10/21 Roundup: Happy Bankers, Unhappy Homeowners, Talking Moose

Leader: Economy Still Broken

- The credit markets looked up yesterday for the first time in a while. And the dollar is as high as it has been against the Euro in a year and a half.
But things are still not getting any better for average families. The lead story from USA Today covers the rising number of homeless families with children.  This is likely due to the high rates of foreclosure.  The LA Times, meanwhile, has the first in a 3-part series on the dismal state of our health care system.

- The Treasury is pressing for more bank mergers, but Rob Shapiro, Chair of NDN's Globalization Initiative, is quoted in an article running in both the NYT and the IHT bringing the focus back on homeowners: “There’s no inexpensive, easy way to address the terms of people’s mortgages. I think that’s why they haven’t addressed it.”

Election '08

- The McCain campaign has all but written off Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico, and is grasping for a way to win without them.

- Barack Obama has seized the endorsements of 26 newspapers that went for Bush in 2004.

- Obama will take a couple days off from campaigning to be with his grandmother, whose health has recently taken a turn for the worse.

- According to a recent Zogby poll, likely Hispanic voters favor Obama in ever-increasing numbers.

- As presciently forecasted yesterday, Joe Biden released his medical records yesterday.  Old Man McCain still has not.

International

- Locking up "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo Bay was a huge mistake, write Ken Ballen and Peter Bergen for Foreign Policy.

- India and Pakistan have opened up a trade route in the contested Kashmir region for the first time since the 1947 partition of the subcontinent.

One More Thing

- Yesterday, NDN President Simon Rosenberg was featured on NPR affiliate WAMU during their daily "Power Breakfast." To Listen, click here:

- Last, the talking moose contingent of the electorate is in the bag for Obama: