The Commentariat -- August 3

I've posted an Open Thread for today Off Times Square.

"Washington Chain Saw Massacre." Maureen Dowd sees "the gory, Gothic melodrama on the Potomac [as] a summer horror blockbuster — without the catharsis."

And for the next storyline in the continuing soaper "As the Capitol Turns," Greg Sargent begins the speculation derby on what legislators will be appointed to the deficit-reduction super committee. The good news: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi "came close to endorsing the idea" that she would only appoint members who would hold the line on liberal prioities. The bad news: ConservaDem Sen. Mark Warner is angling for a seat on the committee. ...

... Steve Benen: "I hope folks are ready to live with those triggers included in the deal, because the likelihood of the Super Committee reaching some kind of consensus that can (a) be approved by a majority of its members; (b) pass the House and Senate; and (c) earn President Obama’s signature, is already extremely low." ...

... Karen Garcia has two excellent posts on the aftermath of the Swampy Horror Picture Show here and here. Or just go to her site here. ...

... AND Michael Scherer of Time games "the sequestration." Sounds dull, but it's pretty interesting. It doesn't bode well for comity. But then, what does in D.C.? ...

... Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner writes an op-ed for the Washington Post:

Blah blah blah ... compromise ... blah blah blah ... fiscal sustainability ... blah blah blah. It is not enough for Congress to have prevented a disaster it brought on itself. Lawmakers should return in September prepared to act to strengthen the economy and get more Americans back to work. Doing so will help repair the damage this fractious debate inflicted on an economy that was already slowing, not just here but around the world. ...

... Jared Bernstein: Sen. Mitch McConnell has promised that every time the President asks for the debt ceiling to be raised, we can expect another one of these crises. "To understand how nonsensical Sen McConnell’s ... position is, you have to appreciate that Congress knows when they pass their budget whether it will breach the debt ceiling or not, just like you know when you order your lunch whether you’ll be able to pay for it." ...

... Ezra Klein: "Hearing McConnell’s comments last night, economist Jared Bernstein was shocked. 'This is not the way of great nations,' he wrote. I disagree.... This is certainly the way of great nations. It’s the way they fall." ...

... Dave Weigel of Slate elaborates.

CW: like me, Matt Taibbi here and Glenn Greenwald here, do not buy the memes that Obama is a "weak negotiator" or was "forced" by Tea Party incalcitrance to make a bad deal for ordinary Americans. As Greenwald writes, "Obama's so-called 'bad negotiating' or 'weakness' is actually 'shrewd negotiation' because he's getting what he actually wants (which, shockingly, is not always the same as what he publicly says he wants)."

... Robert Reich: "With the hostage crisis behind him, the President is now ready to talk about the nation’s real problem": unemployment. But the deal he cut with Congress, and the radical right Congress in general, will not allow any spending on jobs programs. Reich echos Drum (& Bernstein): "The radical right has not only captured the federal budget. In convincing so many Americans the problem is the size of government rather than their shrinking paychecks and growing economic insecurity, the radical right has also captured the American mind." ...

... AND Ben Smith shows why Obama's announcement that his Administration will now "pivot to jobs" is another repeat of an old refrain without substance.

** Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "The public ... mostly aren't on our side. They think deficits are bad, they don't trust Keynesian economics, they don't want a higher IRS bill (who does, after all?), and they believe the federal government is spending too much on stuff they don't really understand. Conservatives have just flat out won this debate in recent decades.... I blame the broad liberal community for our failures, not just President Obama. My biggest beef with Obama is ... that he's never really even tried to move public opinion in a specifically progressive direction." ...

The Case for the Obama Approach. We didn't lose this fight. Barack Obama was in law school when this fight was lost. The role of Democrats should not be to convince people that government is great; it should be to help people reach their potential -- and government is a tool to do that. There has been a strain of skepticism about the government in the American character since the founding. Only the New Deal changed that significantly, but we have been returning to the norm ever since then. -- a "Senior Democrat," to Ben Smith

... Joan Walsh of Salon: President Obama is mistaken in his wager that "independents" will support him in 2012 because he's such a good compromiser. "Obama's best hope for re-election is the fact that Generic Republican won't win nomination; he'll be running against either a Tea Party extremist or Mitt Romney, and in most polls he beats both of them." ...

