- PJB: Obama’s First 100 Days – Patrick BuchananUndeniably, a powerful tide is running for the Democratic Party, with one week left to Election Day. Bush’s approval rating is 27 percent, just above Richard Nixon’s Watergate nadir and almost down to Carter-Truman lows.
- Today’s Polls, 10/28 -FiveThirtyEightStop me if you’ve heard this one before. Although the national trackers look slightly stronger for John McCain than they did a couple days ago, Barack Obama once again had an exceptionally good day in the state-level numbers.
- Google Reaches Agreement With Book Publishers – MashableRemember Google Book Search? It’s the project that’s supposed to offer millions of books, papers and other written materials. Google began archiving these materials a while ago, but they’ve stumbled upon a nasty obstacle: a class action lawsuit from book authors and the Authors Guild, plus another lawsuit from five major book publishers on behalf of the Association of American Publishers.
- Google Reaches Agreement With Book Publishers – MashableRemember Google Book Search? It’s the project that’s supposed to offer millions of books, papers and other written materials. Google began archiving these materials a while ago, but they’ve stumbled upon a nasty obstacle: a class action lawsuit from book authors and the Authors Guild, plus another lawsuit from five major book publishers on behalf of the Association of American Publishers.
- Google Destroyed Feedburner – Big PictureFeedburner has become utterly worthless as an advertising platform. October ads threw off under $500, down 75% from the pre-Google days, despite RSS feeds more than doubling over the past 3 months. Don’t be evil? How about “Don’t be sucky?”
- Google Destroyed Feedburner – Big PictureFeedburner has become utterly worthless as an advertising platform. October ads threw off under $500, down 75% from the pre-Google days, despite RSS feeds more than doubling over the past 3 months. Don’t be evil? How about “Don’t be sucky?”
- Moyers: James K. Galbraith on Finacial Crises – Big PictureBill Moyers talks about the economic future with with James K. Galbraith, Lloyd Bentsen, Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Galbraith is the author of six books, the most recent, The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too.
- Investors left dazed by violence of recent swings – FTA couple of years ago – or before banks started to go bust – economists sometimes liked to talk about a phenomenon they christened the “Great Moderation”.
- Die Finanzkrise schwappt auf den Kunstmarkt über? — Sotheby’s sagt Picasso-Auktion ab – BoersennotizbuchHat die Finanzkrise bereits den Kunstmarkt erfasst? Es sieht danach aus: Wenige Tage vor dem geplanten Termin hat das Auktionshaus Sotheby’s die Versteigerung des Picasso-Gemäldes „Arlequin“ abgeblasen.
- Die Finanzkrise schwappt auf den Kunstmarkt über? — Sotheby’s sagt Picasso-Auktion ab – BoersennotizbuchHat die Finanzkrise bereits den Kunstmarkt erfasst? Es sieht danach aus: Wenige Tage vor dem geplanten Termin hat das Auktionshaus Sotheby’s die Versteigerung des Picasso-Gemäldes „Arlequin“ abgeblasen.
- A Voting Rights Disaster?Suppose in your neighborhood there are 600 registered voters per machine, while across town there are only 120 per machine. (That’s a 5 to 1 disparity, which is what exists in some places in Virginia today.) On Election Day, your line wraps around the block and looks to be a four-hour wait, while in other areas lines are nonexistent.
- A growing chorus for Stevens to resign – PoliticoMcCain, Obama and other Senate colleagues call for Ted Stevens to step down, but he says he plans to stay.
- Why McCain is getting hosed in the press – PoliticoSo what? Before answering the question, indulge us in noting that the subject of ideological bias in the news media is a drag.
- Valero Exceeds Earnings Estimates After Oil Retreats – BloombergOct. 28 (Bloomberg) — Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. refiner, posted a smaller decline in third-quarter earnings than analysts predicted after crude-oil costs retreated from an all-time high, easing a squeeze on profit margins.
- What the heck is going on with Gold?Gold at the moment is perplexing to a great many traders. To many it was a shock when gold recently traded below the $700 an ounce level. So the question is, what happened to the $2,000 an ounce target that most gold bugs were calling for?
- Poles flee ailing Irish economy – Irish IndependentWhen the European Union expanded eastward in 2004, Ireland opened its doors to workers entering from former communist states to help maintain record economic growth. Now, immigrants are heading for the exit.
- Libor Falls as Central-Bank Cash Injections Ease Credit Freeze – BloombergOct. 28 (Bloomberg) — Money-market rates in London declined as cash injections by European central banks showed signs of easing the paralysis among lenders.
- Republicans Try Fear, Loathing to Hang On: Margaret Carlson – BloombergOct. 28 (Bloomberg) — A throw-the-bums-out mentality has so gripped the country that a filibuster-proof U.S. Senate that seemed farfetched just a few months ago now seems entirely possible. In a last-ditch effort to prevent this, Senator John McCain is painting a bleak picture of Democrats on steroids in charge of everything.
- World Is `Drowning in Oil’ (Again) After Drought: Caroline Baum – BloombergOct. 28 (Bloomberg) — Three months ago, the world was running out of oil. Seriously. I kid you not. Everywhere you turned, you heard whispers that the day of petroleum reckoning was at hand. Now there’s too much oil, prodding OPEC to cut production targets for the first time in two years.
- Stevens Convicted of Concealing $250,000 in Gifts – BloombergOct. 27 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Senator Ted Stevens was convicted of all seven felony charges of failing to report gifts from a company in his home state of Alaska, a possibly fatal blow to the career of the Senate’s longest-serving Republican.
- Credit Crunch May Block 20% of Deep Oil Rigs, Slow Petrobras – BloombergOct. 28 (Bloomberg) — As many as 20 of the 100 deepwater oil rigs on order worldwide may be delayed or canceled as loan availability erodes, possibly slowing developments including the biggest petroleum discovery in the Americas in three decades.
- Japan Stocks Rally From 2-Dec
ade Low on Valuations; Banks Slide – BloombergOct. 28 (Bloomberg) — Japanese stocks rose the most in two weeks, breaking a four-day losing streak that erased almost a quarter of the Nikkei 225 Stock Average’s value and sent the gauge to a 26-year low.
- Mortgage Woes Hit Orange County, Calif. Hard: Report – Housing WireIn its annual economic forecast for Orange County, researchers at UCLA’s Andersen Forecast projected that the U.S. and California state economies will move in tandem over the next few years, with income and employment deteriorating further before the housing market evenutally hits bottom.
- VW vies for title of world’s biggest company – FTVolkswagen briefly became the world’s largest company by market capitalisation as panic-buying by hedge funds desperate to cover losses caused its value to shoot up by up to €150bn
- Pakistan: Forced marriage? – ReutersCan cash-hungry Pakistan resist the clutches of the IMF
- BP reports record $10 billion profit – ReutersLONDON (Reuters) – British oil major BP Plc may have marked the oil industry’s high point by reporting a record $10.0 billion third quarter replacement cost profit on Tuesday, as the recent collapse in crude prices ensures a tougher outlook.
- South Korean banks go to Federal Reserve for dollars – ReutersSEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean banks, viewed by investors as among the weakest in Asia, turned for the first time to the U.S. Federal Reserve for dollars as they stepped up efforts to resolve a dollar funding crisis.
- Pickens investors ask for exit: report – Reuters(Reuters) – About half of the investors in T. Boone Pickens’ energy-oriented equity hedge fund have asked to withdraw their money on the heels of losses of about 60 percent this year, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people close to the matter.
- Avis cuts 700 jobs and records $1 billion loss – ReutersLOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Car rental company Avis Budget Group Inc cut 700 jobs in the third-quarter and recorded a loss, before taxes, of more than $1 billion after writing down the value of certain assets, it said on Monday.
- MasterCard, Visa settle Discover suit for $2.75 blnNEW YORK (Reuters) – Credit card companies MasterCard Inc (MA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Visa Inc (V.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Monday they have reached a $2.75 billion settlement in a lawsuit brought by…
- Wal-Mart cutting U.S. store openings further – ReutersBy Brad Dorfman and Nicole Maestri CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will slow the pace of U.S. store openings and cut back on capital spending, aiming to boost sales by remodeling…
- Gasoline at cheapest price since March 2007 – ReutersBy Tom Doggett WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The average U.S. retail gasoline price fell 26 cents over the last week to $2.66 a gallon, the cheapest pump price since March 2007, the Energy Department said on Monday. The national price for regular unleaded…
- Iceland’s interest rate up to 18% – BBC NewsIceland’s central bank raises its key interest rate to 18% from 12% as the country battles against financial collapse.