tv World Business Today CNN August 9, 2011 4:00am-5:00am EDT
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so far, nothing. >> certainly, very, very, very worrying time. thank you very much, indeed. that's all for us tonight. i'm monita rajpal at cnn london. three nights of riots in britain prompted prime minister david cameron to cancel his vacation and come home to london. he's do you to chair a meeting to discuss the violence. atika shubert is there in london. >> reporter: i'm in elin standing in front of two burned out cars in the middle of the road here. windows have been smashed in
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along the high streets and what's really sad is this is a pretty little suburb and a lot of the stores up and down this high street really are independently owned small businesses and you know, they've been obviously damaged by this. businesses are going to suffer so this is really the local community that's suffering as a result here and people are waking up to this aftermath and seeing residents coming up and down here, texting their families, taking photos of these cars burned out in the middle of the road. there are some burning in some parts of the city in the north and the distribution center was set on fire late los night. more than 300 arrests done by the police over the last few days but residents here are not convinced this is going to get everything under control and they're basically worried we could see more violence when night falls. >> we have seen violence spreading outside of london, other parts of the uk as well
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and there are many questions being asked as residents wake up on this tuesday morning as to how this all started, why is this all happening? >> reporter: this is what a lot of people are asking. clearly there's no one trigger reason. we do know of course that on saturday the initial riots happened because of the shooting of a young 29-year-old man, mark duggan, by police and there was a lot of anger in the local community but it does not explain why for the last to two-nights we've seen rampant, sporadic looting apparently by basically by packs of young teenagers exploiting this opportunity to ransack shops and vent their frustration at authorities. a lot of people are asking why, where does this huge well of anger come from? why has it exploded now?
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there's discussion about whether or not this is because of the recession, unemployment is high, a lot of benefits have been cut across the board, youth clubs for example have been discontinued, and of course, the police are stretched thin, as a result of these cuts so all of these things are probably contributing factors. people are asking how can you get it under control now that it's spread so far? >> all right, and of course everyone in the world is watching because as we all know the olympic also take place in this country at this time next year. atika shubert thank you so much. i'm monita rajpal. "world business today" starts right now. good morning, from cnn london i'm charles hodson. >> and very good afternoon from cnn hong kong, i'm andrew stevens, you're watching "world
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business tuesday." >> investors try to turn the tide after another wave of sell-offs embroils the stock markets. >> beijing is still struggling to get a grip on inflation as consumer prices continue to rise despite a run of interest rate increases. >> and in london gang violence spreads to more british cities. the market rundown that hit wall street monies is affecting everyone at this hour. tuesday they've clawed their way back after larger losses. european markets opened over an hour ago, opening mostly down, moving into positive territory, only to slide again. cnn correspondents are tracking tuesday's financial developments in europe and asia. kyung lah in tokyo, and nin
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nina los santos in tokyo. a strange ride on the european markets this morning. >> -- markets open for just over an hour and it's been a topsy turvy morning to say the least, that may be the understatement of the century. the ftse 100 opening lower and rising in excess of 1%, only to drop down in negative territory. this is where we stand, the ftse down nearly 3%, the dax down by about 2.8%. let's put it into context. at the moment global stock markets losing $2.5 trillion, adding to a market that wiped about $5.5 trillion off of stocks between july the 26th and the end of last week so this is the kind of picture we're seeing at the moment, lots of money being lost in these markets. in terms of the sectors being
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the most affected we did see a little bit of a bounce for the banks particularly in france and italy but already given these kind of market figures they are shedding some of the early gains, charles. >> nina, can we get behind the numbers at all in terms of which sectors are bought and all? >> let's go into the french and italian banks, a bit of a bounce, broadly spoo speaking in positive territory. there's a specific reason. over the course of the last couple of hours of the trading session overnight, what we saw is a lot of concerns about countries like france, since france and the united kingdom following its u.s. toward the aa status, losing their aaa credit ratings on the back of the number of comments made by senior people in the city not the least the head of fixed income at jp morgan warning this could be the case, this caused the cds, the credit default swap
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effectively the insurance contract on the french sovereign bond to spike yesterday, and that is one of the reasons why people are so worried. realistically speaking it's not just italy and spanish debt that people are worried about now, it's even france, also the united kingdom in the mix. nevertheless the euro is still gaining and the u.gold also the recipient of the trend trading above $1,750 an ounce at the moment. >> in asia, fairly strange kind of session, andrew. >> absolutely, charles, the european reverse. remember there was a 5.5% fall in the dow overnight. when asia opened this morning, it was heavy, heavy selling. we saw some big, big falls. volatility in a big way today in asia.