Giant Hanging Icicle. Derek Thompson of The Atlantic borrows four graphs from Calculated Risk: "... they compare key recession indicators as a share of their pre-recession peaks. The outcome reveals each recession in the last 50 years as a kind of hanging icicle. Ours is by far the longest, and we don't yet know when we'll trace our way back to the 2007 [level]."

Right Wing World *

President Krugman, I Presume. CW: I know Newt Gingrich is a big fat liar, so one might assume he was just lying here. But I don't think so. I am thinking he is genuinely clueless.

Art via Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller."The Mittness Protection Program." Maybe you didn't notice he was gone, but Ben Smith notes that Mitt has been MIA. "Romney’s absence has been particularly pronounced in the heat of the budget debate. His last event in either an early state or Washington, D.C. was on July 15.... Romney has been acting more as a full-time fundraiser and occasional candidate, and many of his stops — like the most recent two in Los Angeles and Ohio — are tacked on to his fundraising schedule."

Frances Martel of Mediaite: "... given [Pat] Buchanan’s record of questionable comments, it’s hard not to find something off-color about his debate with [MSNBC host Al] Sharpton today [Tuesday], where, discussing the debt, he argues that 'your boy,' President Obama, was 'whipped' by Sen. Mitch McConnell, and adds a 'briar patch' reference for good measure." Here's the video:

     ... CW: I think Buchanan has found his match in Sharpton. Note: I don't see where anyone has commented on it, but Buchanan also calls Rep. Emanuel Cleaver [D-Missouri], who is black, "your boy." He just can't stop. ...

... Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: "Pat Buchanan has a long history of bigotry." ...

... Fox Nation (my absolutely favorite source for news): "Buchanan "forced to apologize for 'your boy' quip."

* Where the leaders are (1) nitwits, (2) liars, or (3) nitwits & liars. Oh, and they're all white.

More on D. B. Cooper from Pierre Thomas of ABC News: "A woman claiming to be the niece of infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper has spoken to ABC News in an exclusive interview about her role in the recently re-ignited 40-year-old cold case that has haunted the FBI for years. Marla Cooper told ABC News that she has provided the FBI with a guitar strap and a Christmas photo of a man pictured with the same strap who she says is her uncle, Lynn Doyle Cooper."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "After months of inaction, the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday issued its first formal condemnation of Syria for its use of force against civilians during a bloody crackdown that has killed as many as 2,000 anti-government protesters. The action came as Syrian authorities severed telephone lines, electricity and water supplies to the besieged city of Hama."

AP: "A federal judge has ruled that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld can be sued personally for damages by a former U.S. military contractor who says he was tortured during a nine-month imprisonment in Iraq. The lawsuit lays out a dramatic tale of the disappearance of the then-civilian contractor, an Army veteran in his 50s whose identity is being withheld."

AP: "The bruising debt fight behind him for now, President Barack Obama is planning a Midwest bus tour later this month that will focus on jobs."

President Obama speaks to the press before his Cabinet meeting:

... Politico: "President Barack Obama says his 'expectation' is that a partial shutdown at the Federal Aviation Administration will be resolved this week. The crisis at the FAA, which started July 23, has put 75,000 people out of work, stalled construction projects across the country and has forced safety inspectors to cover their own travel expenses while working without pay." Washington Post story here.

New York Times: "Hosni Mubarak, who served longer than any ruler in modern Egypt’s history..., faced charges of corruption and killing protestors Wednesday before a court in Cairo."...

... The Guardian is liveblogging the trial & related news. Includes livefeed of trial. Guardian raw video: "Hosni Mubarak arrived in court in Cairo on a stretcher, charged with the unlawful killing of pro-democracy protesters in the uprising against him earlier this year. He is also accused of profiteering by abusing his position of power and exporting gas to Israel for prices lower than international market rates. Sentences for these charges range from five years in prison to the death penalty." ...

... Al Jazeera's liveblog is here. Includes video. Lead story: "Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak has denied charges of corruption and complicity in the killing of protesters at the start of his historic trial in Cairo."

