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According to the Labor Department, more than 10 million Americans are trying to find jobs and want to work, but some obstacle is standing in their way. The obvious roadblock is the recession and its destruction of available jobs. But things like poorly written resumes, lack of relevant experience, and seriously mistaken interpretations of corporate culture are also holding some people up.

So it may only be appropriate that we start 2009 with a similar scene in Washington–three people who are willing and able to work, but facing significant obstacles on their way to starting the job.

Roland Burris won’t get seated until the Illinois secretary of state signs off on his appointment. No such luck today. Al Franken won’t be seated until litigation is completed and his competitor Norm Coleman is promising a courtroom battle.

Even Leon Panetta, Obama’s pick to head up the CIA, is expected to face some roadblocks.

Bloomberg reports that the top Democrats on the Senate intelligence panel, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, have said they weren’t given a heads up about Panetta and seem to have reservations.

From Bloomberg:

Feinstein said she wants an “intelligence professional” in the post. Rockefeller also expressed concern about Panetta’s lack of experience, his aide said.

While these Washington job seekers no doubt face tricky paths to employment, they’re no doubt fortunate to have at least found openings.

The government said new applicants for financial help with buying converter boxes will have to go onto a waiting list. More than 24 million households have requested more than 46 million coupons and more than 18 million coupons have been redeemed.

New applicants will have to depend on the pain of others, whose coupons expire after 90 days. That will free some of the $1.34 billion the government set aside for the program. Expired coupons is an unpleasant surprise awaiting millions who have requested but not cashed theirs.

Nearly 2 million households that rely on broadcast TV haven’t even requested financial help. And about half of the coupons requested haven’t been used, more reason to anticipate a meltdown when TVs go blank next month.

Jan. 6, 2008 — As mass-produced electric cars come closer to reality, their makers are trying to polish the image of what experts say could be a hard sell in the current recession.

“Please erase your image of electric cars being like golf carts,” a spokesman for Japan’s fourth-biggest automaker said before taking a zero-emission vehicle out for a spin.

“It’s fast, powerful and smooth,” Mitsubishi Motors Corp. spokesman Kai Inada said of the iMiEV electric car, which is due to be launched next year.

Zero-emission vehicles may not be a novel concept for long. Japanese car makers are racing to develop electric cars, and U.S. and European manufacturers have also announced plans to roll them out within a few years.

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The dream of an electric car, which has been around since the time of Thomas Edison, has so far failed to break into the mainstream because of limited battery life that makes such vehicles impractical for most purposes.

But after technological breakthroughs in the development of long-lasting lithium-ion batteries, soon it may not just be Hollywood stars who are zipping around in zero-emission automobiles.

Mitsubishi’s electric car now runs 100 miles on one charge, which takes 14 hours when using a conventional 100 volt outlet on the wall, or 30 minutes to charge 80 percent of the battery using a special quick charger.

With the help of government subsidies, Mitsubishi Motors aims to sell its iMiEV at a price of less than $30,000 as early as 2010.

“The price and the short mileage per charge are the two biggest challenges we must address,” admitted Kazuhiro Yamana, head of Mitsubishi’s public relations department.

“But we expect that technological breakthroughs in lithium-ion batteries will continue, realizing longer distances — for example triple the current distance in 10 years,” he said.

Over the weekend, I spoke with WTOP in Washington about how to keep financial New Year’s Resolutions. The main trick is to tell other people what they are, which forces you to get specific about them and also holds you accountable. If you don’t want to share those details with people you know, then you can go online to a site like 43things.com and share your goals with strangers.

LISTEN NOW: Make New Year’s Resolutions Stick

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Investors that put their retirement money in target-date funds tend to play it more conservative over time versus those who choose their own mix of funds, according to a new Vanguard study.

The report looks at the behavior of more than 1.24 million participants in retirement plans, including 357,000 who were actively contributing to target-date funds.According to the study, people who didn’t invest in target-dates exhibited greater extremes in their stock holdings: 30 percent held all-stock portfolios, while 16 percent held highly conservative, zero-equity portfolios.

On the other hand, target-fund investors’ stock exposure ranged from 40 percent to 90 percent, depending on their age and time to retirement.

For those in target-date funds, the study also found that stock exposure dips lower over time compared with non-target-date investors. For non-target-date investors, allocations to stocks decreased by less than 10 percentage points between the ages of 25 and 65. Equity allocations of target-date investors, on the other hand, declined more than 40 percentage points over the same age range.

That’s not necessarily a good thing. While one explanation for the difference between target-date investors and those who choose their own mix may be that non-target daters don’t monitor their allocations closely, a growing opinion among financial advisers is that even newly retired investors need to keep a significant amount of their portfolio invested in stocks. [See "6 Blunders that Ruin Retirement Plans.]

In response to my post yesterday, "What If Stocks Never Go Up Again," a few people commented that such a scenario was so impossible that it was ridiculous to even pose the question.

I have two words for those commenters: Nikkei. Index.

It should be a good day for Apple with the annual Macworld Expo in full swing, but does the hype overshadow consumer weakness and questions about first-half guidance?

Analysts predict a modest boost from a round of new of Macs and a peek at Snow Leopard, Apple’s latest operating system, and a few were encouraged by yesterday’s health update from Steve Jobs. Analysts at Kaufman Bros. said yesterday that Phil Schiller’s keynote at the event will be a positive catalyst, and new products could "perhaps accelerate its strong Mac momentum." Today Oppenheimer upgraded Apple following a Dec. 17 downgrade on uncertainty over Job’s health. Apparently his announcement that he’s suffering from a "hormone imbalance" gave analysts enough information to restore faith in management’s continuity.

Most agree there’s still upside for Apple, but is the near term is still unclear. Kaufman’s Shawn Wu said says Apple’s Mac OS X operating system that powers Macs and iPhones saw faster market share gains in December, which is an obvious long-term positive. But how does that stack up against, for example, Best Buy’s announcement it is selling refurbished iPhones for $50 less than new ones, and the ongoing wait for a cheaper version of the iPhone?

Today, BMO Capital Markets analyst Keith Bachman sees "continued weakness in consumer and educational buying trends" and cuts his price target from $120 to $108 before MacWorld’s keynote. He says: "We note that Apple, like many of our stocks, currently benefits from negative sentiment, and recognition by buy-side investors that current Street estimates are too high. However, we don’t think Apple will trade well between Macworld and its earnings conference call, with realistic concerns about March quarter guidance. We believe that buying the stock owing to weakness from guidance will prove profitable, given that Apple is typically overly conservative."

Bachman lowered his fiscal ‘09 earnings estimate to $4.60 from $5.11, below consensus of $5.12. He lowered revenue estimates for the March quarter, predicting Apple will guide to $7.1 billion to $7.5 billion on earnings of 75-85 cents a share. Consensus is $8.4 billion and $1.15 a share. That’s a big gap, and the thinking goes that until Apple clarifies its guidance shares could wobble. He writes, "We believe the magnitude of the difference between March-quarter guidance and current Street estimates is likely to pressure shares in the short term."

 Apple traded up 1.1 percent this morning at $95.74.

President-elect Obama said it himself on Monday: The economy’s about to collapse, and if Congress doesn’t act fast, it will. Everywhere one turns, lousy economic news abounds. Is it possible we’ve been through the worst and this year will be better than last? Not according to most of what we hear in the media. But the possibility exists despite the naysayers.

Yes, car sales are down. Yes, Wall Street’s in the pits. Job losses are dismal and mounting. The housing market? Let’s not even go there. But I believe two factors—low interest rates and low energy costs—could help ignite at least moderate growth before 2009 winds up.

Jerome Idaszak, associate editor of the Kiplinger Letter, cites these additional reasons for measured optimism: 

Inflation will also be low, in the 1%-2% range for 2009, stretching paychecks for those who still have jobs.

And federal spending will be a big help to the economy. President-elect Obama and Congress plan a stimulus of over $800 billion in tax cuts and spending as early as this month. If the money can be put to work quickly—a big if—it will create a few million jobs.

There’s also a new sense of public confidence in Washington. About 70% of Americans say they are optimistic that the Obama administration will be able to spur growth. Economists say confidence is a key element, especially as it relates to consumers. That’s a big plus if Obama can deliver quickly enough to keep the momentum.

• Read more by Bonnie Erbe.
• Read more from the Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
• Read more about the economy.

Now this will add plenty of uncertainty to an already nervous business climate. My guy and superanalyst Pete Davis tell me:

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) plans to introduce his bill from last year, S.2136, and a similar bill is expected to be introduced in the House.  It would allow non-traditional and subprime first mortgages to be rewritten by bankruptcy judges.   President-elect Obama endorsed the idea during the campaign, so there is a good chance for enactment.  The mortgage industry has fought hard against the idea, saying it would reduce mortgage availability and would increase mortgage interest rates, but that doesn’t seem to have persuaded supporters, who include some Republicans.

Joe Biden is heading to Southwest Asia just days before becoming vice president, a visit that signals the new administration’s plans to make the troubled region an immediate priority.

To protect his security Biden aides won’t say which countries he plans to visit, but the geographic description suggests destinations such as Afghanistan, Pakistan or India.

The Delaware senator is leading the bipartisan congressional trip later this week as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, a post he has to resign before becoming vice president on Jan. 20.

An official familiar with the planning of the trip, first reported by CBS News Monday in the Hotsheet Blog, said Biden is going now so the new administration can be ready from its first day to deal with the region.

The official said waiting until after the inauguration would create delays of one to two months for an official White House trip to be organized.

The official spoke on a condition of anonymity because details of the trip are not authorized for public release.

The trip is designed to help Biden and the other foreign policy leaders from the Senate he is taking along to get a baseline, on-the-ground assessment and the policy options in each country so they quickly can formulate policies for the region, the official said. It was suggested by the president-elect’s national security team.

The mountainous border region shared by Pakistan and Afghanistan is widely viewed by intelligence experts as the focal point for Islamic militants loyal to both the Taliban movement and al Qaeda. The U.S. is expected to shift thousands of troops to Afghanistan early in 2009 to join the fight against an increasingly bold insurgency.

Meanwhile, the relationship between long-time nuclear rivals Pakistan and India has been tense in the wake of the deadly November terrorist attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai. The neighbors have fought three wars already, but both say they want to avoid military conflict over Indian allegations that “Pakistani elements” were behind the attacks.

They are not there to speak on behalf of the U.S. government, or convey policy positions for the incoming administration.

Elizabeth Alexander, Biden spokeswoman Joining Biden will be Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the incoming chairman of the committee. Also accompanying the vice president-elect will be Sens. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, Susan Collins, a Maine Republican and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican. Collins and Graham are members of the Armed Services Committee.

By including Republicans, the incoming administration also is signaling a bipartisan approach to national security problems.

Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said in a statement that the delegations “will make it clear to foreign leaders that they are not there to speak on behalf of the U.S. government, or convey policy positions for the incoming administration.” But Biden’s new status is sure to create intense interest with leaders of the countries he is visiting, who will be looking to him for guidance on the incoming administration.

Biden was scheduled to be sworn in for a seventh term Tuesday, and Alexander said the trip was one of several reasons he wanted to do so even though he will only serve a couple of weeks.

Alexander said Biden felt it was important to take the oath of office after being elected to the seat, noting that Lyndon Johnson did the same in 1960 when he was vice president-elect. Biden also has transition work to do in the Senate office after 36 years of service and wanted to finish his other work on the Foreign Relations Committee, Alexander said.

Edward Kaufman, Biden’s chief of staff for nearly two decades, was appointed to fill the Delaware seat after Biden resigns until another election will be held in two years.