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>> that's right, markets in the reamon closed down as much as 5% and 6% today. they paired major losses earlier in the day. the nikkei sunk nearly 2%, making today its fourth straight day of falls, crossing a psychological 9000 point marker. hasn't been this slow since mid march. honda was down the most by nearly 3%. here in hong kong, the hang seng is down after pulling back from a low not hit since 2011. bank stocks fell by hsbc, bank of communications, in the past 35, 40 minutes, major sell-off, fell 6.5% on the day, the hang song fell by 3.5%. the shanghai composite flirted with 6.5%, most analysts thought it would be 6.4% and inflation
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fears are going to stay front and center in the national dialogue in china. australia bucked the trend around the region, the asx gained moderately, ended up 1.2%, miners and bankers, bhp billiton and rio tinto shook it up and ended up 1%. a lot of big markets are pulled up into the bear territory. >> that's right. some of the asia's if you will biggest dragons have turned into some of asia's biggest bears. china, hong kong and south korea are now officially in this grouping, that means their markets have fallen more than 20%, the shanghai composite is down 21% off an april high, the hang seng down 20 from last
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another. two countries on the watch list are australia and india. australia is just on the edge of bear territory, down about 19% since mid-april. remember, 20% is that threshold. india is down about 15% since early april. as i wrap up these economies here, they've been on the slide, 13% from their highs, japan, singapore and new zealand. they're not so bad, but none of these economies are going to be out of the woods just yet, andrew. >> absolutely. ramy thank you so much. tokyo benchmark nikkei there down more than 9% over the past week. it was down 5% alone today, did recover a little bit of those losses though and certainly ramy was saying tching post earthquake and tsunami lows in today's session before coming back. exporters continuing to bear the
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brunt of the problems. kyung lah has been watching the falls over the past few days. is it the exporters leading the way or is this very much like most places at the moment broad-based? >> reporter: it is broad-based but we are focusing on the exporters and in particular toyota and sony look like they are really sort of leading the way. they were both down some 5%, and that's fairly significant, if you consider the market did end down 1.7%. but the overall sentiment from tokyo, the news that we're getting is there appear to be a sentiment switch in the middle of the day, though. early on the sentiment was very negative. we had one trader tell us that over the last few days, there's no panic here in tokyo, but they were starting to reach that point where they could talk that it was going to be a panic here. but then there was this switch. investors started focusing on the fact that the u.s. fed may
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do something and that word started to spread, that sentiment started to spread and then we had bargain hunters sweep in and i woubuy up the da the market day did turn around and a lot of people are saying phew! the day could be worse but it is leading to more uncertainty and investors are unsure what to do with their money. here's what a couple told us today. >> translator: i don't see any good prospects in the stock market to invest, and all my assets are frozen anyway. >> translator: well, it could be a good buying opportunity. >> reporter: so what do you do? do you buy or do you sell and that's really the situation that a lot of investors are feeling right now, because there's so much volatility. there are a lot of opinions of what's leading to the volatility but what most analysts will tell us, they agree the volatility is certainly not over yet. andrew? >> absolutely, knyung lah.
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thanks very much for joining us in tokyo. charles, interesting, ben bernanke and his fed colleagues meet today. bernanke will make a press statement, he always makes a press statement after these meetings but you've got to wonder what can he say? charles, i don't know if you've been able to sort of dig any deeper to this switch around that kyung was talking about. we saw it across agia, south korea, hong kong, down 6%, 7%, 8%, switched around to 3%, hong kong started to fall again when london switched. is there any darter to say why they suddenly turned? >> no, let's answer both your questions in one kind of foul swoop in a way, that is what is going to turn these markets around? i think it's one potentially of three things. either it's good corporate news for individual stocks or good news on the economy, that's been
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a little bit absent recently and i think the third thing is some kind of decisive respectable action on the part of policymakers, which is why today's fed meeting is being watched so closely because here is the first chance for the world's leading policymaker in the financial arena to make some statement to say what he thinks at this point. it was otherwise dismissed as a routine meeting. i think there's not very much actually that would suggest that there is a lot of buying going on at the moment. the only thing that people really seem to be buying at the moment is gold. some people are bargain hunting but why bargain hunt now when you might need to wait for a couple more sessions and you'll see stocks go further. unless there is an anticipation that ben bernanke is going to say something for example along the lines of more easing, more aggressive or negative interest rates out of the fed, you know, this is the only thing that i
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can think of for any of these turnarounds. >> and no one here is saying bernanke is likely to announce a qa3, likely going to say we're going to be looking at, we're watching the markets closely but not making any specific announcements. we're going to be talking about that one, charles, later on. we've got the head of equities here in asia to talk to. certainly the markets turning into a pretty rough ride for investors this day, so what is really going on? where is everything headed? we'll be joined from b&p paripar to guide us through what's been happening. stay with us.
