The U.S. papers led with Romney stories again. The New York Times (NYT) has “Daunting Path Greets Romney Before Debates” and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has “Headwinds for Romney in Latest Poll Results,” both on the front page. The stories largely expand on points we discussed yesterday. The WSJ story talks about how Obama is pulling ahead in critical swing states—especially Iowa, Colorado, and Wisconsin—and is maintaining his lead in Ohio and Virginia. The NYT story expands on some of these points and adds a good graphic that lays out state-by-state comparisons.

The papers also highlight deeper issues with the campaign. The Financial Times (FT) has “Romney adviser quits campaign” (p. 5), which discusses that Tim Pawlenty—a former Republican candidate himself—has stepped down as cochair of the campaign and mentions a pointed nonendorsement by the Club for Growth, an antitax lobbying group. “Cash Low, Romney Striving to Find New Large Donors” (NYT, p. A12) expands on the financial issues facing the Romney campaign, which I discussed briefly yesterday, and “Obama, Allies Outspend GOP Rivals in August” (WSJ, p. A6) is consistent with Romney having financial issues as well.

The U.S. election (of course) was all over the papers. It is interesting to see the papers’ different perspectives: the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the right; the New York Times (NYT) on the left; and the British Financial Times (FT) relatively nonpartisan, but still a financial paper with all that implies. The FT linked a “Romney regroups” picture on the front page to “Romney tries to sooth donors” (p. 5), which states that Romney is trailing in nearly all of the swing states and is limiting public events in order to spend more time fund-raising.

The NYT story seems to confirm some of the FT’s key points, with “Romney Campaign Cautious with Ad Budget, Even in Key States” (p. A13). The article says that the campaign has been at a significant advertising disadvantage in key states due to limited financial resources, and that the imbalance would be even worse were it not for Super PAC spending on his behalf. The limitations are reported to be because much of what Romney has raised is earmarked for other uses, not as campaign funds. In fact, the article reports, the Obama campaign is actually raising more in usable campaign funds.

Although China’s not a big presence on the front pages today, it is again all over the news. As I mentioned yesterday, Bo Xilai’s future looks increasingly dark. Stories in the Financial Times (FT) on page 4, the New York Times on page A7, and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on page A10 all discuss that China has now implicated Bo in the cover-up of the murder of a British expat—the murder his wife was convicted of. The information apparently came from the (two-day) trial of Bo’s former police chief, which we discussed yesterday. How can a modern economy have a third-world legal system? I don’t think it can, at least not over time. China has benefited from low transport costs, from a perception that it was not a threatening country (at least not threatening to the West), and from very cheap labor, but all that is changing.

First, low transport costs have gone with cheap oil. Second, the perception that it is not threatening—well, look at all of the analyses I have posted over the past couple of weeks, as well as today’s “Panetta Urges Beijing to Resolve Island Spat” and “China to Probe Attack on US Envoy,” both on page A11 of the WSJ, not to mention “Brussels sidesteps China trade dispute” on page 1 and “West wrestles with China trade links” on page 4 of the FT. Finally, cheap labor is still there, but there are other countries that are as cheap or cheaper.

Perhaps I should be more like my cable provider, which seems to have a channel for any conceivable interest, by starting a China channel, as there will certainly be enough content to fill it. The news from China continues to be worrying on both a political and an economic front.

I am going to change the format of the Yesterday’s News posts. Rather than hitting every item in one long post, I am going to have individual posts for each major story, then a clean-up post if necessary for things that are worth mentioning but don’t warrant an individual post. Please let me know whether you like this format or prefer the previous one.

The major front-page story remains the Romney video I mentioned yesterday, the one in which he basically throws 47 percent of the U.S. population under the bus. As it turns out, he also calls Mideast peace impossible, among other comments, but let’s stay with the comment about the 47 percent, as that was the focus of most of today’s articles. The Financial Times (FT) had “Romney gaffe draws fire from all sides” on the front page, quoting several Republicans denouncing the comments, as well as “Romney video stirs media debate” on page 2; the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) front page had “Video Flap Jolts Campaign,” which talks about the Romney campaign’s attempt to turn the flap into a debate on the role of government; and the front page of the New York Times (NYT) had “Romney Stands Behind Message Caught on Video,” which is pretty self-explanatory.

Apart from China, which gets its own post today, the U.S. election led the headlines. The New York Times (NYT) started with “In Video Clip, Romney Calls 47% ‘Dependent’ and Feeling Entitled” on the front page, the Financial Times (FT) had “Romney refocuses amid poll gloom” on the front page and “Romney’s chances hit by mixed messages” farther back, and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) had “Romney Video Surfaces Just as Campaign Vows Specifics” on page A4. For anyone who missed this, there is a video that shows Romney saying he will not even try for the votes of the 47% of the population who are dependent on government, as they would never vote for him. Romney acknowledged making the comments, which were, of course, seized on by the Democrats.

The tone of class conflict in the comments, though, is at odds with the general disappearance of Occupy Wall Street. The FT had a picture on the front page, “Keeping occupied: March marks movement’s anniversary,” and the NYT had “Occupy Wall Street: A Frenzy That Fizzled” on page B1. The WSJ, interestingly, had nothing. Think about it—when was the last time you thought about Occupy Wall Street? Romney’s comments, though much more blatant than others he has made, are also consistent with public remarks he has made, to no criticism. Bad politics, perhaps, but incorrect?

Looking at the papers today, I decided to do two posts instead of one. I try to keep my posts to a reasonable length, and with everything that is going on in China, it warranted its own discussion. I’ll cover the rest of the world in a second post.

Throughout history, China has considered itself to be at the center of the world, and, because of that, the country has been known as the Middle Kingdom. In recent centuries, of course, the West has believed that it is the center. Look at any map made in the U.S., for example—we are in the middle! If you look at the news, though, it does all seem to revolve around China nowadays. Perhaps we will have to redo our maps.

Looking at the news over the weekend and today, there is no overarching theme, just continuations of earlier stories.

Two big stories today. The Democratic National Convention (DNC) made the front page of the New York Times (NYT) and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), but not the Financial Times (FT), and the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) bond-buying plan made all three.

The DNC coverage is fairly vanilla, with “Obama Presses Plan for US Resurgence” in the WSJ and “Obama Makes Case for Second Term” in the NYT. More interesting is the accompanying analysis. “Campaign Confident It Has Roads to Re-election,” on the front page of the WSJ, discusses the race from an Electoral College perspective, pointing out that there is a structural advantage for the Democrats and breaking down the swing states—pretty good article. The WSJ has another note-worthy analysis piece, “Jobs Gauge Carries Election Clout” (p. A2), that talks about the importance of today’s employment figures to the election; we will discuss jobs a bit later in this post. The FT did touch on the U.S. election indirectly with a front-page article, “Draghi helps out Obama campaign,” pointing out that a European financial collapse would definitely have a negative drag on his chances for reelection.

So, I started off the morning doing the September Market Thoughts video. While prepping for that, I realized how much had actually happened in August, but how little of it got translated into public perception and the markets.