News round-up: 2 Oct 2008

With the Economic Patriot Act past the Senate – including hundreds of billions in pork barrel – sweeteners, it’s time to focus in a little on politics. I’ll lead off the round-up there, trying to keep it fair despite my obvious anti-McCain-Palin bias.

Then we’ll turn to the usual fare of credit crisis news and financial services reports. The notable report there comes from UBS, which surprised analysts with a nice quarterly profit – hopefully signs of better things to come. I can hope, can’t I.

Enjoy!

Politics
Vice presidential debate: A barrel of gaffes? – Politico
Women ex-governors divided on Palin – Politico
Latest Column on Obama’s Temperament – Swampland
An Open Letter to Sarah Palin – Pat Buchanan (I told you I was trying to be even-handed)
Bush Records Highest Disapproval Rate in History – Political Wire (McCain is getting sucked into the Bush vortex)

Credit Crisis
What should you study in a credit crunch? – Guardian (Not Economics like me, try psychology)
Q&A: The second U.S. bailout explained – Times Online
European summit on finance crisis – BBC News
“Open Letter to European Leaders on Europe’s Banking Crisis”– Mark Thoma (well worth looking at to sign if you’re an economist)
We Chat on Bloggingheads with Megan McArdle on the Credit Crisis – Yves Smith (looking good, Yves. Feeling good, Megan.)
The Irish solution: unlawful, beggar-thy-neighbour and short sighted, but apart from that OK – Willem Buiter, FT (Tell us what you really think)

Finance and Financial Services
UBS to cut jobs despite returning to profit – Times Online
European Central Bank Leaves Rate Unchanged – NY Times
MBIA sues Countrywide Financial – FT Alphaville (Another reason BofA was dumb to buy Countrywide)
National City leads regional-banking shares higher – Market Watch

Technophile’s Corner
Adobe Photoshop CS4 – PC Pro (Fabulous photo software, but it’ll cost ya)
Download Free Task Manager Extension 2.0 to Enhance Built-In Windows Task Manager – My Digital Life (This is a useful tool for your computer)