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nearly 3%. paris cac down by 1.4%. it was up earlier on and the zurich smi off by 2%. a lot moving around, a lot of volatility, andrew, not a particularly clear picture because we have seen some buying going on but i suspect that's withered away now. >> yes, absolutely. that's been a very sharp turnaround in the last hour or so on the markets because it was two or three hours ago looking quite benign considering the past few days. commodities like oil also gold have been making big moves as well as action in the equity markets. the two have been moving in sharply different directions, the price of crude as you see there down, it was hovering around a ten-month low at $75 a barrel tuesday. it's been up slightly in the past hour or so trading at
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$79.22 a barrel. still down $2 on the day. gold on the other hand has been soaring, the price hitting yet another record as investors continue to seek refuge in safe havens and gold is considered at least the safest of safe havens at the moment. $1749 will buy you one ounce of gold up $27. charles? traders are cashing out and searching for a safe haven from all the investing uncertainty. europe is trying to take the pressure off some of the biggest and most indebted economies and america's most golden credit rating is tarnished and fannie and freddie mac downgraded to aaa. the question, how bad is this situation anyway? >> let me give you the example of a mound of sand and how a few grains of sand can totally change the shape of the mound.
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why? because the mound is structurally weak. our economy is structurally weak. we have a problem with the housing sector, in the labor market, in the banks and the public finances. and over the last few weeks, we have put a few grains of sand that have completely changed the mound. they were first a series of weak numbers, second, the debacle in washington that raised questions about our policymakers, third, the crisis in europe, and now, to add insult to injury, the downgrade. so right now we have both an immediate problem and a structural problem and what we need is we need washington, d.c., for once, to get ahead of the process by changing the way it's been approaching it from ad hoc measures to something much more comprehensive. >> i think a double dip recession is at this point very likely. look at the data for the u.s., gdp growth has been slowing down, consumption is flat, we're
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not creating jobs, firms are not doing capital spending, the recession in housing is getting worse. until now, people are losing wealth on their homes, the value of their home is about 35%, in the last two weeks financial ek swit wiped out so a double whammy on financial wealth, you feel poorer, you spend less, a vicious circle of falling economic activity, falling wealth, reduce in consumption and investment and we don't have the policy tools to jumpstart the market and the economy. >> the economist nuri rubimmpi, speaking on "peeirs morgan tonight."
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let's take a close close look at what's been option. owen sempft is from bnp paribas. charles was pointing clearly saying in his opinion three things, one of three things need to happen, better corporate earnings, stronger news on the economy, action from policymakers. what do you think is going to stop the rot, stop the selling of equities? >> i think the good thing about equities is they move ahead of the reality and the economy. in a way we probably need to wait and that sounds a bit daft but for those three things to come through, i think the chances are very low. i think what the equity market is telling us is that there's a real problem with what people thought the global economic growth rate was and what it's going to end up being and it's going to end up being much lower than what people expected. >> given the sell-off we've had so far, what do the markets say
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about where they think the economy is going to be? have they built in now a recession in the u.s., as suggested will happen? >> i don't think the markets have built in a recession yet but clearly moving in that direction and as long as you have that economist falling over themselves to downgrade estimates in growth and stuff, then the markets will just continue to sort of price in higher probability of recession. that's not our base case but it doesn't mean the markets aren't going to go lower. >> bnp paribas saying there will not be a recession. first of all, has fundamentally things changed for your economic outlook given this lack of confidence, loss of confidence? >> we've had a cautious view since the beginning of the year, equities here in asia, you know, we thought particularly around commodities, industrials, exporters that there was really too much optimism. we're among banks downgrading
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global estimates at the moment. i don't think that process is finished, but as i said, the good thing about equities is that they're moving very fast to price all this in. we're not at a bottom yet. before the end of the year the equity market will have reached a turning point. the economy for next year will be very weak. >> how far further down do you think these equity markets will go? how much downside is left here? >> for asian equities they're more exposed, emerging markets in general in these situations move down by larger amounts and although people argue there should be decoupling and whatnot, in reality that doesn't happen. i would say another 10% downside to markets in asia. japan as we're seeing is going to be an outperformer. >> on the downside? >> yes and china domestic market clearly already today is stable so those are two places to hide for now but within a couple months i think we can come back
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and say well okay, that's done now and let's go back and focus on growth and where the upside is. >> the rate the markets are falling we'll probably hit the 10% down by wednesday or thursday. >> invite me back then. >> irwin, thanks so much for coming in. irwin sanft with bnp paribas. you're watching "world business today." we'll be back in just a moment.
