U.S. Economy Grew Faster Than First Reported Last Quarter

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew even faster in the third quarter than initially thought, posting the strongest six months of growth in more than a decade and pulling further ahead of other big economies of the world.

The gross domestic product, the country's total output of goods and services, expanded at a healthy 3.9 percent annual rate in the July-September period, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. That's a notable jump from its first estimate of 3.5 percent. The revision was propelled higher by more robust consumer and business spending.

Together with a 4.6 percent surge in the spring, the country has recorded its biggest back-to-back quarterly performance since 2003.

"The question of whether the economy is accelerating or will accelerate is no longer a question; we can say somewhat definitively that the economy has already accelerated," said Dan Greenhaus, chief strategist at BTIG, in a research note.

In contrast, other advanced economies are struggling.

The eurozone economy barely grew in the third quarter, and inflation is a mere 0.4 percent, raising concerns of deflation. Japan unexpectedly found itself back in recession in the July-September period. And momentum in emerging economies like China and Brazil is also shaky.

Tuesday's data further pushes the world's biggest economy "onto a different page than Europe and Japan," said Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.

Fueling third-quarter growth was consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. That climbed at a 2.2 percent rate in the three-month period, an improvement from an initial estimate of 1.8 percent. Business investment in equipment shot up at a 10.7 percent rate, revised up from 7.2 percent.

GDP has been on a roller coaster this year. It started with a steep slide in activity in the first three months of the year when the economy contracted at a 2.1 percent rate, largely due to a severe winter.

Analysts believe momentum could decelerate to around 2.5 percent in the current quarter but then pick up again in 2015. They expect growth of around 3 percent, representing a sustained acceleration in activity six years after the Great Recession.

Since the recession ended in June 2009, growth in the U.S. has averaged at subpar rates just above 2 percent. The lackluster recovery has been blamed on the financial crisis and the severity of the recession. Such downturns are usually harder to recover from because it requires repairs to the banking system to get credit flowing again.

But economists believe 2015 will be the year when the recovery shifts into a higher gear, in part because they expect the government itself to help. Government spending grew at a 4.2 percent rate in the third quarter, the strongest performance since the spring of 2009. The gain was bolstered by a 16 percent surge in defense spending.

The optimism is being fueled by modifications in government budget and tax policies. Across-the-board cuts in government spending and tax increases approved to control huge budget deficits had been holding back growth. By next year, economists believe a better budget picture will begin to pay off and fuel growth.

Meanwhile, an improving job market is expected to provide households with more income, boosting consumer spending. The sharp drop in oil prices should also put more money in Americans' pocketbooks as they spend less at the pump.

To be sure, weakness overseas and another possible recession in Europe may still hamstring U.S. growth. Those concerns rattled financial markets earlier this fall. But stocks have since rebounded to new highs amid signs that central banks in Europe, Japan and China will take action to bolster growth.

The U.S. economy is also relatively insulated from overseas weakness since exports account for less than 14 percent of U.S. activity, one of the lowest such shares in the world.

The Federal Reserve in October ended purchases of bonds aimed at pushing long-term interest rates down, though language used by the Fed shows that it does not expect to begin raising short-term interest rates for a "considerable time." Many economists believe the Fed's benchmark short-term rate, which has been at a record lows near zero for six years, won't start rising until the middle of next year.

The New Black Friday Means Lines But Less Frenzy At Kmart, Sears

DES PLAINES, Ill. -- "Be safe everybody," a Kmart worker instructed customers here as they filed into the store at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, looking for deals on items such as headphones and clothes.

But the instruction may have been more of a formality. Once the dozens of people lined up outside the store were inside, they calmly browsed the aisles and compared prices on towels and toasters to those listed in the circulars they had brought along.

The line outside a Des Plaines, Illinois, Kmart at 5:50 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day. (Jillian Berman/The Huffington Post)

Welcome to the new Black Friday. It starts on Thursday or even earlier, lasts for days and isn't quite the harried environment of years past. The increased popularity of online shopping, combined with retailers' interest in capturing shoppers' limited dollars as early as possible, has made the one-day deal bonanza obsolete. Instead, this year Walmart, Target, Amazon and others offered days of deals starting in mid-November.

Sears, which is also owned by Kmart's parent company, Sears Holdings Corp., opened at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving, two hours earlier than last year, and offered its longest string of doorbuster sales ever -- more than 1,000 deals over a 17-hour period -- said Jamie Stein, the vice president of public relations at Sears Holdings. The chain is also letting shoppers buy items online and pick them up in person at both Sears and Kmart stores. At one New York Kmart, more than 100 people stopped in Thursday in a period of just a few hours to pick up items they ordered online, Stein said.

"That's what we saw this year, not a Black Friday but a Black November," Stein said Friday. "In previous years, the focus on one day did create this craze, but was that the best for our customers? Now it's less of a frenzy but better in the end."

Crowds were reportedly thin at malls across the country on Friday morning.

The aisles were relatively clear at 6:30 a.m. Thanksgiving Day at the Des Plaines Kmart. (Jillian Berman/The Huffington Post)

Of course, there were still some elements of the classic Black Friday frenzy at stores across the country. Stein said Kmart managers reported "consistent lines" at 6 a.m. openings Thursday, with 100 people waiting to get in on average.

The increased availability of earlier deals didn't change the holiday plans of Cindy Bergate and Nancy McFall, two shoppers who were browsing the shoe aisles here around 6:15 a.m. on Thanksgiving. The two said they've been Black Friday shopping with four other relatives for years.

After Kmart, they were headed home to cook and eat Thanksgiving dinner, then someone in their shopping crew would leave the meal early to get in line at Walmart. They said they also planned to hit Target and other stores and then head back out again on Friday.

"We're crazy," said McFall, 48, adding that she preferred the experience in years past when shoppers waited in line outside for hours.

Pam Pitakis, 53, who was browsing a rack of jackets that were 50 percent off, said she's nostalgic for the traditional Black Friday for different reasons.

"It's kind of annoying" that so many deals are on Thanksgiving, she said. Pitakis came to Kmart in the wee hours of the morning to get a tablet. "We'd rather just have it be on Black Friday."

Stores have been opening earlier on Thanksgiving in recent years.

Kmart has been open on Thanksgiving for 23 years. But it's been a target of criticism in recent years, along with other retailers, as more chains moved their opening times and best deals to earlier on the holiday. Detractors deride the stores for requiring workers to come in on the holiday and compelling shoppers to rearrange their turkey dinners to make it in time for deals.

"I hate this time of year," one Kmart veteran who works in human resources in a California store told The Huffington Post earlier this month. Several others, who also requested anonymity to protect their jobs, expressed similar sentiments in interviews, saying they weren't given the option not to work on Thanksgiving.

Stein said the company "makes every effort" to staff its stores on the holidays with seasonal employees and volunteers before requiring others to come in. Many employees appreciate the chance to work the holiday because they're paid one and a half times their hourly rate, she said.

The retail giant sets holiday hours for Sears and Kmart based on feedback the company has heard from customers, Stein said. It's also an aim to stay competitive with other retailers.

Sears Holdings has been struggling for the past several years. The chain hasn't reported a positive quarter of same-store sales since 2005, according to Retail Metrics, a retail data firm. CEO Eddie Lampert has been using a controversial strategy to turn things around that critics argue has little to do with actually selling more stuff.

The company is trying to maximize the value of its real estate by selling hundreds of its stores to a newly formed real estate investment trust and renting out space to stores such as Whole Foods, Dick's Sporting Goods and others. It's shuttering other, underperforming locations by the dozens.

"It's a very difficult scenario that they find themselves in," said Ken Perkins, the founder of Retail Metrics. "There's no buzz."

Those difficulties are compounded by the struggles facing other retailers that cater to low- and middle-income shoppers. Slow wage growth has meant that most Americans have limited money to spend in stores. Chains are ramping up the deals all month in hopes that strapped Americans will spend their money in their stores, but the traffic and high volume of purchases at steep discounts may do little to actually help their bottom lines, according to Mark Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia Business School.

Sears and Kmart "are attempting to participate aggressively," said Cohen, a former CEO of Sears Canada. "At the end of the day, it's all for naught. This entire Black Friday window of hyper-promotion is really a race to the bottom for all retailers participating."

Impress Your Relatives With These 7 Thanksgiving Anecdotes

Talking about the weather and football probably gets you through family dinner on Thursday. Still, you're never far from someone's rabid partisan rant.

Fear not! We've rounded up some great diversions//small-talk talking points to rescue you:

The Term 'Black Friday' Used To Mean Something Very Different: These days “Black Friday” signals the start of the holiday shopping season. But the Philadelphia Police Department coined the term in the 1960s in an attempt to actually deter people from shopping.

Now 'Black Friday' Is Creeping Into Thanksgiving: In recent years the traditional spending spree has spread out over many days. Many of the country's biggest retailers actually kick off their holiday sales on Thanksgiving (aka Black Friday Eve).

But The Commercialization Of Thanksgiving Is Nothing New: President Franklin D. Roosevelt actually changed the date of Thanksgiving in 1939 to encourage more people to shop.

Some Stores Won't Open On Thanksgiving: While the shopping bonanza now begins on Thanksgiving for many retailers, all stores must stay closed on the holiday in Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, thanks to some old puritanical blue laws. Other stores, including Costco and Nordstrom, make it a policy to stay closed so workers can be with their families.

Other Stores Have To Open: This Buffalo-area mall has threatened to fine stores that don’t open on Thanksgiving.

Not Everyone Will Be Shopping Or Feasting: Walmart workers, leveraging the need for a full staff during the retailer’s 24-hour shopping frenzy on Black Friday, launched a strike in six states, demanding higher wages and better hours. Overall, fewer people plan to shop on Thanksgiving this year, anyway.

Guns Are A Hot Item On Black Friday: People will be buying a lot of guns -- Black Friday sales push the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to run nearly two checks a second.

Want To Make A Difference? Don't Be A Hedge Fund Manager

Long before the 2008 financial collapse, the American economic landscape had shifted, plunging the country into something of an identity crisis. Manufacturing was down, far less tangible industries were up. Income inequality and nostalgia for a time when America “made things” became fixtures of the national conversation.

As Roger Martin put it in the Harvard Business Review in October, “Over the past 50 years the U.S. economy has shifted decisively from financing the exploitation of natural resources to making the most of human talent.”

“Talent” has a positive ring. And yes, there are some good things about an economy that favors talent -- that is, creative workers, as opposed to what Martin calls “routine-intensive labor.” Many of these creative people will flourish, and some of them will even “make things” that could truly improve people’s lives.

But Martin, an author and former dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, says a talent economy has a dark side, too.

“I started to take a dimmer view when I realized there was a large segment of talent that created no net benefit to society, and that segment was achieving the highest personal rewards in the modern economy,” he told The Huffington Post.

The disappearance of labor-intensive jobs, he argues, has accelerated income equality. Worse -- and hardly a shock to anyone paying attention -- many of those raking in billions at the very top aren’t exactly doing meaningful work. As others languish, this talent segment enjoys stratospheric gains.

Martin has articulated, at the HBR and in blog posts, his thoughts on what this means for the future of the American economy. HuffPost asked him to share his thoughts on something a bit closer to home: what it all means for young people starting out. If you want a successful career in the talent economy, but you also want to do something that might have meaning, or benefit society in some way, what might you want to know? What might you want to avoid?

What follows is his reply:

Build Value, Don't Trade It

The core imperative for a happy and fulfilling career in the modern talent economy is to focus your talent on building value, not simply trading it.

The paragon of the latter activity is the hedge fund manager, who simply trades value – and tolls it heavily on the way through. On behalf of his or her capital providers, the hedge fund manager trades liquid financial instruments. The only way to make a dollar for the capital providers is for someone on the other side of trade to lose a dollar. The hedge fund manager keeps 20 cents of the dollar of profit and gives the remaining 80 cents to the capital providers, making it a massively lucrative activity for the hedge fund manager. And in a great asymmetry of incentives, the capital providers absorb 100 cents of every dollar of loss, while the hedge fund takes none of that loss.

Minimal net value for society is created in this process. Value has just been transferred from the counter-party in the trade to the hedge fund manager and capital provider. Or vice versa: if the hedge fund manager loses money for its capital providers, the counter party walks away with the profit – and that counter-party might well be another hedge fund manager.

Huge Profits Don't Equal Huge Satisfaction

While it is a wonderfully profitable business for hedge fund managers, it provides little long-term satisfaction because it is a zero-sum game with equal and opposite magnitude of losers and winners. Over time, if you are in a value trading business, you have to wake up every morning knowing that, in order to make a dollar, you have to ensure someone else loses one.

If instead you work for or establish a company that builds a product or offers a service that makes the lives of its customers better off, and if the revenues from selling the product/service exceed the costs by enough to earn an adequate return for investors, then you live in a positive-sum game. Customers are better off than they were before having access to your product/service. The company makes enough money to invest in growth, which means hiring employees and buying machinery/equipment/real estate, all of which contribute to growing the economy.

In this case, you can go to bed every night knowing that you contributed value to customers, employees, shareholders and the overall economy. And if you do all of this in an environmentally sustainable way, you make the world a better place for your children, too.

Building Is Harder Than Trading -- But Also More Rewarding

The challenge for this path is that building value is harder work than trading value. It is difficult to figure out a way to generate new value to a particular group of customers and do so in a way that the value created (and therefore paid by them) is distinctly higher than the costs incurred. That is an inherently creative act -– even if it is done in the context of an existing company in an existing product line. The forces of competition erode existing value equations and demand the continuous process of upgrading value delivered and improving costs of doing so.

