Blog Posts by Stacy Curtin

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Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, has tripled down on a controversial remark he made on Twitter last Friday. Welch tweeted that the Obama Administration manipulated the highly-watched monthly jobs report after President Obama's poor debate performance in Denver.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the unemployment rate in September fell to 7.8% in September from 8.1% in August. Five minutes after the BLS release, Welch tweeted: "Unbelievable jobs numbers…these Chicago guys will do anything.. can't debate so change numbers."

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis indirectly responded to Welch's accusation on CNN. "This is a methodology that's been used for decades. And it is insulting when you hear people just cavalierly say that somehow we're manipulating numbers," she said.

Related: Jack Welch Is Wrong! 'It's Outrageous' to Say the Jobs Number is Manipulated: EPI's Mishel

Welch has responded to the criticism and backlash in various interviews, and says he is

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There is growing unrest among the ranks at America's largest employer: Wal-mart (WMT).

Workers from a dozen stores in the Los Angeles-area went on a one-day strike Thursday "in the first-ever Wal-mart Associate walk-out in protest of attempts to silence and retaliate against workers for speaking out for improvements on the job," according to a press release from the strike's organizers.

More than 200 workers walked off the job and ended the day at a rally outside the Pico Rivera location, reports The New York Times.

Related: Whole Foods CEO: Here's Why We Pay Our Employees More Than We Have To

A handful of community supporters joined the fight, including Dr. Jose Moreno, Executive Director of Los Amigos, Maria Elena Durazo, Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and Rev. Eric Lee, Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Community organizers are asking "Wal-mart and Chairman Rob Walton to address take home pay so low

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Mortgage applications spiked nearly 17% last week after interest rates touched another record low. As of Sept. 27, the rate for a 30-year mortgage was 3.4%.

According the Mortgage Bankers Association's Weekly Application Survey, refinancing hit a level not seen since April 2009.

The news of increased mortgage activity is very much tied to the Federal Reserve's open-ended QE3 program announced in mid-September and its pledge to keep interest rates low through mid-2015.

Related: Bernanke's Bazooka: Open-Ended QE3 Is "Very Aggressive"

"Financial markets continue to adjust to QE3, as the ongoing presence of the Federal Reserve as a significant buyer of mortgage-backed securities applies downward pressure on rates," said Mike Fratantoni, MBA's Vice President of Research and Economics.

This is certainly good news for the U.S. housing market as more Americans take advantage of historically low interest rates. Additionally, when Americans spend less on

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American Airlines is under investigation by the federal government for two separate incidents of passenger seats coming loose mid-flight — passengers were not injured in either case.

The airline said Monday it would ground those two flights and six Boeing 757 jets to inspect for additional seat malfunctions.

According to a report by the Associated Press, "The Federal Aviation Administration said both planes had recently undergone maintenance work that required seats to be removed and reinstalled."

This news comes on the heals of hundreds of cancelled American flights in recent weeks due to a heightened level of maintenance concerns and pilots calling out sick.

In a recent interview with The Daily Ticker Barbara Peterson, senior aviation correspondent at Conde Nast Traveler, said pilots could be to blame for the flight delays as retaliations for stalled labor negotiations while American undergoes vast cost-cutting measures as it wades through

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President Obama's mortgage fraud task force, set up at the beginning of the year to snuff out illegal practices that occurred during the height of the U.S. financial crisis, finally brought its first big case Monday.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has been slapped with a $2 billion lawsuit, one that alleges fraud in the residential mortgage-backed securities operations at Bear Stearns, which at the time was an independent firm, during 2005 into 2007.

The 31-page suit was filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who is also the co-chair of the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, the investigators who are examining mortgage practices. According to the suit, Bear Stearns led investors to believe that it "had carefully evaluated -- and would continue to monitor -- the quality of the loans" in the residential mortgage-backed securities, or RMBS. This suit contends:

"In fact, Defendants systematically failed to fully evaluate the

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Research In Motion's (RIMM) stock surged 20% Thursday in after-hours trading following the BlackBerry maker's better-than-feared quarterly results -- but be extremely careful before thinking this might be a chance to get in on the first phase of a turnaround. That's because RIM still has significant problems, according to The Daily Ticker's Henry Blodget.

While the company reported a 31% drop in revenue from the previous year to $2.9 billion, the loss wasn't as bad as expected, and it came in $1 billion more than the previous quarter.

Additionally, RIM announced an uptick in subscribers to 80 million, an increase of 2 million since June, largely thanks to growth in emerging markets.

"[But] the fact now that they are only growing in emerging markets is a huge warning sign," says Blodget, who seriously doubts that this surprisingly positive earnings report signals a long-term trend.

Yahoo! Finance Editor-in-Chief Aaron Task agrees, noting that the

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As the days pass by, the U.S. economy continues to careen toward the year-end fiscal cliff. Most economists believe the nation's economy will enter into another recession if the automatic tax cuts and $1.2 trillion sequester are allowed to take effect.

Without any reasonable solutions on the table, Corporate America is growing wary of what could be in store for 2013.

CEO confidence has fallen to levels not seen since 2009 due to uncertainty over U.S. tax policy and fiscal matters, according to the Business Roundtable's quarterly survey of chief executives. Additionally, the survey discovered that more CEOs expect hiring to fall rather than rise over the next 6 months.

Related: Jobs Data Disconnect from Consumer Spending, Markets Disconnect from Reality

Another report by Deloitte finds CFOs are growing increasingly negative about the future of their companies. In its quarterly CFO Signals survey, 40% of CFOs are pessimistic, up 12% from last

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Sales of new single-family homes fell 0.3% in August to an annual rate of 373,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

The pace of sales last month was less than what most analysts had expected. Economists polled by Reuters predicted sales of 380,000. July sales were revised higher to 374,000 units from 372,000 units -- the fastest pace since August 2010.

CoreLogic chief economist Mark Fleming joined The Daily Ticker to discuss the numbers.

Related: More Good News on Housing But Hold the Champagne

"I think they were pretty good," says Fleming. "No change from July is a relatively good number and you know we are still slowly growing out of the very very low troughs of a year or so ago."

Although the August figures are down slightly from the previous month, "we expect sales, new and existing, to slow down as we head into the off season at this time of the year," adds Fleming.

New homes sales are up nearly 30% from a year ago.

Meanwhile, U.S. home