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welcome back. you're watching "world business today" live on cnn. >> let's update you on the global weather forecast. storms will be popping up today through parts of china and also through parts of europe. different storms of course, meteorologist jennifer del gado will let us know how it will affect business travelers. >> weather across the uk not looking so bad. parts of eastern europe storms popping up and could cause travel delays. as we look at the satellite imagery you can see a good portion of europe down towards the south looking good as well as the western area. it's this area of low pressure right here that's going to be triggering storms and storm toward the west we'll get to that in a second. let's talk about for today anywhere you're seeing in red, talking for areas including the ukraine as well as romania, bulgaria dealing with storms and the frontal system and the area of low pressure moving toward the east, stormy conditions over parts of russia but at the same time wet weather is returning to parts of the uk and that
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includes parts of scotland and especially wednesday that rain is quite heavy. you've been dealing with problems with some flooding but here comes another round of heavy rainfall. as we go through today, eastern europe and by tomorrow parts of the uk could potentially be dealing with delays. as we look across parts of china, down towards the south a few more storms popping up, let's give you a live shot coming out of hong kong and the harbor, cloudy conditions and today is going to be another one of those days that's going to be bringing more showers out there. i know some parts picked up about 70 millimeters of rainfall in a 24-hour period, a lot for you but the reality is more rain is on the way and that's going to stick around through wednesday and you can see on the graphic right here, that stationary front not going anywhere any time soon. more "world business today" in just a moment. medicare supplement insurance card, too. medicare is one of the great things about turning 65, but it doesn't cover everything.
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from cnn lon for i'm charles hodson. >> even i'm andrew stevens at cnn hong kong. welcome back. you're watching "world business today." >> within a mile or so from where i'm sitting prime minister david cameron is chairing a top level emergency meeting in the uk capital to come up with a plan to end widespread rioting here in london. three nights of arson, vandalism, looting and running battles with police, not only in london but other cities have left the nation stunned. atika shubert is out on the streets and joins us with the latest developments. i gather another rowdy night, atika. >> reporter: yes, it has been
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another rowdy night. the traffic is completely backed up on this street because as you can imagine on the high street it's kay yot. there's just debris everywhere. windows smashed. behind me you can't see it because there's a truck here but the shells of two burned out cars. there is in ehling, a pretty suburb of london, a quiet residential area, so people are asking, how did it get to this point? how did it get to the point where what was a riot in tottenham friday night sudden became a city riot and gone on to other areas. to give you an indication, basically they had 6,000 police officers on the street last night, made almost 500 arrests. their jails filled up so quickly, they've now had to take offenders to other areas and they've had more than 400% rise
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in the number of emergency calls to emergency services overnight, so this is the situation here that clearly has gotten out of control and out of the hands of police and emergency services. the police are now asking volunteers, not asking, they're ordering volunteers to be called up and help them with the effort to make sure it doesn't happen again tonight. >> what actually is it that policymakers can do? having an emergency meeting with the prime minister, he's raced back from his holiday and other political leaders as well. what can they do apart from wring their hands and say they support the police? >> well, this is the question. a lot of people are saying this really should have been nipped in the bud much earlier on. now that it spread to other areas and cities it's harder to get control of. talking to residents across london yesterday and this morning, it seems that they're saying whatever force is necessary, just get control of
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the situation. whether that means using water cannons or tear gas or some are saying plastic bullets. it may sound extreme but that's how frightened a lot of residents are. others are calling for a curfew, maybe in some parts where there is looting call a blanket curfew, tell everyone to go home. anybody else on the street should be stopped and searched or arrested. so this is the kind of state that it's coming to here now and residents are saying if those are the extreme measures that need to be taken then so be it. >> atika shubert joining us from ealing which used to be called the queen of the suburbs but the queen has been brought low by the rioting on the streets. a late rebound in asia isn't holding up in europe. the european markets are 90 minutes into their trading day and after an optimistic start they've fallen deep into negative territory. deep look at this, let's focus