Reuters: "Syrian tanks occupied the main square in central Hama Wednesday after heavy shelling of the city, residents said, taking control of the site of some of the largest protests against President Bashar al-Assad." Al Jazeera story here.

Guardian: "Stock markets took fright on Wednesday as fears grew over the health of the global economy and the ongoing European debt crisis. There was heavy selling in London when trading began, sending the blue-chip FTSE 100 index falling by 91 points, or 1.6%, to 5626. There were also heavy losses across Europe, The French CAC and German DAX indices were down 1.6% and 1.1% respectively." New York Times story here.

New York Times: the U.S. Air Force is replacing the aged U-2 spy planes with the Global Hawk, a surveillance drone. "Since 2001, the cost of the Air Force program has more than doubled, and the service recently cut its planned fleet of Global Hawks to 55 from 77. That lifted the total estimate for each plane, including the sensors and all the research and development, to $218 million, compared with $28 million for the Reaper, the largest armed drone."

The Commentariat -- August 2

The President speaks moments after the Senate passed the debt/deficit bill. He has since signed the bill into law:

C-SPAN image.

I've posted an Open Thread for today's Off Times Square.

For you serious wonks, here's the text of the debt/deficit bill. It's 74 pages. CW: I won't be reading it. ...

... CW: this commentary (mind you, this is analysis, not straight reporting) by John Schoen of NBC News is a good example of what's wrong with the MSM. Look at this sentence:

Consumers, investors, and business owners and executives have watched in horror as their government used the threat of an unprecedented default as a political bargaining chip.

    ... "the government used the threat of ... default as a bargaining chip"? The government? No, it was not the government. It was the Republican party. Fucking irresponsible.

... The Obama presidency in a nutshell by the best nutshell scribe ever, Rick Hertzberg (read his entire commentary):

Obama’s seeming refusal to hold [the Fourteenth Amendment] in reserve ('like the fire axe on the wall,' in Garrett Epps’s words) is emblematic of his all too civilized, all too accommodating negotiating strategy—indeed, of his whole approach to the nation’s larger economic dilemma, the most disappointing aspect of his Presidency. His stimulus package asked for too little and got less. He has allowed deficits and debt to supersede mass unemployment as the emergency of the moment. He has too readily accepted Republican terms of debate, such as likening the country to a household that must 'live within its means.' (For even the most prudent householders, living within one’s means can include going into debt, as in taking out a car loan so that one can get to one’s job.) He has done too little to educate the public to the wisdom of post-Herbert Hoover economics: fiscal balance is achieved over time, not in a single year; in flush times a government should run a surplus, but when the economy falters deficits are part of the remedy; when the immediate problem is what it is now — a lack of demand, not a shortage of capital — higher spending is generally more efficacious than lower taxes, especially lower taxes on the rich.

     ... Hertzberg will conduct a live chat on the debt ceiling at 3:00 pm ET today.

... ** Nate Silver: in view of the substantial majority of Representatives who voted for the debt/deficit bill, it is evident that "Mr. Obama could have shifted the deal tangibly toward the left and still gotten a bill through without too much of a problem. For instance, even if all members of the Tea Party Caucus had voted against the bill, it would still have passed 237-to-193, and that’s with 95 Democrats voting against it. Specifically, it seems likely that Mr. Obama could have gotten an extension of the payroll tax cut included in the bill, or unemployment benefits, either of which would have had a stimulative effect." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... what we’ve witnessed pretty much throughout the western world is a kind of inverse miracle of intellectual failure. Given a crisis that should have been relatively easy to solve — and, more than that, a crisis that anyone who knew macroeconomics 101 should have been well-prepared to deal with — what we actually got was an obsession with problems we didn’t have."

... Jackie Calmes & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times have a blow-by-blow on high-level negotiations on the debt-deficit deal over the past several days. ...

... The New York Times has a chart that outlines how the deficit reduction would work unde the bill the Senate should pass today. ...

... Kate Zernicke of the New York Times: "While Tea Party groups and members of the Tea Party caucus in the House loudly insisted that they would not support any increase in the debt limit, many rank-and-file Tea Party voters did support it. In interviews and in recent polls, many voters said they backed the Tea Party in the midterm elections because they wanted a change from the status quo, or because they felt that the government spent too much money, but not because they considered reducing the federal debt the nation’s biggest concern." ...

