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Tepco to Ask for $12B From Government: Nikkei – Bloomberg
Tokyo Electric Power Co. will ask the government for 900 billion yen ($12 billion) to avoid bankruptcy, the Nikkei newspaper said, the first state support since the Fukushima nuclear disaster almost eight months ago. Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano may sign off on a finance plan for the company known as Tepco as early as next week, the Nikkei said.
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BBC News – Japanese factory output and household spending fall
Japan’s industrial output and household spending fell in September, raising fresh concerns about the health of its economic recovery. Official data shows that factory output dipped 4% from August, while household spending fell by 1.9% year-on-year.
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FT Alphaville » Sovereign CDS posterchildren
While Greece’s net notional has fallen off a cliff this past year, not least because of how illiquid and meddled with it is, other sovereign CDS have seen rather marked increases in interest.
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Mandatory Greek CDS Post « Dealbreaker: Wall Street Insider
Most investors don’t primarily care if CDS pays off when they crystallize a loss by handing in a bond in a pseudo-voluntary pseudo-default, because they’re unlikely to do that. They care if their CDS mark goes up, in a realizable way, while their mark on the bond goes down.
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Greek Debt Swaps’ Failure to Trigger Casts Doubt on Market – Bloomberg
The European Union’s ability to write down 50 percent of banks’ Greek bond holdings without triggering $3.7 billion in debt insurance contracts threatens to undermine confidence in credit-default swaps as a hedge and force up borrowing costs.
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Employment, Interest, and Money: Kelly Evans on NGDP Targeting and Sustainable Growth
NGDP (level) targeting would eventually succeed in raising demand, because every time it failed, it would then promise a yet more aggressive (and therefore more inflationary) policy. But what happens after it succeeds? Unless people have become less patient, we’re back where we started: everyone tries to shift expenditures into the future at the same time. The economy gets depressed again, and the cycle repeats.
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Heard on the Street: Inflated Expectations for Economic Fix – WSJ.com
A growing number of proponents are pushing for the Fed to replace its employment and inflation targets with a single, simpler one. The one being touted is a level of nominal gross domestic product: GDP without stripping out inflation.
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Revivez le "Sarko show" minute par minute – L’EXPRESS
Sommet européen, rigueur à la française, sa candidature pour 2012 et les affaires… Sur TF1 et France 2, Nicolas Sarkozy a parlé pendant 1h15. Revivez l’émission minute par minute.
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HP decides to keep PC division | Reuters
Hewlett-Packard Co ditched a plan to spin off its personal computers unit, a month after the ouster of CEO Leo Apotheker whose idea would have cost billions of dollars in expenses and lost business.
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Cheat Sheet: What’s Happened to the Big Players in the Financial Crisis – ProPublica
So here’s a quick refresher on what’s happened to some of the main players, whose behavior, whether merely reckless or downright deliberate, helped cause or worsen the meltdown. This list isn’t exhaustive — feel welcome to add to it.
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The eye watering payments – which will amaze ordinary Italians in a time of belt tightening austerity – were made to dozens of women and included several five and six figure sums.
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Harrisburg: A bankrupt city at war with itself | Features | Economy | News | Financial Post
“Every time we go to see the mayor it turns into a screaming and hollering match,” said councilwoman Wanda Williams. “We can’t work with her.” Welcome to Harrisburg, a city at war with itself.
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Greek euro entry ‘an error’ – Sarkozy – The Irish Times – Thu, Oct 27, 2011
"It was a mistake," Mr Sarkozy said, when asked during a TV interview about having Greece adopt the euro two years after the single currency was created. "Its economy was not ready," he added.
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Obama Job Approval Showing Modest Improvement, Now 43%
President Barack Obama’s job approval rating has shown modest improvement in the past week. His latest rating, based on Oct. 24-26 Gallup Daily tracking, is 43%, and his approval has been at or above 42% in each of the last seven days. In the prior two weeks, his averages were generally at or below 40%.
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Half of Germans Are Obese and Overweight
Half of German adults are obese (13.7%) and overweight (36.4%), similar to the 54.5% in the United Kingdom, but significantly less than the 62.1% in the United States.
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David Cameron urges Merkel to let central bank play greater role | Politics | The Guardian
Germany told not to rule out a role for the ECB, amid British fears current plans will struggle to underpin the euro
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Europe’s grand gamble risks failure without ECB – Telegraph
Europe’s "Grand Plan" to save monetary union is, in broad terms, a settled matter, even if the usual theatrics were still dragging on into the small hours of the Belgian night.
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The euro deal: No big bazooka | The Economist
Europe’s leaders have agreed on how to prop up the euro. For now
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What Is NGDP? – Real Time Economics – WSJ
It is this last part which is at the heart of today’s policy debate. In theory, and in the long run, it should be consistent for the Fed to conduct monetary policy in a way that promotes a healthy economy marked by maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates. But that is little help at a time like now, when the Fed is roughly meeting the latter two objectives but falling well short on the first;