Trading value is much easier. Someone else has to create all the value, and all you need to do is shuffle it around and toll the players involved. The greatest skill required is that of convincing the providers of capital to traders to give you the capital to enable your trading -– even if they really shouldn’t. Raising capital is the greatest skill of hedge fund managers.

Hedge fund management is arguably the most lucrative occupation in America and is much easier than creating value. But the payoff to working harder and longer at the task of building net value for society is the satisfaction of using your talent for the world, not just for yourself.

Fewer People Plan To Shop On Thanksgiving This Year

Could the country's biggest box stores be losing their so-called "War on Thanksgiving"?

Fewer Americans plan to spend their turkey day shopping this year compared to 2013, according to a report released Thursday by the National Retail Federation.

Only 18.3 percent of people (25.6 million people) who said they will shop on Thanksgiving weekend plan to do so on Thanksgiving Day, according to NRF. That's down from the 23.5 percent of holiday shoppers who said they would shop on Thanksgiving Day last year.

The NRF polled 6,593 people, 61.1 percent of whom said they plan to shop either Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. Based on the poll, the NRF expects 140.1 million Americans to shop throughout the course of the weekend, which is down slightly from the 140.3 million expected last year.

The decline comes as more and more of the nation's biggest retailers prepare to kick off their holiday shopping sales on Thanksgiving Day, instead of the following day, known as Black Friday.

Considered the biggest shopping weekend of the year, Black Friday and the days around it have grown into a giant turf war for the nation's brick-and-mortar stores, all struggling to stave off the effects of a sluggish economic recovery and facing fierce competition from online retailers.

Kmart plans to kick off its Black Friday sales at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, and stay open 42 hours straight. Most Walmart stores will be open all day on Thanksgiving as well, with Black Friday deals starting at 6 p.m.

Jeff Shelman, a spokesman for Best Buy, recently told The Huffington Post that the electronics retailer began stretching its Black Friday shopping into Thanksgiving Day last year after noticing it was losing shoppers to competitors who opened earlier on Thursday.

"The reality is, customers have shown that they want to shop on Thanksgiving evening, and we want to be there to serve those customers," Shelman said.

Deisha Barnett, a spokeswoman for Walmart, said the nation's biggest retailer is "cautiously optimistic" about Thanksgiving weekend.

"Competition is definitely heavy out there," Barnett said. She did not disclose how many shoppers she expects to come out on Thanksgiving this year.

Last year, sales on Black Friday actually fell 13.2 percent compared to 2012 because more shoppers were coming out on Thursday. Stores generally count on holiday shopping for a huge portion of their annual sales.

In recent years, however, this aggressive push has come under scrutiny from shoppers and workers who accuse large retailers of waging war on Thanksgiving -- a day, like Christmas, when stores have historically remained closed. Many low-wage workers now have to sacrifice the holiday to staff store openings that are generally pretty chaotic, and sometimes even dangerous.

That said, retailers maintain that Thanksgiving weekend has become the "Super Bowl" of the retail industry, and that employees generally are pretty excited to work.

200 Starbucks Locations Now Have Wireless Charging Pads

Wireless charging is now an option at about 200 Starbucks locations in the San Francisco Bay Area and will eventually be available at stores across the country.

Pads capable of charging smartphones and tablets have been placed on tables and counters throughout certain stores. The number of available "Duracell Powermat Spots" vary depending on the size of the store, but Starbucks spokeswoman Linda Mills told The Huffington Post stores generally have about eight of them.

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Although Powermats are only officially compatible with AT&T smartphones, like Asus and Kyocera Hydro Vibe, Powermat spokesman Scott Eisenstein told HuffPost that Starbucks locations are loaning "rings" that can be plugged into any smartphone. The device, also available for purchase for $9.99, allows customers with other phones to use the wireless charging stations.

However, Eisenstein said there are always more rings available for loan than there are available charging pads.

Mills says the goal of the wireless charging stations is to make customers happy.

"Starbucks is continually bringing new experiences and innovations to customers to make their lives just a bit easier," Mills said. "Battery life is the [No. 1] reported frustration from consumers about their smartphones. Wireless charging capability in Starbucks stores will enhance the in-store experience by helping customers keep their smartphones and mobile devices charged throughout their day."

The wireless charging stations will hardly be confined to California. The coffee chain already did a test run in Massachusetts and plans to roll out Powermats in various Starbucks locations across the U.S., and possibly Europe and Asia, within the next year.

