Walmart To Kick Off Holiday Shopping Season Day After Halloween

NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart is doing whatever it takes to rope in holiday shoppers however they want to buy.

For the first time, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is offering free shipping on what it considers the season's top 100 hottest gifts, from board games to items related to Disney's hit film "Frozen" items, starting Saturday. The move comes as rival Target Corp. began offering free shipping on all items, a program that started late October and will last through Dec. 20.

Wal-Mart is also planning to offer discounts, or what it refers to as "rollbacks," on more than 20,000 items on a broad range of products, from groceries to TVs, starting Saturday. The timing is similar to last year, but the discounter said the assortment is broader. It's also pulling forward by nearly a month 15 24-hour online deals originally reserved for the Thanksgiving weekend and so-called Cyber Monday, about double from last year. For the first time, Wal-Mart will allow shoppers to pick up those 24-hour online specials at the store. They include 40-inch Element TVs for $199, down from $298, and Crayola Paint Makers for $12, down from $18.88. Customers will be able to purchase the deals online starting shortly after midnight on Monday.

The online deals are in addition to several hundred online holiday specials that start Saturday.

"We're trying to offer the best deals when they want them," said Steve Bratspies, Wal-Mart's executive vice president and general merchandise manager for Wal-Mart's U.S. division.

Wal-Mart unveiled some of the details of its holiday strategy as it considers matching online prices from competitors such as Amazon.com, a move that could help grab more customers but could also hurt profit margins. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based discounter has matched prices of local store competitors but has not followed other retailers including Best Buy and Target in matching prices of online rivals. But last month, Wal-Mart started to test the strategy in five markets: Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dallas; Phoenix; and northwest Arkansas.

Wal-Mart is trying to rev up sluggish sales in the U.S. as it battles competition from online retailers, dollar stores and drugstores. At the same time, it's also dealing with a slowly recovering economy that hasn't benefited its low-income shoppers. As a result, Wal-Mart's U.S. namesake stores, which account for 60 percent of its total business, haven't reported growth in a key sales measure in six straight quarters.

Wal-Mart's move underscores how stores are being forced to step up their game for the holiday shopping season, which accounts for about 20 percent of retail industry's annual sales. The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, forecasts a 4.1 percent sales increase to $616.9 billion for November and December from last year. But online sales, which are included in the forecast, are expected to increase anywhere from 8 percent to 11 percent.

Wal-Mart declined to say whether it was considering changing its price match policy for just the holidays or permanently. Deisha Barnett, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, says many store managers have matched online prices for customers on a case-by-case basis.

"Taking care of the customers who shop our stores is what we always aim to do," she added.

As for its free shipping holiday program, Wal-Mart said that it had store executives pick the 100 items and that products are guaranteed to arrive before Christmas. Wal-Mart's current policy is that online shoppers have to spend at least $50.

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U.S. Economy Grows At 3.5 Percent Rate

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy powered its way to a solid annual growth rate of 3.5 percent from July through September, outpacing most of the developed world and appearing on track to extend its momentum through this year and beyond.

The result isn't a fluke.

It turns out the world's biggest economy did a lot of things right after the Great Recession that set it apart from other major nations. In the view of many economists, those key decisions, particularly by the Federal Reserve, appear to be paying off now.

An improving economy led the Fed on Wednesday to end its stimulative bond buying program. Launched during the 2008 financial crisis, it was an unprecedented and aggressive effort to revive a dormant economy by buying trillions in bonds to reduce long-term interest rates.

Doug Handler, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight, credited the Fed and its bond purchases with helping pull the country out of the worst downturn since the 1930s.

"Its greatest impact was instilling confidence in consumers and the business community that Fed officials were determined to do everything they could to stimulate growth," Handler said. "To know you have the Fed pulling for you instills confidence."

Thursday's government report on the gross domestic product — the economy's total output of goods and services — added to evidence that the Fed's efforts have translated into robust job growth and a recovery that appears to be solidifying.

The third-quarter expansion was propelled by solid gains in business investment, exports and the biggest jump in military spending in five years. It followed a 4.6 percent annualized expansion in the second quarter, which marked a dramatic turnaround from the first three months of the year, when a harsh winter depressed activity.

Many economists say they're confident that the current October-December quarter will be another solid one. They also project that full-year growth for 2015 will hit 3 percent, giving the economy the best annual performance since 2005, two years before the Great Recession began.

"The economy does appear to be accelerating of late," said Dan Greenhaus, an analyst with investment firm BTIG.

Greenhaus added that the GDP report showed an economy "on a sounder footing today than at any time over the last few years."

The U.S. landscape stands in contrast to other big economies of the world.

Japan's GDP contracted at an annualized rate of 7.1 percent in the April-June quarter.

