Initial unemployment claims dropped by 26,000 this week to a relatively low number of 350,000. If you weren't aware of that, it is to be forgiven as the main stream media wasn't really interested in telling you about it. They thought you would be more interested in being teased with the idea that Condoleezza Rice was actually being considered as Romney's VP, it's more likely Willard would dig up the corpse of Sarah Palin and run it.
JP Morgan Chase's stock price jumped driving up the stock market, supposedly on "news" that the losses on its derivative trading were "only" 5.8 billion instead of the 9 billion that has been reported.
Nine billion is probably not even close to the actual loss, but what the hell, it's only paper. The trading operations of the Wall Street banks are more than big enough to drive the stock market, so what exactly does it matter? Unless you thought you would ever see that money in your 401(k). Sorry, but you probably won't.
A lot is being made of the Simpson-Bowles and Buffett interview on CNBC, it's being portrayed as if we are up against a fiscal cliff and Congress has to embrace austerity or else. They make much of the fact that since Bush drove us off the fiscal cliff (not that they mention his name) that we are at a huge risk of runaway interest rates driving the budget to unsustainable levels.