Obamacare Enrollment Goal For 2015 Is 9 Million, Lower Than Expected

Just days ahead of the next Obamacare sign-up period, the Department of Health and Human Services is scaling back projections of how many people will be enrolled by the end of next year.

An analysis released by HHS on Monday projects between 9 million and 9.9 million individuals will be enrolled in health insurance plans obtained via an Affordable Care Act exchange by the end of 2015. That's up to 4 million fewer people than estimated by the Congressional Budget Office in April. HHS also reported that 7.1 million people were fully enrolled as of Oct. 15, a decline of about 200,000 from August.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said the department's target for 2015 is on the lower end of the range outlined in the report. "The number that we are going to aim for is 9.1 million," she said during an event at the Center for American Progress in Washington. "Probably the market will grow between 25 and 30 percent."

On net, the projection amounts to just 2 million additional customers in private health insurance obtained through an Obamacare exchange by the end of 2015, compared to this year.

After a rocky start in October of last year, the first Obamacare sign-up period resulted in 8 million people choosing health plans from an exchange marketplace, including those who have since given up that coverage. Surveys show the number of uninsured Americans declined by 10.3 million this year as a result of exchange enrollment, new Medicaid beneficiaries and people gaining coverage through other means.

HHS officials, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity Monday, attributed the reduced projection for 2015 Obamacare enrollment mainly to the expectation that fewer consumers than previously estimated would move away from job-based insurance or private plans purchased outside the exchanges from insurers or brokers.

"We think that the evidence points to a longer ramp-up rate than the CBO projections had, and that is based on what we've learned over the last year from looking at our own data and from examining the experiences of other, similar types of programs," one HHS official said. The CBO had predicted 24 million consumers would be purchasing private insurance on an exchange by the end of 2016. HHS maintains exchange enrollment still will rise to the 25 million CBO projected for 2017 and future years, but that it may take until 2019 instead.

Burwell outlined the new challenges facing Obamacare enrollment, emphasizing that the coming sign-up period will be the first time the exchanges handle new customers and existing policyholders seeking to renew, and that it will last half as long as the six-month enrollment phase that began last October. In addition, the next wave of uninsured people who gain coverage may be smaller because the people who were easiest to find already signed up. "The next group of people will be harder to reach," Burwell said.

Still, the majority of new Obamacare customers next year will come from the ranks of the currently uninsured, the department's report concludes. "HHS’s analysis implies that most of the new marketplace enrollment for 2015 is likely to come from the ranks of the uninsured, with approximately three or four previously uninsured new enrollees for each new enrollee drawn from the ranks of those who previously had off-marketplace individual coverage," the report says.

HHS estimates that the population potentially eligible to use a health insurance exchange to buy private coverage is 23 million to 27 million people, including 15 million uninsured who qualify for subsidized private coverage and 8 million to 12 million who now buy plans directly from an insurer or through an agent or broker. Subsidies are only available via an exchange, and 85 percent of this year's enrollees received the financial assistance.

Federal officials think that 83 percent of the 7.1 million currently covered by insurance purchased on an exchange, or 5.9 million individuals, will still be covered by insurance purchased on an exchange by the end of next year, based on information from surveys, state-run exchanges and one unnamed insurance company, which show a range of 70 percent to 90 percent retain this type of insurance over the course of a year.

For the three-month 2015 enrollment period, HHS expects that 10.3 million to 11.7 million people will select an insurance plan on an exchange and that 9 million to 9.9 million will still have this coverage at the end of the year.

One HHS official stressed that the department does not believe that many of the individuals giving up exchange insurance plans this year or next are becoming uninsured. Officials did not provide estimates of how many have become insured or how many have switched to another form of health coverage. Surveys by Gallup and others show the uninsured rate is lower this year than in 2013.

"A number of things happen in that population. Some folks are getting jobs, so they go into their employers' insurance. Some folks may be eligible for Medicaid. There's a natural churn to a population in a marketplace, and so this type of retention number is not unexpected," the official said.

The decline in enrollments from August to October was largely the result of 112,000 households, representing an undisclosed number of people, losing coverage because they failed to provide up-to-date information about their incomes or their citizenship and immigration status, officials said.

The open enrollment period for private health insurance available to individuals who do not receive coverage through an employer or a government program like Medicare or Medicaid begins Saturday, Nov. 15, and runs through Feb. 15.

This article was updated after publication with remarks from Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.