Germany, Europe's traditional growth engine, risks falling into recession — or growth so weak it holds back the entire euro currency union's weak recovery.

The French economy posted zero growth in the first two quarters of the year and has revised down its growth forecasts for the year to a paltry 0.4 percent.

Momentum is decelerating even in China, which has posted blistering figures in recent years. Growth in the world's No. 2 economy waned to a five-year low of 7.3 percent in the third quarter, though the result falls roughly in line with Chinese leaders' plans for a controlled slowdown.

The U.S. economy is benefiting from a variety of other factors beyond the Fed. For one thing, it's relatively insulated from weakness overseas. Exports account for less than 14 percent of U.S. activity, one of the lowest such shares in the world.

It's American consumers who drive the U.S. economy. They account for nearly 70 percent of the economy, and things are looking up for them. The job market is healthier than it's been in a while, with the unemployment rate at a six-year low of 5.9 percent. And falling gas prices frees up money for consumers to spend on other things that help fuel growth.

The nation has significantly strengthened its financial system, too.

Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at the Martin Smith School of Business at California State University, said that compared with other major economies, the U.S. moved more quickly to bolster its banking system. And consumers' finances are in better shape because many Americans have pared debt.

"The problem in Europe is that they let the problems fester and get worse because they did not act as quickly as we did," Sohn said.

To be sure, the U.S. isn't insulated from headwinds that could snag progress. Volatility has unsettled financial markets recently, and continuing global weakness is likely to drag exports in the coming months.

"Going forward, the appreciation in the U.S. dollar and slow growth in Europe and Asia are likely to once again make trade a net-drag on American economic growth," said James Marple, senior economist at TD Bank Group.

For the third quarter, consumer spending grew at a decent 1.8 percent annual rate, which economists described as steady but unspectacular. The figure was slower than the 2.5 percent increase in the spring quarter.

Also driving growth was an 11 percent rise in export sales, far outpacing imports, which fell at a 1.7 rate. The smaller trade gap added 1.3 percentage points to growth in the third quarter.

Stronger government spending added another 0.8 percentage point to growth, with federal spending growing at a 10 percent rate. It was the first positive contribution in more than two years. Federal activity had been constrained by spending cuts and last year's partial government shutdown.

Defense spending shot up at a 16 percent rate, the fastest advance since a 17.4 percent gain in the second quarter of 2009.

Business spending on equipment grew at a 7.2 percent rate in the third quarter, and residential construction grew at a 1.8 percent rate.

The Federal Reserve noted the brightening U.S. prospects in its statement Wednesday. It retained language in a statement saying it didn't expect to raise its benchmark interest rate for a "considerable time." But it also pointed to rising signs of strength, including job gains and lower unemployment.

Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said that the latest GDP report showed "the Fed was right to take a slightly more hawkish tone."

Financial 'Experts' No Better At Finance Than Normal Humans

Knowing more about finance does not lead to better financial decisions.

In fact, some of the most supposedly financially knowledgeable people -- mutual-fund managers -- don't make better financial decisions than other people, according to a new study by Michigan State and Notre Dame researchers, as reported in The Atlantic.

It's the latest evidence that a years-long campaign to help normal Americans achieve "financial literacy" is ineffective at best and misguided at worst. As the Atlantic notes, expert stock-pickers in finance and forecasters in other fields have been derided for decades as no better than dart-throwing monkeys.

When it comes to getting ordinary people to know more about finance, however, the consensus has been that this time it’s different. On the surface, it’s a well-intentioned and uncontroversial mission: Helping people help themselves by making better decisions. And there's plenty of evidence that people have a scary lack of financial knowledge: One study found that just a third of Americans would correctly answer three simple financial questions.

And those questions are models of transparency compared with the opaque language consumers often face when making even the simplest financial decisions. The goal of making people financially literate seems to imply that it's the individual’s responsibility to safely navigate what is often intentionally inscrutable financial language.

The same companies who create the problem of financial products Americans can’t understand push financial literacy as the solution. For instance, Bank of America thinks the key is an online course. The financial industry’s self-regulatory organization has an entire foundation devoted to investor education.

But financial literacy in this gauzy, generalized form simply doesn’t work. The Cleveland Fed found no “conclusive support that any benefit at all exists” from financial education as it is currently taught. Shocking no one who has been to high school, one study showed that taking a financial literacy class in high school does nothing to improve financial literacy.

And a study by researchers at the Brookings Institution could not find “strong evidence that financial literacy efforts have had positive and substantial impacts."

In a 2011 presentation titled “The Financial Education Fallacy,” Lauren Willis, a professor at Loyola Law School, shot down the idea that “ordinary consumers would have made better mortgage choices and would have accumulated sufficient precautionary savings to weather the recession" if they'd just been financially educated. Straightforward consumer protections, like putting limits on how many single stocks people can own in retirement accounts, are most effective. Financial education is no substitute for financial regulation, she argues.

