. >> reporter: i'm darren gersh. still ahead, both mitt romney and barack obama want to put more americans back to work. but is job training the right answer? we'll take a look. >> tom: six months before the credit crunch hit full force, j.p. morgan bought failing investment bank bear stearns. that was in 2007. now, j.p. morgan faces a lawsuit, claiming it inherited massive fraud on the part of the company it purchased. the civil lawsuit alleges systemic fraud with the packaging and sale of mortgage- backed securities by bear stearns before it was taken over by j.p. morgan. the bank says it intends to fight the case. eric schneiderman is the attorney general of new york. >> eric, you represent the people of new york state. what did your citizens lose in the deals thaw are accused of being fraudulent? >> new yorkers, like people all over the united states bought shares in mortgage backed securities, pension funds invested in them. people bought homes baseed on what they thought was the realistic value of the housing m

darren gersh in washington, d.c. >> thanks, tom.

darren gersh reports. >> reporter: if the u.s. and china had facebook accounts, their relationship status would be "it's complicated." there's agreement and disagreement on national security and economics. the u.s. pushes on human rights. the chinese push back demanding mutual respect. economist john silvia says it's all too complex to manage by ultimatum. >> it's a relationship of constant negotiation. much like many of us do with a marriage. it's not i have to win today. i win tomorrow. it's one of i compromise, i learn what you want. and we work forward over time. it's a long term negotiating process because we are going to be with china for at least the next 50 to 100 years. >> reporter: there is a reason presidential candidates talk tougher on china than sitting u.s. presidents. a trade fight between the world's two largest economies could weaken confidence in the global economy. >> there is the danger of a spiraling trade war that was never intended, by anybody on the u.s. side or on the chinese side, but just like a regular

darren gersh takes a look at how the two mix. >> hard for those who need a job, hard for those who have a job. >> reporter: when the nation is focused on a big issue, retailers know they have to respond when crafting a marketing message. and this year, the focus of the nation and the election is the economy. >> it affects the messages we send. to the extent the economy is such a hot button issue with the election. you know, you're going to hear us talking about savings. we're going to hear walmart talking about layaways. you're going to hear geico talking about saving 15%. >> reporter: matt williams is general manager at the martin agency, the firm that dreamed up the geico gecko. willams is advising clients not to wait for election day to launch their national ad campaigns for the holiday. but that doesn't mean holiday campaigns won't struggle to be heard above all the political noise. >> we're planning for holiday promotions six to nine months out. so it's a very intensive, long lead time kind of planning process and it's always that way, but it is even more so that way during an elec

s" washington bureau chief darren gersh joins us. so, darren, romney floated a new idea last night, capping tax deductions at $25,000 while cutting tack rate for all wage earners. doesn't add to the deficit according to the governor. does it add up, though? >> tom you'll be shocked, shocked to hear that right now it doesn't. we don't have enough details. here's what we know. so the governor has proposed about $5 trillion in tax cuts. that 25,000 cap he talked about on itemized deductions, according to the tax policy center, would raise about $1.3 trillion. so you have a hole of 3.7 trillion, and we don't know how governor romney would fill that. >> tom: we also haven't heard much on housing from either candidate except for the reference to mortgage tax deductions. housing has been absent from the two debates so far. >> that's kind a surprise especially considering that the swing state of florida, which you're in, housing is critical, right, a lot of people are under water on their mortgages. but i think one reason for that is that sol

darren gersh looks at the potential impact on a key swing states. >> reporter: fears that super-storm sandy would disrupt voting and the presidential election are receding as the storm heads north and away from the united states. the storm hit new jersey hard, but the state makes it easy to vote early by mail, and that makes it unlikely the storm will keep many from sending in their ballots. new york does not offer early voting, giving officials there time to recover by election day. in the key swing state of virginia, election offices in 55 counties were up and running today. just nine remain closed and those are expected to reopen soon. the virginia secretary of state has asked local election officials to extend absentee voting hours through saturday. sandy has not disrupted early voting in ohio, a state expected to prove decisive in the election. but if you need a daily fix of polling data, you are in for a letdown. millions of voters along the mid-atlantic and northeast are in cleanup and recovery mode, and pollsters know the last thing they'll be thinking about is answering a cal

darren gersh, "n.b.r.," washington. >> susie: the crippled transportation system is a big headache for fedex, joining us paul tronsor. he runs fed-ex' global operations control center in memphis. paul, how are things going at fedex, and are you getting any planes into the metro-new york city area? >> good afternoon. it's a great news story for fedex. we've restarted our air operation into the newark metro area. and, in fact, we were the first jets to land in newark this morning, and since then, we've put over a dozen airplanes into that and j.f.k. >> susie: la guardia is still under water, how that is impacting your operations? >> we don't have scheduled operations into la guardia, we're scheduled in j.f.k. and newark. so we're in good shape in j.f.k., but our people are at work and sorting packages. >> susie: even though the planes are getting in, and the fedex messengers are getting out, there's a lot of that don't have power. how do you know whether you should be delivering a package or not? is this slowing you down? >> it is slowing us down. our team members are affected by the sam