Unemployment Is Down, But Wages Aren't Up

Friday delivered another solid-if-not-amazing jobs report. Unfortunately, the "not-amazing" part continues to involve your paycheck.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. economy added 214,000 jobs in October and that unemployment fell a tenth of a percentage point to 5.8 percent. This is the ninth straight month in which employers added 200,000 jobs or more, the Financial Times' Eric Platt pointed out. The last such streak of that length happened in 1993-1995 and lasted 19 months.

Unemployment has been ticking down with remarkable consistency, thanks to this incredibly durable job growth, along with a steady decline in the percentage of Americans in the labor force -- when people drop out of the labor force because of retirement or discouragement, they're no longer counted as "unemployed."

Often when unemployment falls, wage gains accelerate. Good workers get harder to find, forcing employers to pay up.

That's not really happening this time. Here's the unemployment rate and the yearly change in average hourly wages, charted:

Pay rose a paltry 0.1 percent in October and is up 2 percent in the past year. That's just 0.3 percentage points above inflation, which is currently rising at an annual rate of 1.7 percent.

There are lots of potential explanations for why unemployment keeps dropping without driving wages higher. The number of Americans sitting on the sidelines of the job market is still relatively high, for one thing.

The negatives of lousy wage growth are obvious. There are positives, too, though they're a lot less obvious: With wage growth stagnant, there is no indication that inflation is going to rise anytime soon. That means there's no pressure – aside from ideology – for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to slow down the economy.

The zaniest theories of coming hyperinflation being espoused by the hyper-rich continue to be rebutted by reality. Such debating points are little consolation, however, for stagnant paychecks.

Abercrombie & Fitch Sales Plummet

NEW YORK (AP) — Abercrombie & Fitch is still having trouble getting teens to buy its clothing.

Sales fell by more than expected in September and October as fewer people headed to the mall and shoppers shunned clothing with the retailer's logo on it. Abercrombie & Fitch also reported weaker sales at its European stores, especially at its Hollister brand.

Shares slid in late morning trading Friday, touching a two-year low.

The New Albany, Ohio-based retailer has been trying to win customers back by removing logos from its clothing. It's also cutting expenses and closing some of its stores.

Abercrombie & Fitch expects adjusted third-quarter earnings of between 40 cents per share and 42 cents per share. Analysts expected 68 cents per share, according to FactSet. The company will report full results on Dec. 3.

Revenue fell 12 percent to $911.4 million in the quarter that ended on Nov. 1, below analysts' estimate of $982.4 million.

Sales at stores open at least a year fell 10 percent in the period — down 7 percent in the U.S. and down 15 percent internationally. The metric is a key indicator of a retailer's health, as it excludes potentially distorting results from stores that recently opened or closed.

Shares of Abercrombie & Fitch Co. fell $4.59, or 13 percent, to $30.80 in late morning trading. They bottomed at $30.31 earlier Friday, the lowest point since 2012.

Unemployment Is Down, But Wages Aren't Up

Friday delivered another solid-if-not-amazing jobs report. Unfortunately, the "not-amazing" part continues to involve your paycheck.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. economy added 214,000 jobs in October and that unemployment fell a tenth of a percentage point to 5.8 percent. This is the ninth straight month in which employers added 200,000 jobs or more, the Financial Times' Eric Platt pointed out. The last such streak of that length happened in 1993-1995 and lasted 19 months.

Unemployment has been ticking down with remarkable consistency, thanks to this incredibly durable job growth, along with a steady decline in the percentage of Americans in the labor force -- when people drop out of the labor force because of retirement or discouragement, they're no longer counted as "unemployed."

Often when unemployment falls, wage gains accelerate. Good workers get harder to find, forcing employers to pay up.

That's not really happening this time. Here's the unemployment rate and the yearly change in average hourly wages, charted:

Pay rose a paltry 0.1 percent in October and is up 2 percent in the past year. That's just 0.3 percentage points above inflation, which is currently rising at an annual rate of 1.7 percent.

There are lots of potential explanations for why unemployment keeps dropping without driving wages higher. The number of Americans sitting on the sidelines of the job market is still relatively high, for one thing.

The negatives of lousy wage growth are obvious. There are positives, too, though they're a lot less obvious: With wage growth stagnant, there is no indication that inflation is going to rise anytime soon. That means there's no pressure – aside from ideology – for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to slow down the economy.

The zaniest theories of coming hyperinflation being espoused by the hyper-rich continue to be rebutted by reality. Such debating points are little consolation, however, for stagnant paychecks.

This Is What Our Cash Could Look Like If It Didn't Celebrate Dead White Men

Americans swap photos of dead politicians for goods and services every day. If those same images are starting to bore you, designer Travis Purrington offers an innovative alternative design.