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on the nep xetra dax off by more than 6%. in european terms a serious number. london and zurich off 4.5 and the paris cac by only 3.5%, those are absolutely eye-popping numbers andrew. >> it looks like a rout, happening so quickly, charles. the futures were pointing to a higher open at one stage. there are the numbers, some of the numbers here in asia, and asia went the other way, asia started the session with some very heavy losses as well. many of the main indices were able to make up some ground at the close. let's look at these numbers. here are some of the worst performers, the kospi in seoul, down by about 9% earlier today, closing up by 3.5%. the hang seng down by 5.6%, that
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has just closed and that's a big fall because at one stage it had lost around about 7%, went back to losing 3%, and obviously as you see following what's going on in europe, back down sharp. the nikkei 5% down, clawed its way back, still in the red though. let's look at the other big markets around the region, the main index in australia finishing actually would you believe in the red, up by 1. %. i wonder how long those gains will last with those trends in london. shanghai investors not too ov overwhelmed by the inflation numbers and mum buy, sensex trading down by 1.7%. i think the story here or the indicator here is hong kong just flipping again back sharply negative, following what's going on in europe. >> yeah, what can one say? frustration, fear and
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uncertainty about the state of the global economy took their toll on wall street on monday. the dow plummeted 634 points. there we are, ending the day comfortably below 11,000, the first time it went through that particular barrier in months and the nasdaq off by nearly 7% and the s&p 500 also sank more than 6%, so these are the kind of numbers that we're seeing on the european markets as well. so let's have a look ahead to tuesday, and here's where we're, where we are in premarket action, you know, a moment is a long time it seems in these markets and we are looking at markets up by about a third of a percent in the case of the dow, up by 1.3% for the nasdaq composite and nearly 1% for the s&p 500, and i really wonder what meaning those numbers have at this particular point because the volatility and the ability of these markets to whipsaw around is just breathtaking. worth pointing out the investors will look out for the latest
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interest rate decision from the u.s. federal reserve with a statement out i think 2:15 or 2:30 u.s. time, andrew. >> yes, just worth noting here, charles, that the vix index, an index we talked a lot about in the 2008 crisis, which is basically the index, it was called the fear index and it hit a peak of 80, that was the index in 2008, the darkest days of 2008. the vix index was up by 50% yesterday in new york, but it's still reading 48 at the moment so it's still way off those highs of 2008, just to put this into a little bit more perspective. while much of the world's attention remains on u.s. debt woes, chinese investors are mulling over some pretty discouraging new economic data. looks like inflation is continuing to rise. let's go to eunice eun at cnn beijing. inflation has been a problem for
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more than a year in china. no respite at the moment. >> reporter: no, that's right. the consumer price for july came in at 6.5% from a year ago, slightly higher than what people had seen for the june data and again another fresh three-year high so the numbers were given mainly because of a rise in food prices. the chatter amongst a lot of economists inflation may have indeed peaked. the reason is that they see commodity prices and oil prices starting to fall with the backdrop of the uncertainty in the global economy so because of that, some of them had been saying policymakers might have a little bit of room possibly to loosen policy later in the year. for now most people believe that policymakers are going to pause for the moment. andrew? >> eunice, i'm afraid we have to leave it there, in beijing, thanks so much for that.
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perhaps a little bit of relief china may have wiggle room if the global economic slowdown continues, china may have another at least one more tool at its fingertips to stimulate its own economy. charles? the u.s. ratings agency that downgraded the united states is facing heavy criticism but some are defending it. why some analysts say standard & poor's track record is off and some say it's on.
