Sunday, September 16, 2012

Monday September 17 Housing and Economic stories



TOP STORIES:

Italians Squeezed by $9.50-a-Gallon Gas Face Costly Drive Home - (www.bloomberg.com) Giovanni Cimmino filled up his Fiat Multipla in Croatia before returning to Italy after his summer holiday, avoiding Europe’s highest gasoline prices. “You need a smart strategy to save on gas,” said Cimmino, 37, who manages a metals trading company near Milan. With pump prices at a record in Italy, “I tend to use more public transportation and avoid driving when it’s not necessary.” Unleaded fuel has climbed to more than 2 euros ($2.50) a liter, about $9.50 a gallon, in some areas of Italy, including parts of the Tuscany region. That’s made this year’s end-of- summer “rientro,” when Italians return to the cities after their August vacations, more costly than usual.

Majority of Jobs Added in the Recovery Pay Low Wages, Study Finds - (www.nytimes.com) While a majority of jobs lost during the downturn were in the middle range of wages, a majority of those added during the recovery have been low paying, according to a new report from the National Employment Law Project. The disappearance of midwage, midskill jobs is part of a longer-term trend that some refer to as a hollowing out of the work force, though it has probably been accelerated by government layoffs. “The overarching message here is we don’t just have a jobs deficit; we have a ‘good jobs’ deficit,” said Annette Bernhardt, the report’s author and a policy co-director at the National Employment Law Project, a liberal research and advocacy group.

Judgment Days Arrive for Euro Crisis - (www.online.wsj.com) After an uncharacteristically calm August, European policy makers and financial markets are facing a tumultuous autumn marked by major showdowns in key euro-zone battlegrounds. For years, policy makers have wondered what would happen if a large euro-zone country, like Spain, was unable to borrow money in large quantities. Now they are edging closer to finding out. Demand for Spanish bonds is wilting fast, and Spain must issue billions more to cover its deficits and repay old debt coming due in October.

Deflation Deepens As Japan Contraction Risk Intensifies: Economy - (www.bloomberg.com) Japan’s consumer prices slid at a faster pace in July and industrial production unexpectedly slumped, raising the danger that the world’s third-largest economy has slipped back into a contraction. The benchmark price gauge, which excludes fresh food, fell 0.3 percent in July from a year before, putting the central bank’s 1 percent inflation goal further from reach, a government report showed in Tokyo. Industrial output fell 1.2 percent. A private measure of manufacturing for August was the lowest since the aftermath of the record March 2011 earthquake. Today’s releases reflect diminishing demand overseas for the nation’s exports amid the European crisis and exchange-rate appreciation, and the end of incentives for vehicle purchases. With Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s government today predicting it will miss a deficit-reduction target, pressure may rise on the Bank of Japan (8301) to expand stimulus and sustain the recovery.

Analysis: JPMorgan faces sea of trouble resolving "Whale" probe - (www.reuters.com) The fallout from a nearly $6 billion trading loss at JPMorgan Chase & Co looks like it will haunt the big U.S. bank and its high-profile chief executive, Jamie Dimon, for months to come. U.S. authorities are interviewing witnesses in both the United States and Europe to determine if three former London-based traders and others who worked with them at JPMorgan tried to hide some of the mounting losses during the first quarter of this year, said people familiar with the situation. The situation presents several challenges to U.S. authorities: the potentially irregular trading occurred in London; and it was carried out by non-U.S. citizens, such as French national Bruno Iksil, who became known in the market as the "London Whale" for the size of his positions.





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