There is evidence that giving people specific information about a specific product (say, about credit card debt for people who are interested in applying for a credit card)works better. It’s not easy, given the mountain of details involved. But single-serving consumer information is likely to be far more helpful than vague goals of getting Americans to solve their own financial problems by thinking them through.

Personal finance author Helaine Olen has called financial literacy “both a failure and a sham.” This conclusion deserves to be widely accepted.

When mutual-fund managers are making dumb decisions, it’s time to admit that making average Americans generally more financially literate is not a useful goal. Starting with clear-cut consumer protections and unbiased information about specific financial products is far more helpful.

Gas Hasn't Been This Cheap In Nearly Four Years

Gas prices always go down in the fall, but usually not this much.

At 56 percent of the nation’s gas stations, the price of gas is now under $3 per gallon, according to Michael Green, a spokesman for AAA, an auto club federation. AAA collects information on gas prices from consumers who use between 80,000 - 100,000 different U.S. gas stations every day, Green said.

This is a huge change from a year ago, Green said, when only 11 percent of stations were selling unleaded fuel for less than $3. Gas hasn't been this cheap in nearly four years, AAA said in a statement on Monday.

Gas prices always fall in the autumn, as colder temperatures mean fewer people go on road and boat trips, said Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, a website that lets people share information about gas prices.

Yet today's prices are way down even when compared with previous seasonal lows, as this graphic shows:

(Chart courtesy of AAA)

The low cost of gas could be a boon for the U.S. economy: spending less to fill up their tanks means Americans have more disposable income going into the holiday season. U.S. households save $120 for every 10 cent drop in the price of gas, the New York Times reported earlier this month, citing GasBuddy's Tom Kloza.

There are a few reasons why gas is cheaper this fall than in previous years. For one thing, crude-oil prices have tumbled recently as investors fear that a global economic slowdown could weaken demand.

When the price of oil falls, the price of gasoline falls, too. Experts say the price of oil makes up about two-thirds of the price of gas. Other factors, such as taxes and refining and distribution costs, also play a role in determining the cost of a gallon of gas.

In many places in America, gas is even cheaper than $3 a gallon:

(U.S. gas price heat map courtesy of GasBuddy)

Oil prices are also falling because major OPEC oil producers Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran chose to slash prices earlier this fall, DeHaan told The Huffington Post.

Analysts have speculated that Saudi Arabia, which produces more oil than any other OPEC member, wants to increase its share of the market.

“If there’s a landlord who sells all his houses for greatly under value, it causes the whole market to tank,” DeHaan said. “That’s what’s happening with oil. The Saudis are basically flooding the market with cheaper oil, and that’s putting a huge amount of downward pressure on oil prices.”

One more reason gas is so cheap, according to DeHaan: The U.S. is sucking more and more oil out of the ground than at any time since the 1980s. “So we have all these sources of new crude oil in the U.S., and that’s adding to the global oil supply, which naturally pushes prices down,” he said.

Shares Of Hazmat-Suit Maker Spike On NYC Ebola News

Shares in a company that makes hazmat suits soared 16 percent on Thursday after the first case of Ebola was diagnosed in New York City.

The stock price of Long Island-based Lakeland Industries, which makes various types of protective garb, has more than doubled in the past month amid feverish news coverage of the deadly virus. The stock jumped from less than $7 a share in late September to as high as $29 on October 13, when Ebola panic in the U.S. was particularly high.

Shares have drifted lower since then, but got another boost on Thursday afternoon after the news that Dr. Craig Spencer, a physician who recently returned to New York from treating patients in Guinea, had been hospitalized with Ebola symptoms. Later on Thursday he became the fourth person in the United States to be diagnosed with the virus.

The spike in stock price came after the first case of Ebola was confirmed in New York.

“We’ve been getting a lot of calls in the last 24 hours,” Jordan Darrow, a spokesman for Lakeland, told The Huffington Post on Friday morning. “We’ve been getting a lot of calls for the last three months.”

He declined to comment on sales of hazmat suits.

Last month, Lakeland said it was increasing production to meet heightened demand for the suits, which cover the whole body. Ebola is spread only through direct contact with bodily fluids -- such as blood, vomit or feces -- of an infected person.

“We hope our added capacity will help alleviate that problem,” Christopher J. Ryan, the president and chief executive of Lakeland, said in a statement last month. “With the U.S. State Department alone putting out a bid for 160,000 suits, we encourage all protective apparel companies to increase their manufacturing capacity for sealed seam garments so that our industry can do its part in addressing this threat to global health.”

Lakeland’s stock fell about 4 percent in early trading Friday morning, to about $14.

