Wednesday marked the end of the year long battle by advocates to eradicate taxpayer-funded bailouts of failed banks. President Obama signed the Wall Street reform bill into law, making this the most influential overhaul of the financial system since the New Deal.

“Because of this law, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes,” Obama said in a ceremony at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington. “There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period.”

The law also immediately grants regulators stronger powers to break up financial companies that have outgrown their welcome.

The law also takes into account the unfair practices in consumer loans and credit cards by creating a new consumer protection agency setting new rules curbing these unethical business applications. It also seeks to clarify the complex financial products called derivatives previously a cause of much frustration.

“These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history,” Obama said. “And these protections will be enforced by a new consumer watchdog with just one job: looking out for people – not big banks, not lenders, not investment houses – in the financial system.”

Senator Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. were both present at the signing along with Obama as the two committee chairmen who sponsored the bill.

Among the President’s 400 guests on an invitation list to the ceremony was Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and the leading candidate for running the consumer protection agency, as well as Vikram Pandit, the chief executive of bailed-out Citigroup, and Bob Diamond, president of the British lender, Barclays

Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor considered a leading candidate to run the consumer protection agency, was among the President’s 400 guests on an invitation list to the ceremony. Also invited were Vikram Pandit, the chief executive of bailed-out Citigroup, and Bob Diamond, president of British lender Barclays.

Monday morning marks lawmakers’ return to the debate of whether it remains more beneficial to continue to spend money stimulating economic recovery, or to quit while ahead in an effort to preserve dwindling coffers.

On one side of the issue lies a party made up of mostly Democrats, arguing that Congress is duty bound to spend to help economically challenged states and their denizens. The other side, mostly consisting of Republicans, charges that adding to the nation’s deficit will contribute to further economic turmoil.

To be completely honest, neither side has much time to argue. Less than a month remains before lawmakers must leave for the extended August recess lasting until after Labor Day, after which campaigning for November elections will tie up decision making efforts. Three pressing issues lie on the table for lawmakers to wrestle with until the recess: unemployment insurance, state aid, and the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Emergency Fund.

Over 2 million people have lost their weekly unemployment checks due to Congress’s refusal to extend the deadline to file for federal unemployment insurance. Lawmakers have been pushing to pass a bill allowing for the extension of the deadline until the end of November, but Republicans have blocked the measure, citing budgeting issues.

Congress also faces pressure from state governors for aid in balancing state budgets amid declining tax revenue, including a bill to extend $10 billion to states to help pay teachers’ salaries. The House also moved a six month extension of federal funding for Medicaid up the priority list in an attempt to get the necessary votes for passing it in legislation.

Additionally, the Recovery Act injected another $5 billion into the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program and created an emergency fund. Half the stimulus money has already been used by states to provide grants, food programs, housing assistance, and other aid programs to local denizens. Another $615 million has funded state-subsidized jobs at companies, nonprofits and government agencies.

The House has passed the grab-bag bill that would extend the emergency fund for a year and inject another $2.5 billion into it, but legislation has been hung up in the Senate.

Several years ago marked the major shake-down of Blackberry maker, Research in Motion, for a expensive legal settlement by NTP Inc. The patent holding giant NTP announced Friday that it had initiated a torrent of patent infringement lawsuits against some of the tech world’s leading companies.

The firm out of Richmond, Virginia filed lawsuits Thursday night against tech giants, Apple, Google, HTC, LG Electronics, Microsoft, and Motorola, accusing each company of infringement upon eight NTP patents related to wireless email technology.

“The filing of suit today is necessary to ensure that those companies who are infringing NTP’s patents will be required to pay a licensing fee,” NTP co-founder Donald Stout said in a prepared statement. The lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Not one of the accused companies has offered comments on this fresh attack yet.

NTP has already established notoriety due to its 2006 patent battle against Research in Motion that resulted in a $613 million settlement to make the charges disappear. 2007 marked further legal action by NTP against AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless for similar patent infringements; however these cases remain open.

