With unemployment weighing heavily on the housing market, banks will need more capital to bolster the sagging sector. 

“There’s nothing more important to the economy than unemployment,” said analyst Meredith Whitney on Friday on Bloomberg Radio’s “The Hays Advantage.” 

“You have to make structural changes in the economy to address that problem. They’re not monetary issues.”

In a paper presented Friday during a meeting of central bankers, Economists Vincent and Carmen Reinhart presented a grim long-term picture as the nation's economy emerges from a deep recession. 

"GDP growth and housing prices are significantly lower and unemployment significantly higher in the 10-year window following the crisis when compared to the decade that preceded it," the authors said in the paper during a meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyo. 

The Reinharts conclude the nation's slow path to recovery is similar to what has happened in other economies that have struggled through deep financial troubles. 

The paper studies 15 post-World War II financial crises in advanced and emerging economies. They analyzed three global financial crises — what happened after the 1929 stock market crash, the 1973 oil shock and the crisis of the past several years. 

President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board on Friday unanimously approved a set of tax reform suggestions that will be delivered to the president for his review. 

The suggestions were merely just that — suggestions. The 126-page report did not make recommendations on what the White House should do about reforming the tax code.  

Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) on Friday fired back against an ad by the Club for Growth that painted him as a liberal spender of taxpayer dollars. 

After hanging in there as Blockbuster stores across the country were shuttered, the company has decided to file for bankruptcy, according to a report on Thursday.

The L.A. Times cites sources as saying Blockbuster will file as soon as the middle of next month. Word leaked out as a result of talks between the company and major movie studios. 

Blockbuster has nearly $1 billion in debt and wants to get out of leases on around 500 of its nearly 3,500 stores, according to the report. Nearly 1,000 locations have been shuttered in the last year.

Women's groups are slamming President Obama for not booting Alan Simpson from the White House fiscal commission. 

Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig said the nation's economy is experiencing modest growth but that uncertainty is a main driver and a two-day conference with the world's central bankers could provide some longer-term answers. 

"The idea here is to get some ideas on the table, get some options defined so that we can perhaps chart a path that's a little longer term, that I think will address some of those uncertainties," Hoenig told CNBC. 

"It won't eliminate them, but perhaps address some of those uncertainties. That's the goal."

Central bankers are meeting Friday and Saturday in Jackson Hole, Wyo., to discuss world economic issues. 

Despite a week of bad economic news — sales of new and existing homes plummeted last month and the nation's economy slowed down to a 1.6 percent pace in the second quarter —Hoenig said the economy is recovering. 

"I think good news and bad news comes," he said. "And you balance it out, and you look at the trends. And I think we have a modest recovery under way. No one, I don't think any reasonable economist, should expect more than that, given the events that we've gone through."

One in seven homeowners are either past due on their mortgage or in foreclosure, according to the latest report on home-loan delinquencies by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). 

The number of past-due payments has increased since 2009, when one in eight were delinquent. Two years ago, one in 11 were behind on mortgage payments. 

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank is ready to act to ward off a further economic slowdown.