... Joe Nocera has a pretty good column on what a terrible effect the Tea Party hostage deal will have on the economy: "America’s real crisis is not a debt crisis. It’s an unemployment crisis. Yet this agreement not only doesn’t address unemployment, it’s guaranteed to make it worse." ...

You need to set a thief to catch a thief. -- President Franklin Roosevelt, on his appointment of Joe Kennedy as S.E.C. chairman ...

... Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times on the revolving door between the S.E.C. & the Wall Street firms the S.E.C. is supposed to police. CW: looks like that revolving door is hitting the rest of us in the ass.

Prof. Tera Hunter on the real story of slave families in the American South. (CW: near the end of her essay, I think Hunter confuses Bachmann with Palin. It was Bachmann, not Palin, who insisted the founders fought against slavery. Update: e-mailed back-&-forth with Hunter, & she says Palin makes the claim in her latest book. If you don't think being a scholar is tough, consider that -- Hunter had to read Palin's book!)

CW: I haven't read it yet, but this long New Yorker piece by Nicholas Schmidle on "Getting bin Laden" looks interesting.

AND, just because we deserve some fun:

FBI artist's rendition of D. B. Cooper, via the Seattle P. I.Casey McNerthney of the Seattle Post Intelligencer: "The FBI has what it calls 'our most promising' lead to date for a suspect in the infamous 1971 D.B. Cooper case – the nation's only unsolved commercial airplane hijacking. The name of a man not previously investigated was given to the FBI, and an item that belongs to him was sent for fingerprint work at the agency's Quantico, Va...." ...

     ... Update: "The man investigated as a suspect in the D.B. Cooper case ... has been dead for about 10 years, and a forensic check didn't find fingerprints on an item that belonged him, an FBI spokesman told seattlepi.com Monday." ...

     ... Update 2. Katharine Seelye & Charlie Savage of the New York Times have the story here.

News Ledes

New York Times: "After dealing with the debt crisis, Senate negotiators tried and failed Tuesday to end a stalemate over temporary funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, leaving 4,000 F.A.A. employees out of work and relying on airport safety inspectors to continue working without pay. The partial F.A.A. shutdown, which began July 23 and is likely to continue at least through Labor Day, has also idled tens of thousands of construction workers on airport projects around the country."

C-SPAN says the Senate is to vote at noon on the debt/deficit bill. No link. But if you want to watch the vote, C-SPAN is airing the Senate session here. At 12:15 pm ET, the Senate is voting. Update: the voting is still ongoing @ 12:34 pm ET, but C-SPAN reports that the Senate has passed the bill. CW: An interesting mix of "no" votes from the far right & the left (including Gillibrand of New York who is certainly positioning herself for a run for higher office). Update 2: at about 12:40 pm ET, Dick Durbin declared the bill passed. ...

     ... Update 3: at 2:00 pm ET Jay Carney just reported that President Obama has signed the debt/deficit bill into law. ...

     ... Update 4: here's the Washington Post story.

Reuters: "The 'Great Recession' was even greater than previously thought, and the U.S. economy has skated uncomfortably close to a new one this year. New data on Friday showed the 2007-2009 U.S. recession was much more severe than prior measures had found, with economic output declining a cumulative of 5.1 percent instead of 4.1 percent. The report also showed the current slowdown began earlier and has been deeper than previously thought, with growth in the first quarter advancing at only a 0.4 percent annual pace. The data indicated the economy began slowing in the fourth quarter of last year before high gasoline prices and supply chain disruptions from Japan's earthquake had hit, suggesting the weakness is more fundamental and less temporary than economists had believed."

AP: "The legislation [to raise the debt limit], which easily passed the House on Monday, is virtually assured to clear the Senate shortly after noon Tuesday by a bipartisan tally. The White House promises Obama will sign the measure into law." CW: the AP now characterizes the bill as "bipartisan legislation." Here's the New York Times story, which has been updated to reflect the Senate's passing the bill.

