dangerously close to bear territory. as of yesterday, the s&p is down 19.4. airlines were the biggest losers. american airlines parents amr plunged 33% on bankruptcy fears. stocks got an early boost from an unexpectedly strong u.s. manufacturing report. but thanks to weak global production that optimism was short lived. domestic automakers chrysler, gm and ford all reported healthy sales jumps over last year while toyota and honda struggled with the effects of this year s tsunami. a government watch dog finds that fanny may was tipped off about abusive foreclosure practices years before it launched an investigation. best buy is saying good buy to napster selling it to rap city for an undisclosed stake. yahoo! rose 2% on a buyout.
income taxes shared by the people at the top. look at the tax federal burden, doesn t include just income tax, payroll tax, state and local tax, property taxes, we ve got a chart i want to put up. look at the total tax burden in the united states, the top 1% average until about $1.3 million, earn about 19.4% of the income and pay about 21.5% of total taxes. slightly more than income share but not something the slippery slope to sweden. the middle 20% average income around $55,000 earned 13% of the income, pay around 10% of taxes. bottom 20%, struggling. $17,000, just 2% of the taxes. we don t have a remarkably progressive tax system. you could make an argument we should actually have something somewhat more progressive. i don t understand what s not fair about that and why those who are best off, especially in
trade before the christmas holiday, the nation s broadest and most diverse stock market sits in a place it hasn t been since the height of the financial crisis. the s&p 500 climbed above 1,255. that s where it closed days after lehman filed for bankruptcy two years ago. it s up 12.9% led by a remarkable 6.6% gain this month alone. with the numbers coming back, so is the confidence. volatility index, wall street s fear gauge, fell to the lowest closing level in 2 1/2 years. fittingly, bank stocks led the way. bank of america was up over 3% and jp morgan chase was under 3%. one index of stock in regional banks was up 3.7% and a whopping 19.4% for the month. economic data is also consistently looking up. the government said wednesday the economy grew faster than previously thought over the summer. and sales of previously occupied homes rose 5.6% last month. even holiday shoppers are looking up. figures show retail revenue up by .5% during this year s last weekend before christmas compar
the nikkei fell 24 points. in hong kong, the hang seng dropped 142. heading into the last day of trade before the christmas holiday, the nation s broadest and most diverse stock market sits in a place it hasn t been since the height of the financial crisis. the s&p 500 climbed above 1,255. that s where it closed days aft after lehman filed for bankruptcy two years ago. it s up 12.9% led by a remarkable 6.6% gain this month alone. with the numbers coming back, so is the confidence. volatility index, wall street s fear gauge, fell to the lowest closing level in 2 1/2 years. fittingly, bank stocks led the way. bank of america was up over 3% and jp morgan chase was under 3%. one index of stock in regional banks was up 3.7% and a whopping 19.4% for the month. economic data is also
night and now is the time for the post-mort emwhat happened exactly. yeah, let s take you through it a couple of things to explain the result. a couple of big picture questions that emerge from the results that we re seeing. first of all obviously put the result karen handel are the right now five points ahead. two things looking at here number one there was so much attention to the early vote, a heavy part of the vote in the district was cast before today. so much of the media coverage, so much of the story was about democratic enthusiasm, about kmkts mobilizing coming from out of district. the expectation here certainly in the ossoff campaign and among all the pundit it s was that ossoff would win the early vote and by a big margin the question was could he withstand whatever handel made up for on election day. when he got in the early vote on the margin for ossoff was all of 19.4 points. so right then when that came in early tonight you had a sense where it was going. and karen ha