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charles. let's return to the ongoing volatility story, sort of more broadly as well, obviously not just london and not just europe, it's been seen here in asia very much today, and in the u.s., too, as you say look at the chart on tuesday, the dow dipping below 11,000 for the first time in nine months. u.s. president barack obama addressed the nation yesterday, hoping that he may calm frayed nerves. no one was expecting him to. he insisted the s&p credit downgrade was a result of the squabbling over the raising of the debt ceiling. >> there will always be economic factors that we can't control, earthquakes, spikes in oil prices, slowdowns in other parts of the world, but how we respond to those tests, that's entirely up to us. markets will rise and fall, but this is the united states of
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america. no matter what some agency may say, we've always been and always will be a aaa country. >> you've notice there had, the president dismissing standard & poor's downgrade and certainly not the only one. s&p is on the defensive right now, drawing fire from many quarters. mary snow takes a look. >> reporter: three credit rating agencies, same facts, three different outcomes. the last time standard & poor's, moody's and fitch gained so much attention was when they were slammed for giving top ratings to mortgage-backed securities. the bipartisan financial crisis inquiry commission concluded that the three credit rating agencies were key enablers of the financial meltdown. standard & poor's also gave lehman brothers an "a" rating before its collapse. its credibility is under fire from both the right and the left, after its downgrade of u.s. debt. the federal government challenged its calculations. >> look, s&p's track record has
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been terrible, and as we've seen this weekend its arithmetic is worse. >> standard & poor would have forfeited its good repetitiutatf it had a good reputation to forfeit, it having missed the entirety mortgage-backed securities problem on its nose. >> s&p is on the defense. >> they should take some time to look at the track record of our government ratings, particularly or ratings on national governments shall the groo up that i had. >> nyu economy professor lawrence white who has been critical of the agencies says s&p has been slow in downgrading countries like greece but finds the country ratings generally on target. >> the reputation issue is really a two-piece issue. there's the mortgage-related securities, where they clearly messed up, but there's this other area where they are, their reputations are still intact. >> reporter: s&p has been looking for $4 trillion in
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savings with the debt deal, far more than the $2 trillion agreed over the next ten years. mia maginnis says despite its checkered past the agency confirmed what was already known >> if we stop looking at the credit agencies whether they're on target with every call and look at our own fiscal situation it's tough to deny that we're not on a sustainable path and this downgrade makes a lot of sense i'm afraid. >> following the s&p's downgrade of u.s. government debt, moody's came out to confirm its aaa rating. fitch is still conducting a review. but all three had come out to warn the u.s. to make changes. mary snow, cnn, new york. imagine... one scooter or power chair that could improve your mobility and your life. one medicare benefit that, with private insurance,
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welcome back. live from cnn hoeng conin london. you're watching "world business today." >> another look at the stock market action here in europe, numbers moving around the whole time, ftse and dax off by about 4%, and the paris cac and zurich smi off by 3%. >> we also look at oil as well because oil has been falling quite sharply in recent days, because the faith that the global economy will be growing strongly is all but evaporating now, oil hitting $75 a barrel,
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now at $78 a barrel. it wasn't that long ago it was flirting with $100. as the economists and analysts and investors recalculate their expectations on growth my next crude is taking a hammering. the economy has them do downright gloomy save nothing of the rye the i don'ts. most don't have confidence the leaders can make it better. erin mclaughlin gauged the views outside the newsstand. >> reporter: this is the heart of the city where most of london's banking is done. david's been selling newspapers for over 40 years and he says he's noticed that the feel good factor is gone and many of the morning commuters we spoke to say they would agree. >> the total absence of confidence all around. nobody knows quite what to do. nobody cess coming forward with
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great solutions. all sorts but none hang together into any sort of movement yet. >> i don't know what will happen a few years ago if it worked, the bailing out was actually the right thing to do. maybe if things would have been a little bit worse then it would have been easier now to step up a game. are we in the same situation again? i think we are. >> no one seems to have any confidence at the moment. before there would be one country that would say okay, things are bad but yes, we can turn it all around but everyone seems to be a bit gloomy at the moment. but i guess in time. it will work out. >> a nice bit of hope. hopefully she's right. it is all about doom and gloom at the moment and right around the world there, the numbers here in asia, that's how it finished today, nikkei down 5%, clawed back, hong kong closed
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near its lows, 5.6%, kospi down 3.6%. australia was up. since the markets closed as we've been seeing, europe has taken a sharper turn for the worse, going to roll on along the globe. the fed meets today, a big meeting. if you want to comment on any of the stories we're covering here at "world business today" get in touch with the whole team on our facebook page, faceback.com/wbt. for now we'll say good-bye. thanks for watching, i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. >> i'm charles hodson? lond london.
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