Obama To Challenge Republicans On Jobs (Bloomberg)
The president’s address to a rare joint session of Congress on jobs, the top concern of voters as the 2012 election campaign gets under way, will frame the government’s response as one of either action or delay on reviving the economy. On taxes, the signature Republican issue, he will cast himself as a champion of relief for the middle class rather than for the wealthy. Obama will propose a more than $300 billion stimulus plan in the Republican-controlled House chamber as job growth stalls and the unemployment rate hovers above 9 percent. His job- approval ratings are scraping new lows as public doubts about his stewardship of the economy rise. “The president has had a difficult summer,” said Democratic political consultant Tad Devine, a senior strategist for the Al Gore and John Kerry presidential campaigns. “All of the polling is heading in the wrong direction. He needs a circuit breaker.”
ECB Holds Rates As Recession Fears Mount (Reuters)
The European Central Bank held interest rates at 1.5 percent on Thursday and is likely to indicate that a policy tightening cycle it began in April is on hold in the face of growing evidence the euro zone’s economic recovery is losing momentum.
German Finance Minister: Situation In Greece Is ‘Serious’ (Reuters)
FYI.
Market Conditions Leave David Tepper Cautious (II)
Sources say the Appaloosa manager has gone 30 percent to 40 percent in cash, which is very high for him. Some of his cash is invested in U.S. Treasuries…he is not preparing to aggressively start spending this cash any time soon, except to pick up some shares of stocks he already owns on the dips.
Financial Firms’ Ceilings (WSJ)
Ms. Krawcheck believes that her abrupt exit from Bank of America “is not a woman’s issue,” a person familiar with her thinking said. “She doesn’t feel that. This was a business decision. The music stopped, and she didn’t have a chair.”
Yahoo Seen Willing To Take Any Bid After Bartz (Bloomberg)
Carol Bartz’s ouster is giving companies from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to Microsoft Corp the chance to buy Yahoo! Inc.’s earnings virtually for free.
Rising Fears Of Recession (NYT)
“The chances that we are in something that is going to feel like a recession are close to 100 percent,” said Joshua Shapiro of MFR Inc. in New York, who has diagnosed the economy more accurately than many other forecasters lately. “Whether we reach the technical definition”—which is determined by a committee of academic economists and based on gross domestic product, employment and other factors—“I think is probably close to 50-50.”
Gumby Botches Robbery Of 7-11 (CBS)
San Diego police say a suspect, dressed up as Gumby, tried to rob a 7-Eleven on Labor Day. The botched robbery happened just after midnight Monday in Rancho Penasquitos. Surveillance tape shows the costumed bandit telling the clerk he is being robbed and reportedly demands a pack of cigarettes and cash. The flexible suspect then tried to pull out what he said was a gun from his costume. Apparently flustered, Gumby dropped 27 cents on the floor and left the convenience store empty-handed. Continue reading »
We’re all hoping/confident that all of our country’s job problems will be solved tonight, because it is not easy to be unemployed. There’s the loss of income, the decay of skills, the effects on self-esteem, and the fact that it’s harder to get a job once you’re already out of work. But for some people there’s another, even more insidious danger: you could lose the ability to supplement your income with a little insider trading on the side.
