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Thursday, September 1, 2011

English Lessons

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck are expecting their third child.
Reps for the 39-year-old actors confirmed the news to the Associated Press on Monday.
PLAY IT NOW: Jennifer Garner ‘So Proud’ Of Ben Affleck’s Success
According to the AP, the couple is "thrilled" over the news.
Ben and Jen who married in 2005, have two children - Violet, now 5, and Seraphina, 2.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Ben Affleck & Jennifer Garner
Jennifer has spoken before about her joy over being a mom, telling Parents magazine in 2009 that it opened her heart.
"The best part of being a mom is the kid herself -- that you get to have this little person be your friend and hang out with you (and drive you crazy!)," she told the mag at the time. "Obviously your life changes and your heart expands, and it's something you can't even put into words without sounding incredibly sentimental and cliched -- both of which I am! But what it really is, is this new being is there, which is just the most fun ever."
While pregnant with Seraphina, Jennifer said she used it as an excuse to enjoy more sweets.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Hollywood’s Hottest Moms & Their Loveable Little Ones
"I always have cravings," she also told Parents magazine. "It doesn't matter if I'm pregnant or not! I use pregnancy as an excuse to say I'm craving ice cream and chocolate, but really, that's just me."
Jennifer spent this past weekend promoting her new film -- "The Odd Life of Timothy Green," co-starring "Warrior's" Joel Edgerton -- at Disney's D23 Expo in Anaheim, Calif.
BEIJING (Reuters) - The "Black Death" of debt crisis across the euro zone will hurt China by sapping demand for exports, although Beijing's relatively small holdings of euro assets will limit any damage to foreign exchange reserves, the nation's top official newspaper said on Monday.
The bleak diagnosis for the euro's prospects appeared in the overseas edition of the People's Daily, the top newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party, in a commentary by a former central bank official and an economist for the state-owned China Development Bank.
The commentary in the People's Daily does not reflect a definitive view from China's top leaders, but it suggests the euro zone's successive crises have stirred anxiety and debate in Beijing about the impact on China.
"The euro debt crisis has now been going for nearly two years since the end of 2009, and the sovereign debt crisis has spread like the Black Death of the fourteenth century across the euro zone countries," said the commentary, referring to the rodent-borne pandemic that devastated Europe.
The commentary came days before French President Nicolas Sarkozy is due to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing for impromptu talks that will probably focus on the recent turbulence in global financial markets.
"The spread of the euro debt crisis will not have as large an impact on our country's foreign exchange reserves as the U.S. sovereign debt downgrade, because euro assets make up far less of our country's foreign exchange reserves than the dollar," added the authors, Zhang Zhixiang, a former head of the People's Bank of China international department, and Zhang Chao, an economist for the China Development Bank.
"But the euro debt crisis will lead to a decline in real demand that will have a far-reaching impact on our country's real economy," they wrote.
About a quarter of China's record foreign currency reserves of more than $3 trillion are held in euro assets, analysts estimate.
RESTORE CONFIDENCE
It was not clear, however, that the commentary signaled China would take a tougher stance in discussions during Sarkozy's visit.
Wang He, a researcher with a Chinese government think tank, said Sarkozy and Hu have a shared interest in portraying Europe's troubles as manageable.
"Neither leader will miss the opportunity to voice their joint commitment to stabilizing global markets, and that should help to restore investment confidence to some extent," said Wang, who studies European economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
He also played down the likelihood of Europe's crisis spinning out of control.
"I don't expect Europe to solve its debt problem overnight, but we must see that Europe has the financial capability to prevent it from spreading like a disease," he said.
"It is certainly overly pessimistic to say that the euro zone is falling apart."
The 27-member EU bloc is China's biggest trade partner, with bilateral trade in goods in 2010 reaching 395 billion euros ($570 billion), a rise of 13.9 percent, according to EU statistics. Chinese exports to the EU reached 281.9 billion euros in 2010, a rise of 18.9 percent on 2009.
Chinese leaders, including Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, have repeatedly expressed confidence that debt-laden European countries can overcome their problems and return to healthy growth.
During a visit to Germany in June, Wen said his country could buy the sovereign debt of some troubled euro zone nations if needed.
But the People's Daily said the euro zone's problems reflected deep-seated institutional failings that needed to be overcome for Europe to recover confidence and strong growth.
"The euro zone should reform the institutional constraints to economic development, and show a responsible attitude regarding the links between their countries' and their region's economic development and global economic and financial stability," wrote the two economists.
Friday's employment report is expected to show a gain of only 75,000 nonfarm jobs during August, with the unemployment rate steady at 9.1 percent.
Unemployed Americans attend a National Career Fair
Mark Ralston | AFP | Getty Images
Unemployed Americans attend a National Career Fair

While the report is always important, Wall Street and economists will pay particular attention to whether businesses pulled back on hiring last month in response to the plunge in stock prices and the gloomy economic outlook.
Recent employment indicators suggest "zero growth in private payrolls," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago. "If that comes to pass we are going to have some big disappointments tomorrow."
The government reported Thursday that jobless claims dropped 12,000 to 409,000 last week, offering no sign that layoffs have picked up due to slumping business and consumer confidence. But claims are still above 400,000.
Many economists have been slashing their forecasts for U.S. employment and economic growth in recent weeks. Economists at Goldman Sachs cut their forecast for August payrolls growth to 25,000 from 50,000, citing weakness in online job postings in recent months.
Even the White House issued a gloomy report on Thursday that predicted a 9 percent unemployment rate in 2012, when President Obama faces re-election.
Still, recent data suggests the July-September quarter is off to better start.
Employers added 117,000 net jobs in July, about double the pace of the previous two months. Consumer spending rose that month by the most in five months, partly because Americans bought more cars and spent more to cool their homes. And businesses ordered more goods from factories, particularly autos and airplanes.
Even so, hiring has slowed since earlier this year, and the unemployment rate remains high. The economy added an average of 72,000 jobs from May through July, down from an average of 215,000 per month in the previous three months.
More jobs are needed to fuel faster economic growth. Higher employment leads to more income. That boosts consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of economic growth.
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