As part of a master's thesis design project at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland, Purrington developed new versions of U.S. currency. He based his designs on his study of other world currencies and America's currency history.

Purrington told The Huffington Post that, in his research, he found that the nation's founders did not intend to be immortalized on bills, as they saw the practice as "monarchical." In fact, most of the figures on our current bills were not added until the early 1900s. Purrington said it only seems right that our currency should focus on modernized American ideals and virtues instead.

"This isn't to dissolve the proud history of the USA," Purrington wrote in an email to HuffPost. "But the original Congress saw a danger in venerating men on money."

The $1 bill is notably absent from Purrington's designs. Some advocacy groups have said that using a dollar coin instead of a bill would save the government lots of money.

Purrington's bills vary slightly in size, much like the Euro system, which makes it easier to see how much money you have in your wallet.

Take a look at his redesigns. Remember, these are just hypothetical, and Purrington is in no way affiliated with the U.S. government. But still, we can always dream.

The $5 Bill

Virtue: Skill
Featured image: Neural connections
Latin Phrase: "LITTERA OCCIDIT SPIRITUS UIUIFICAT"
Translation: The letter kills the spirit brings to life
English Phrase: "We the People"
Other features: Sculpture by artist Alexander Calder, farmland, blood platelets

The $10 Bill

Virtue: Structure
Featured image: Nanotechnology
Phrase: "DITAT SERVATA FIDES"
Translation: Fidelity enriches
English Phrase: "Self Evident"
Other features: Guggenheim Museum by Frank Lloyd Wright, Willis Tower, circuit board

The $20 Bill

Virtue: Life
Featured image: Blood cell culture
Phrase: "LIBRATA & REFULGET"
Translation: Balance shines
English Phrase: "In Pursuit of"
Other features: DNA Helix, rolling wave, galaxy

The $50 Bill

Virtue: Innovation
Featured image: Circuit board
Phrase:"MEMOR ADVERSE"
Translation: Mindful of the adverse
English Phrase: "Home of the Brave"
Other features: Wright Brothers first flight, neurons

The $100 Bill

Virtue: Nature
Featured image: The universe
Phrase:"REMEDIA IN ARDUO"
Translation: Remedy in hardship
English Phrase: "Land of the Free"
Other features: The Sun, Teton National Park, buckyball

Here's all five, for good measure:

Why Obama And The Democrats Can't Get Any Love For The Economy

The U.S. economy is growing, unemployment is tumbling and stocks are at record highs. So why aren't President Barack Obama and the Democrats getting enough credit for that to avoid a big loss in Tuesday's midterm elections?

Maybe because, for way too many Americans, the economy might as well still be in recession.

Most of the benefits of the economic recovery that began in 2009 have accrued only to the wealthiest Americans. Middle-class Americans, meanwhile, have been left behind. Their wages and wealth have stagnated -- a key reason why polls show that most Americans think the economy is still in a recession, even though it technically started recovering five years ago.

Here's a chart, courtesy of Credit Suisse, that sums it up. It shows the ratio of wealth to household income, which has spiked during this recovery to levels not seen since just before the Great Depression:

This means the rich are getting richer at a much, much faster rate than the rest of us, who are not getting rich at all. The rich have benefited from a stock market that has more than doubled in value since 2009, while the average worker's wages have barely kept up with inflation:

Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, wealthier Americans tend to vote Republican, and merely getting richer in the past few years has not been enough to make them switch teams. Wealthy Americans also donate money to Republican candidatess, including the ones who are widely expected to take over the Senate and extend their control over the House of Representatives in Tuesday's elections.

Not all elections hinge on the economy, but it's not hard to draw a pretty straight line from the current economy to the gloomy outlook for Democrats in this election. Most Americans say the economy is their top issue, according to several recent polls, and only 38 percent of Americans think the economy is in OK shape, according to a recent CNN/ORC International poll. Just 35 percent of Americans approve of Obama's handling of the economy, according to Gallup.

Of course, midterm elections almost always go badly for the party that holds the White House. Going into the midterm election of 1986, President Ronald Reagan had a 60 percent approval rating and a decent economy on his side, and his party still lost control of the Senate and gave up a handful of seats in the House.

Aside from a one-off swoon in GDP in the first quarter, the economy has arguably been kinder to Obama in 2014 than it was to Reagan in 1986. GDP has bounced back sharply in the past two quarters. The unemployment rate has tumbled nearly a full percentage point this year, recently falling below 6 percent (compared with 7 percent for Reagan). The Dow and S&P 500 are constantly breaking records, and the Nasdaq is at levels not seen since the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000.

