succor. New York Times columnist Floyd Norris traces the fall in trade across the globe, with the total value of exports shipped by 15 large exporters in February 2009 falling nearly a third compared with February 2008. Chinese imports are rising, benefitting its neighbors Korea, Taiwan, and Australia. The Washington Post has the latest bad news from Japan, where another stimulus package, valued at $150 billion, was presented on Friday by Prime Minister Taro Aso. Compared with Obama, Aso sounds like the ultimate realist: “Our prime objective is to prevent the economy from falling through the floor.” Is it too late? While Japanese GDP fell by 12.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, one of the largest declines in any world economy, large or small, orders for new machinery are now starting to rebound.

One veteran who has seen the rise and fall of the economy and of the products that define it is Steve Jobs. The Wall Street Journal reports on the “grip” he’s kept at Apple Inc. since he went on medical leave in early January. This includes reviews of products and product plans (including the interface for the new iPhone operating system), and the development of future projects, such as a netbook. It’s practically a courtlike atmosphere, with “people familiar with Apple’s operations” saying that “members of Apple’s board of directors are monitoring the situation directly, communicating regularly with Mr. Jobs’s physicians.”

In the long-neglected Madoff Files department, a federal judge on Friday removed a section of a December order that would have hindered a personal bankruptcy filing by Bernard Madoff. Why? The judge was convinced that a personal bankruptcy filing would protect all of Madoff’s victims, including those who found their way into his web from “feeder funds” such as the Fairfield Sentry Fund. The trustee for Madoff’s brokerage firm is still tracking down assets, including those in overseas accounts that were withdrawn from Madoff’s funds shortly before the Ponzi scheme was exposed.

The recession means new ways to get money where there wasn’t any before and to stop money going out the door. The Los Angeles Times reports on the rise in garage sales across the country in the last year, with Craig’s List announcements of the sales up 50 percent in the L.A. area and 80 percent nationwide. The New York Times celebrates penny pinchers, profiling the kinds of people who cut credit cards, subscriptions, and even paper napkins out of their lives, helping increase the overall American savings rate to 5 percent. But where there’s local ingenuity, there’s local pain, too: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized banks in North Carolina and Colorado on Friday, costing the fund around $800 million and bringing the total number of bank failures in the United States in 2009 to 23.

Don’t let the recession deny us of a steady stream of new product releases and tweaks, though. For instance, a larger Kindle could be on its way, says the Wall Street Journal. “According to people who said they have seen a version of the device,” the company could release a newspaper and magazine-friendly new platform by the end of the year to take on larger e-readers being planned by Hearst, News Corp., and Plastic Logic. The Amazon spokesperson, of course, refused to comment on “rumors and speculation.”