Company Finds Out The Hard Way It's Illegal To Pay $1.21 An Hour In America

This takes egregiously low wages to a whole new level.

A Silicon Valley company that digitizes images said Thursday that an "administrative error" led to it paying eight workers flown in from Bangalore, India just $1.21 an hour to work 120-hour weeks installing computers in the company's headquarters.

Electronics For Imaging paid the workers $40,000 in back wages and overtime and a $3,500 fine after the U.S. Department of Labor investigated the payroll violation based on an anonymous tip, a department official told The Huffington Post.

"These folks were not only not getting time-and-a-half when working extremely long hours, they weren't making the basic minimum wage," Michael Eastwood, assistant district director for the Labor Department's San Francisco division said.

In a statement, the company said it didn't realize it was illegal to pay workers temporarily in the United States the same wages they earn in their home countries. The $1.21 was equivalent to what the employees made in Indian rupees.

“We unintentionally overlooked laws that require even foreign employees to be paid based on local U.S. standards,” the company said in a statement.

Eastwood said the company also failed to keep documentation of the hours worked by the Indian employees. Though the workers were only owed $20,000 in back pay and overtime, regulators doubled that amount to $40,000 in the settlement to compensate for damages.

The company blamed an “administrative error” and said it took steps to ensure it would not occur again.

David Lindsay, a spokesman for the company, told HuffPost the labor violation occurred last year, and that the back wages, overtime and fine had already been paid. Eastwood confirmed that all dues were paid in August.

Electronics For Imaging earned a total net income of $109.11 million last year, up from $83.27 million in 2012. The stock price has climbed steadily over the last five years:

Wage theft is nothing new in the Silicon Valley region. Last year, Bloom Energy Corporation was forced to pay out nearly $64,000 in back pay and damages to 14 workers from Mexico who were paid just $2.66 an hour.

"Unfortunately, we do see a high level of wage theft violations," Eastwood said. "But we want to send a clear message that the Department of Labor is here and we are vigorously enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act."

This story has been updated with a quotes from the U.S. Department of Labor

Shares Of Hazmat-Suit Maker Spike On NYC Ebola News

Shares in a company that makes hazmat suits soared 16 percent on Thursday after the first case of Ebola was diagnosed in New York City.

The stock price of Long Island-based Lakeland Industries, which makes various types of protective garb, has more than doubled in the past month amid feverish news coverage of the deadly virus. The stock jumped from less than $7 a share in late September to as high as $29 on October 13, when Ebola panic in the U.S. was particularly high.

Shares have drifted lower since then, but got another boost on Thursday afternoon after the news that Dr. Craig Spencer, a physician who recently returned to New York from treating patients in Guinea, had been hospitalized with Ebola symptoms. Later on Thursday he became the fourth person in the United States to be diagnosed with the virus.

The spike in stock price came after the first case of Ebola was confirmed in New York.

“We’ve been getting a lot of calls in the last 24 hours,” Jordan Darrow, a spokesman for Lakeland, told The Huffington Post on Friday morning. “We’ve been getting a lot of calls for the last three months.”

He declined to comment on sales of hazmat suits.

Last month, Lakeland said it was increasing production to meet heightened demand for the suits, which cover the whole body. Ebola is spread only through direct contact with bodily fluids -- such as blood, vomit or feces -- of an infected person.

“We hope our added capacity will help alleviate that problem,” Christopher J. Ryan, the president and chief executive of Lakeland, said in a statement last month. “With the U.S. State Department alone putting out a bid for 160,000 suits, we encourage all protective apparel companies to increase their manufacturing capacity for sealed seam garments so that our industry can do its part in addressing this threat to global health.”

Lakeland’s stock fell about 4 percent in early trading Friday morning, to about $14.

Paul Krugman: 'Soak The Rich'

Paul Krugman is on board with some other top economists who say that the U.S. should tax top earners up to 90 percent.

"What you really should want to do is to soak the rich as much as possible," Krugman said in an appearance on HuffPost Live Wednesday afternoon. "So the top tax rates should be whatever it is that collects the most revenue, and now the question is, how high is that?"

The Nobel Prize-winning economist was asked about a new working paper by economists Fabian Kindermann and Dirk Krueger, which found that a top marginal income tax rate of 85 to 90 percent would improve all Americans' wellbeing, reduce inequality and bring in more revenue for the government.

Krugman conceded that "soaking" the rich -- using a nickname for the Revenue Act of 1935, which established a post-Depression wealth tax on top earners of up to 75 percent -- is "not going to happen" due to today's political climate.

Today, the top rate of 39.6 percent is paid on income above $406,750 for individuals and $457,600 for couples.

"Any increase in top tax rates is almost certainly a move in the right direction starting from here," Krugman said.