Bloomberg:
- Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia Ready to Close Borders for Migrants. Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia are concerned that possible closing of borders for migrants by some European Union countries may cause a bottleneck stranding millions of refugees on their territory, forcing the three states to close their borders as well. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov met Romanian and Serbian counterparts Victor Ponta and Aleksandar Vucic in Sofia Saturday to coordinate their policies before EU leaders gather on Sunday to forge plans to control the region’s worst migrant crisis since World War II. “If Germany and Austria or other states close their borders for migrants, we won’t allow our countries to become a buffer zone for millions of migrants stranded between Turkey and the new barriers that may follow,” Borissov told reporters in Sofia. “We’re also prepared to close our borders immediately.”
- The Fed's Next Big Decision May Not Be About Rates. Bond investors looking to the Federal Reserve next week for hints about when it will be ready to lift interest rates for the first time since 2006 may be missing a bigger question. With policy makers seemingly making little progress on their path to raising rates, they’re also delaying resolving how they approach the $215 billion of Treasuries poised to mature and roll off the Fed’s balance sheet next year, and almost $800 billion through 2018. That’s creating uncertainty about a less-publicized issue for the central bank: how it plans to reinvest proceeds from holdings of government bonds amassed since the financial crisis, and whether it may do so in a way that addresses rising bond-market volatility.
- Hurricane Patricia Leaves No Major Damage, Deaths. Hurricane Patricia hit Mexico’s west coast in an area between commercial centers and rapidly broke down into a tropical depression, sparing Latin America’s second-biggest economy from a feared catastrophe. Mexico has suffered “no major incidents” from the storm, Communications and Transportation Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza told reporters in Guadalajara, Jalisco, the state most affected. Evacuations and security measures put in place ahead of the hurricane helped spare lives and infrastructure, he said.
- Obama Calls for Capping Class Time Devoted to Standardized Tests. Education Department to make it easier for states to satisfy federal mandates.
- Obama’s Tragic Let ’em Out Fantasy. The president leads the charge to cut the prison population, but mass incarceration isn’t the problem. Rising crime is. President Obama paid a media-saturated visit in July to a federal penitentiary in Oklahoma. The cell blocks that he toured had been evacuated in anticipation of his arrival, but after talking to six prescreened inmates he drew some conclusions about the path to prison. “These are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different than the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made,” the president told the waiting journalists. The implication was that anyone who had smoked marijuana and tried cocaine (as Mr. Obama had) could land in a place like the El Reno Federal...
Fox News:
- 3 dead, 34 injured in crash at OSU parade; woman taken into custody for DUI. Three people were killed Saturday and 34 others injured when a car being driven by a suspected drunk driver crashed into a large crowd of spectators at the Oklahoma State University homecoming parade. Police said the driver of the vehicle, Adacia Chambers, 25, of Stillwater, Okla., was taken into custody on suspicion of driving under the influence.
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
- China's companies are a snake eating its own tail. Profits are falling, in part because of the costs of paying back debt. They are responding by adding more debt, making the matter worse.
- LARRY SUMMERS: The global economy is facing a 'dangerous' situation. "I would suggest that the defining financial development of the last year is likely to push things towards more secular stagnation," Summers said this week at the HSBC seminar. "It is the substantial reduction in capital inflows to developing countries, and the substantial increase in capital outflows from developing countries." Here's the chart from Summers' presentation, which shows the decline in money coming into emerging markets.
- Banks are seriously discussing negative interest rates for normal peoples' savings. The concept of earning interest on money in the bank is so deeply ingrained into economic life that few people even know that the opposite can happen too: Banks can take a percentage of cash from your account in the form of negative interest rates, under certain conditions.
Financial Times:
- Wall Street takes a more cynical view of Fed stimulus. “We see another round of QE as one of the biggest risks to equities, suggesting $4.5tn was not enough to prop up the economy,” analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote, adding that they were downgrading prospects both for the stock market and economic growth. “What if there is a QE 4 and the market sells off?” asks one Singapore-based hedge fund manager. “There is no ammunition left. The Fed is out of bullets.”
