Financial Times
For most Americans, the main lesson of last month’s jobs report was an unchanged unemployment rate of 9.6 per cent, another ugly statistic in a steady procession of bad economic news. But of equal importance was the better news that 159,000 new private sector jobs were added, making October the second strongest month of the year.
Financial Times
America goes to the polls on Tuesday with every indication that a dramatic transfer of power is afoot. Republicans are all but certain to take control of the House of Representatives, and are poised to make significant gains in the Senate. Even if Democrats retain the upper chamber, dramatic changes will begin on Capitol Hill.
Financial Times
America’s troubled asset relief programme – better known as Tarp – died on Sunday, at the age of two. The causes of death were bitter politics and financial illiteracy. Hatched in the post-Lehman bankruptcy panic, Tarp allowed Barack Obama, US president, and his predecessor, George W. Bush, to bypass laborious Congressional approval and deploy $700bn to rescue a collapsing financial system. In its short life Tarp soon became the programme that everyone loved to hate.
“[a] surprisingly modest account…Rattner has a journalistic talent for the telling detail, resulting in a memorable tale of life in the middle of the economic meltdown...Rattner deftly draws portraits of the inhabitants of "the Oval" and the West Wing...Rattner has proved himself a gifted chronicler.”
-Time Magazine