. >> tom: darren gersh is our washington, d.c., bureau chief. >> well, i have to tell you, the defenseustry was really excited about this. the ceo of the aerospace industry association had a conference with reporters and said she left out of her chair with joy when she heard this noise. they're very excite body t. the white house was spending time walking this back saying that basically the president didn't say anything new. the sequester was never intended actually to take effect. that's what the president meant when he said we'll find a way to get past this. what i am hearing from people in washington and familiar with what's going on is that there's more optimism about reaching a deal. wannot huge optimism, but more than there was before. >> tom: every journey starts with a step forward. what conditions has the president put out there publicly in order to avoid a fiscal cliff and get support? >> it seems pretty clear that the president is insisting that the debt limit be extended and raised so that we don't have another one of these cliff hanger decisions about whether or not the u.

darren gersh, nbr, washington. >> susie: a big focus in tonight's debate-- jobs. and today, some encouraging news on the jobs front. a big drop in the number of new claims for jobless benefits, down 30,000 to 339,000 new claims. still, on wall street, stocks struggled to gain ground-- the dow fell 18 points, the nasdaq lost two points, but the s&p rose a fraction. one stock getting a lot of buzz here on wall street today-- sprint. its shares surged almost 15% after the mobile carrier said it was in talks with japan's softbank. those negotiations could lead to the japanese tech giant taking a major stake in sprint. sprint may have a savior-- it could use help and money from softbank. sprint has been struggling for seven years-- a disastrous merger with nextel, and an expensive tab to modernize its wireless network. but sprint insisted today its talks with softbank are in the early stages. "although there can be no assurances that these discussions will result in any transaction or on what terms any transaction may occur, such a transaction could involve a change of

darren gersh looks at why corporate america is issuing thousands of those pink slips. > ll : t t big compies that he annoued layayoffs recently, you might be worried the job market is heading south fast. high-profile publicly traded companies get headlines when they let workers go. but the companies traded on stock exchanges only account for about a quarter of u.s. employment. >> some of what's going on there could reflect the fact that global growth has been slower the past couple quarters and that may be feeding in to the hiring activity of large multinational corporations. >> reporter: the firm international strategy and investment estimates foreign earnings of u.s. companies are off 17% from their peak last year. but u.s. companies focused on services and manufacturing here at home, are doing pretty well. that relative strength is showing up in new claims for unemployment benefits which are not signaling concern. >> if you think of two sides of the sort of labor market equation that we needed to see healed from the great recession, layoffs and hiring. layoffs actually are healed.

darren gersh, "n.b.r.," washington. >> tom: wall street wrapped up the week with a see-saw session of trading, as that better than expected economic growth report outweighed sour earnings reports, just enough. the dow rose three points, the nasdaq gained nearly two points, the s&p fell one point. for the week, all of the major averages lost ground, again. the dow was down the most, off 1.8%, on the week. >> reporter: i'm diane eastabrook in chicago where hundreds of consumers have turned out for $15,000 housing grants. i'll have details coming up. >> susie: businesses and homeowners are bracing for hurricane sandy, as the storm heads for the northeast. it's being called "franken- storm," and with heavy rains expected, it's on track to be one of the costliest storms in history. sandy has soaked florida's east coast, and is expected in the new jersey, new york area by monday. in the path of the storm: several of the nation's biggest cities, travel hubs and several major gasoline refineries along the new jersey and delaware coasts. financial centers like the nasdaq and new york stock exc

as darren gersh reports, the fed wants to keep a low profile for the next few weeks. >> reporter: less than two weeks before the election, the federal reserve was clearly not looking to make big changes in its policy statement. so what we got were slight course corrections today. on inflation, for example, the fed said inflation picked up somewhat from september, because of higher energy prices, but that trend may already be in the rear view mirror. >> if anything, core inflation has been coming in low over the past three months. the core c.p.i. increased only 0.1% over july, august, and september, pushing it further below their 2% target, i think that might be more significant for them than the fact that energy prices rose in a transitory way over the summer. >> reporter: we won't know for a few more weeks what the fed talked about at today's meeting, but it's a good bet chairman ben bernanke and his colleagues are trying to figure out what to do at their december meeting. that's just before a bond-buying program called operation twist expires. it's goal is bringing down long term int