** Two Victories for Equal Rights:

     New York Times: "The Obama administration issued new standards on Monday that require health insurance plans to cover all government-approved contraceptives for women, without co-payments or other charges. The standards, which also guarantee free coverage of other preventive services for women, follow recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences and grew out of the new health care law."

     AP: "An incredulous federal judge on Monday rejected the state's claim that a new Kansas statute that denied Planned Parenthood federal funding did not target the group, ruling that the law unconstitutionally intended to punish Planned Parenthood for advocating for abortion rights and would likely be overturned." CW: read this for the state's essentially pejurious defense of the law.

The Commentariat -- August 1

They have acted like terrorists. -- Vice President Joe Biden, referring to Tea Party Republicans, in a closed-door meeting with Democrats

President Obama Sunday night on debt ceiling deal:

... Here's the White House fact sheet on the particulars of the deal. CW: talk about low expectations, it appears the deal isn't as bad as I thought it would be. ...

... AND here's Boehner's fact sheet (pdf) which he prepared for his caucus. As Steve Benen gleefully points out, Boehner's fact sheet is not factual. Boehner lied to his own caucus to make the deal sound more Loon Squad-friendly. With any luck, they won't catch on. ...

... The Washington Post has a handy little chart on who got what. ...

... NEW. CW: As I said yesterday upon looking over the an outline of the deal, so says Nate Silver: "If Democrats read the fine print on the debt deal struck by President Obama and Congressional leaders, they’ll find that it’s a little better than it appears at first glance." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... the deal ... is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status." ...

... I've posted a Krugman page on Off Times Square. Several other commenters and I have added our New York Times comments; the Times has held back all of them, so -- as usual -- this is the place to read same-day comments. ...

... ** Too Late. The Damage Is Already Done. David Sanger of the New York Times: "Among foreign leaders and in global markets, the political histrionics have eroded America’s already diminishing aura as the world’s economic haven and the sole country with the power to lead the rest of the world out of financial crisis and recession. It has chipped away at the global authority of President Obama, who was celebrated abroad when he came to office as a man who would end an era of American unilateralism. Now the topic of discussion in other capitals is whether the Age of Obama is giving way to an Age of Austerity, one that will inevitably reduce America’s influence internationally." ...

... Matt Miller of the Washington Post writes an excellent column the headline of which is "The debt deal: disaster averted, decline straight ahead." ...

... Greg Sargent: "... it apppears the GOP is on the verge of pulling off a political victory that may be unprecedented in American history. Republicans may succeed in using the threat of a potential outcome that they themselves acknowledged would lead to national catastrophe as leverage to extract enormous concessions from Democrats, without giving up anything of any significance in return." ...

... AND Sargent on Obama's tactics: "... while critics ... argue that there is plenty more Obama could have done to rally the public to pressure Republicans, it’s important to note that Obama and Dems did win the P.R. battle. Multiple polls showed strong support for compromise; they showed a decisive shift towards the notion that failure to raise the debt ceiling could be catastrophic; they showed the public would blame the GOP for failure. Yet that didn’t stop the GOP from allowing the threat of default to linger, even as it upped its demands." ...

... Long Ride on a Blunder Bus. Jonathan Chait of The New Republic: "There’s a limit to how much faith one can place in a man who has so badly misjudged his political opponents time and time again. The debt ceiling ransom may be a shrewd strategic retreat, or it may be the largest in a series of historic capitulations." ...

... Michael Scherer of Time: Americans' Number One priority is jobs, and the debt deal means at least short-term limits on jobs creation. CW: frankly, I think that's the cynical understory in the Tea Party Plan to Wreck America.

... Cuts Will Make a Weak Economy Weaker. Binyamin Appelbaum & Catherine Rampell of the New York Times: "The emerging outlines of a deal to cut spending by at least $2.4 trillion over 10 years, with a multibillion-dollar down payment later this year, would complete an about-face in the federal government’s role from outsize spending in the immediate aftermath of the recession to outsize cuts going forward." CW: funny how in the last couple of days -- at least a month after it was too late -- stories like this are finally moving off the op-ed pages & blogs & into the news & analysis pages. ...