Critics of the current U.S. patent policy are less than surprised by the new lawsuits, citing a problem often encountered due to the loopholes allowing companies to collect patents for inventions they will never manufacture. These companies, fondly nicknames ‘paten trolls,’ can then profit by opportunistically suing companies that do make use of the invention.

A Senate bill is in the works to bring changes to the U.S. Patent Office, including a transition to a “first-to-file” system rather than a “first-to-invent” approach. The United States is the only major country that gives patents to those who can prove they invented an item before someone else’s patent was filed.

The economic crisis that California faced a mere year ago was handled by gifting hundreds of thousands of IOU’s to contractors and taxpayers. This year’s budget challenges may be addressed by cutting state workers’ wages to the very core.

Because government officials are unable to reach an agreement regarding the new fiscal-year budget for the state, most of California’s quarter of a million state employees will most likely see their salaries cut to the federal minimum.

It is a perfect example of workers finding themselves in the midst of party-line crossfire as Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, struggles to find middle ground with the Democrat-led California legislature. With no light in sight at the end of the tunnel, Schwarzenegger’s administration had no choice other than to move to cut 200,000 workers’ wages to $7.25/hour across all job types and pay scales, making the local lifeguard on par with an accountant.

When the budget is finally agreed upon, affected workers would, in theory, receive back pay; however, state employees have already received the brunt of financial abuse, with cuts already taken on the average of 14%.

Republicans propose severe cuts to state social programs such as welfare and Medicare, while Democrats wish to tax some corporate industries and delay corporate tax breaks. Workers are fortunate that 2003 California Supreme Court ruled that a state can withhold salaries during budget impasses as long as they continue to comply with federal law, which does not allow wages to drop below federal minimums.

Not all agree that this is a solution to the current budgeting predicament. In fact, the Service Employees International Union, the largest union of California state workers, said in a statement that the cuts will only add to the state’s budget crisis. The union has made claims an agreement was negotiated last year that would have saved the state some money, “but the governor walked away from that deal.”

Luxury vehicles which are possibly affected by engine problems will begin being recalled Monday, according to plans by Toyota Motor Co.. The company plans to submit documents Monday recalling 90,000 vehicles in Japan, according to Mieko Iwasaki, company spokesman. In other regions, recall announcements will be handled by each individual country.

Toyota is looking into engine problems affecting 270,000 vehicles across the globe, the company said Thursday. According to spokesman Paul Nolasco, there was low quality metal used to manufacture small valve springs, and these springs could crack, causing engines to potentially stall. Most drivers will experience only minor problems, such as engine noise or abnormal idling, and even that scenario was called a “remote possibility”.

The recall could potentially affect about 137,000 vehicles in the United States, according to Toyota. The models that are potentially affected include luxury sedans and hybrid cars, and the model numbers are the Lexus IS 350, GS 350, GS 460, GS 450h, LS 460, LS 600hL, GS 450h and the LS 600hL, the final two being the hybrids. The Toyota Crown, a large luxury model that is sold outside of the United States, could also be affected, according to Toyota, and only models from the year 2009 and prior could possibly involved.

To date, there have been no reports received by Toyota of any deaths or injuries relating to the problems, and Toyota’s luxury Lexus division plans to announce a solution for the problem as soon as possible, according to a company statement. In the words of Mark Templin, Lexus’ general manager in the United States, “In the meantime, we sincerely apologize to our customers for any inconvenience and request that they contact their nearest Lexus dealer if they believe there is a problem with their vehicle.” This is the latest in a long-running array of safety and quality problems with Toyota vehicles, as the company gas recalled more than 8 million vehicles across the globe in recent months, due to a variety of potential safety problems, including trouble with the anti-lock brake software, as well as potential unintended acceleration.

The most recent recalls involved some Lexus Sport Utility Vehicles, due to problems with the software controlling the electronic stability of the vehicle. The problems have not gone unnoticed either; in a recent JD Power and Associates survey of initial quality, Toyota went from 6th place last year, all the way to 21st place this year.