The Week Unpeeled
The Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong last week kept news watchers guessing about “next moves” from the Communist Party in China as crowds in the central business district seemed to grow, albeit fairly peacefully for now, amid media reports of generational divides in the SAR on the degrees of democracy in demand. No one expects Western-style democracy in Hong Kong for sure, but many do expect some pressure for stability soon.
Elsewhere:
- Ebola remained a front-page story and an ever-growing threat with focus on efforts to contain exposure in Texas where the first case was diagnosed; Fed officials have ruled against a US outbreak;
- Secret Service Director Julie Pierson was dismissed for what David Letterman joked was making us feel as if Costco security guards were keeping us safe at night (or something like that);
- Pimco investors withdrew nearly $30 billion in September in part tied to Bill Gross’s departure, while reports showed that his “counterparts” at Janus have posted higher returns over the last five years than the Bond King’s Total Return Fund;
- Stocks, meanwhile, rebounded Friday from a choppy week after a strong US jobs report with the Dow ending just 0.6 percent lower at 17,009;
- The unemployment rate for September, by the way, fell to 5.9 percent, the first time below the 6.0-percent mark since the recession, while payrolls expanded by 248,000 jobs;
- Piers Morgan who recently left CNN will become an editor at large on the Daily Mail Web site, a UK outlet well known and wildly popular in the US for its big juicy celebrity headlines;
- The New York Times is shedding about 100 news jobs as digital/Web jobs at the publisher remain on the rise;
- Wedding Singer Is the New Black: Netflix is going into the movie business, announcing the production of four new films with Adam Sandler that will appear exclusively on its service; and
- WWF and others released a study last week that showed half of the wildlife on earth has been lost over the past 40 years, probably the most sobering news item of the week.
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