... Daniel Stone of the Daily Beast: Vice President Joe "Biden hasn’t been heard from publicly in 61 days, since he last spoke with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on a visit to Rome. But on the day that a final deal with Republicans finally came together, White House officials said that Biden had been the key player in the administration's dealings with Congress, especially late in the negotiations when talks descended repeatedly into partisan warfare...." ...

... New York Times Editors: "... this episode demonstrates the effectiveness of extortion. Reasonable people are forced to give in to those willing to endanger the national interest." ...

... Washington Post Editors: "When the hostage is released, everyone breathes a sigh of relief, no matter what it took to secure his safety." ...

... USA Today Editors: They didn't cut enough! CW: really. ...

... Wall Street Journal Editors: Ditto. Of course. Oh, and blame it on liberals. ...

... Simon Johnson, writing in Bloomberg News, zeros in on "the U.S.’s single largest fiscal problem over the next decade: The lack of adequate capital buffers at banks." He explains.

Profs. Jacob Hacker & Oona Hathaway in a New York Times op-ed: "After the debt crisis ends, the democracy crisis must be tackled. Nobody wins when our constitutional system falters: not the president, who gains unilateral power but loses a governing partner; not Congress, which gets to blame the president but risks irrelevance; and certainly not the American people, who have to bear the resulting dysfunction."

Local News

More Reasons Florida Sucks. Kevin Sack of the New York Times: "Despite having the country’s fourth-highest unemployment rate, its second-highest rate of people without insurance and a $3.7 billion budget gap this year, the state has turned away scores of millions of dollars in grants made available under the Affordable Care Act. And it is not pursuing grants worth many millions more. In recent months, either [America's Worst Governor] Rick Scott’s administration or the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature has rejected grants aimed at moving long-term care patients into their homes, curbing child abuse through in-home counseling and strengthening state regulation of health premiums. They have shunned money to help sign up eligible recipients for Medicare, educate teenagers on preventing pregnancy and plan for the health insurance exchanges that the law requires by 2014."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Israel has told Middle East power brokers it was ready to discuss a proposed package on borders with Palestinians to help Western powers revive stalled peace talks, an Israeli official said Monday. The official denied reports by Israeli and other media outlets that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had backed down from an earlier rejection of President Barack Obama's proposal to negotiate a pullback to so-called 1967 borders."

Washington Post: "The House approved a bill that raises the federal debt limit and cuts discretionary spending by $1 trillion over the next 10 years. The 269 to 161 vote sends the bill to the Senate, which is likely to consider the plan Tuesday. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords cast her first vote in the House since being shot in January, voting yes." ...

... CBS News: "Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona made a surprise return to Washington Monday to vote in favor of an agreement to raise the debt limit.... Lawmakers offered Giffords a standing ovation on the House floor when she showed up in the chamber. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Giffords' name inspires the love and admiration of Americans, and said to applause: 'Thank you, Gabby.'" AP story here, with what looks like a screengrab. ...

... New York Times: "Democratic and Republican leaders in the Congress began making their final arguments on behalf of Sunday’s debt ceiling deal to skeptical members in advance of votes in both chambers that could come as early as Monday afternoon." ...

    ... Update. New Headline (the lede hasn't caught up yet): "House passes bill on debt ceiling."

Here's the Washington Post's take on the politics of the deal. "The deal was negotiated primarily by Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). It teetered all day on the edge of completion as House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) bickered with Democrats over whether to freeze next year’s defense budget. In the end, Boehner conceded the point, and Obama finalized the agreement in phone calls to each of the four congressional leaders shortly after 8 p.m."

Washington Post: "Asian and European markets surged Monday after President Obama and congressional leaders reached a deal to raise the debt ceiling, avoiding a U.S. default that threatened painful implications for the global economy." ...

     ... CW Update: the American stock market sure ain't liking it. See widget above. New York Times: "Stocks on Wall Street briefly followed European and Asian financial markets higher Monday, but any relief over the last-minute agreement on a framework in Washington to raise the United States debt limit was short-lived.... The dip coincided with the release of new data that showed American manufacturing growing more slowly...."

AP: "British banking group HSBC said Monday it will cut 30,000 jobs worldwide by 2013 and sell almost half its retail bank branches in the U.S., part of a new strategy to focus on fast-growing emerging markets." CW: yesterday the story was 10,000 jobs."