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Stocks open higher: Shaping up to be the best September in 71 years. Dow is up over 50 points in early trading.
Decent economic news: The economy grew at a slightly faster rate in the second quarter than had been estimated about a month ago, and jobless claims for the week fell more than expected. (Bloomberg)
Looking for work: L.A. has nearly five people in search of a job for every position that's posted online, according to the Conference Board. In Riverside, it's 10 people per job; in North Dakota, fewer than one per job. (OC Register)
JP Morgan suspends foreclosures: Bank says that some of its Chase Mortgage employees might have improperly prepared documents. From the NYT:
Chase and GMAC, in their zeal to process hundreds of thousands of foreclosures as quickly as possible and get those properties on the market, employed people who could sign documents so quickly they popularized a new term for them: "robo-signer." In depositions taken by lawyers for embattled homeowners, the robo-signers said they or their team had signed 10,000 or more foreclosure affidavits a month. Now that haste has come back to haunt them. The affidavits in foreclosures attest that the preparer personally reviewed the files, which those workers acknowledge they had no time to do.
Toy recall: Fisher-Price, which is a unit of El Segundo-based Mattel, says that there are safety concerns with more than 10 million tricycles, toys and high chairs. (AP)
Banks not paying back government: More than 600 institutions are sitting on about $65 billion in bailout funds just as $700-billion TARP program is winding down. From the WSJ:
Many of the 600 remaining banks holding government capital are still too weak to repay the U.S., particularly smaller banks with little access to capital markets. But some regional banks in particular are continuing to hold on to the government's money. In part, that is because banks and regulators disagree over how much additional capital the firms need to leave government's control, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Best executive MBA programs: USC's Marshall School ranks fourth on the WSJ's annual list of 25, while UCLA's Anderson School is 11th.
Odds of a Newsweek-Daily Beast merger: One insider tells The Wrap's Sharon Waxman that they're "at best 50-50," citing financial obstacles.
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted
until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.