But unemployment has fallen at least partly because workers are leaving the labor force, not because of a massive boom in hiring. Workers are giving up looking for work, either because of early retirement or because they've just lost hope, meaning they no longer count as "unemployed" in the eyes of the government.

Stock prices are at record highs, but most Americans don't own stocks. Middle-class workers who have managed to save a bit in 401(k) accounts don't have enough wealth to retire on for more than a year. Most stock gains have in fact gone to top earners, including CEOs, whose pay has skyrocketed to the point where they're making nearly 300 times as much as workers, as you can see in this chart from the Economic Policy Institute:

In thinking about 2014, a more telling comparison than 1986 is 1998, when President Bill Clinton enjoyed a great midterm election. The Republicans picked up no seats that year, the first such failure for a party out of the White House since 1934.

Clinton was lucky enough to be in office in the middle of the dot-com boom. That, of course, benefited the rich, just as the recent stock market rally has done. But in 1998, the middle class was getting a taste, too. Unemployment stayed below 5 percent all year -- close to what most economists would consider full employment. GDP was in the middle of a four-year growth boom of more than 4 percent annually, the strongest stretch since the 1960s.

Most importantly, hourly wage growth was more than twice the level of inflation that year, the biggest such gap since the early 1970s. In 1998, the middle class really felt like it was getting richer. That probably made it a lot easier to reward the party in power.

Hyundai And Kia To Pay $100 Million For Overstating MPGs On About One-Third Of Models

WASHINGTON (AP) — Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia will pay the U.S. government a $100 million civil penalty to end a two-year investigation into overstated gas mileage figures on window stickers on 1.2 million vehicles.

The penalty, announced Monday by the Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, is the first under new rules aimed at limiting the amount of heat-trapping gases cars are allowed to emit. Those regulations are a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's plans to combat global warming and are achieved largely through improving vehicle fuel economy.

The payment could also serve as a precedent for other automakers who overstate mileage in violation of the Clean Air Act. Attorney General Eric Holder said it underscores the need for car companies to be honest about their compliance with emissions standards.

Under the settlement, Hyundai-Kia will forfeit greenhouse gas credits worth more than $200 million because the affected vehicles will emit about 4.75 million more metric tons of greenhouse gases than the automakers originally claimed. The credits could have been sold to other automakers who aren't meeting emissions standards.

Hyundai-Kia must also audit test results on current models, and set up an independent group to certify future test results, at a cost of around $50 million.

Officials said the misrepresentations put other car companies at a competitive disadvantage, especially since fuel economy is seen as a critical factor that "consumers think about when they're going to buy a car," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.

"That tilts the market in favor of those who don't play by the rules and it disadvantages those that actually do play by the rules," McCarthy told a news conference. "And that's simply not fair, and it's also not legal."

The companies, which are both owned by Hyundai and generally sell different versions of the same models, denied allegations that they violated the law. Hyundai blamed the inflated mileage on honest misinterpretation of the EPA's complex rules governing testing. Both companies said they are paying the penalties — $56.8 million for Hyundai and $43.2 million for Kia — to end the probe and potential litigation.

All automakers do their own mileage tests based on EPA guidelines, and the agency does audits to make sure they are accurate. In the past two years, the EPA has stepped up audits of automaker tests. Just two weeks ago, the agency told BMW to cut mileage estimates on four of its Mini Cooper models. Ford and Mercedes-Benz also had to cut numbers on their window stickers.

In November 2012, the EPA ordered Hyundai and Kia to redo the window stickers on cars that made up about one-third of their model lineup. Generally, gas mileage was overstated by one or two miles per gallon. But the EPA's tests found the highway mileage of one vehicle, the boxy Kia Soul, was 6 mpg too high. Both automakers started a program to reimburse automakers for the difference between their mileage tests and the EPA's lower numbers.

The EPA and Justice Department, in an agreement filed in federal court, said the automakers violated the law by using inaccurately low numbers to prove their compliance with emission standards. The government alleged Hyundai and Kia "chose favorable results rather than average results from a large number of tests."

But in a statement, Hyundai blamed the problem on the EPA's regulations.

The company said some EPA mileage tests are done on a dynamometer, which is a treadmill for cars. To calculate wind drag, friction in the engine and transmission, and tire rolling resistance, automakers do tests on a track, measuring how long it takes for cars to "coast down" to a stop. That test yields a number that is programmed into the dynamometer.

Hyundai said automaker interpretations of the tests vary because regulations don't specify exactly how to do the tests.

"It was our regulatory interpretation within this broad latitude that was responsible for the ratings restatement," spokesman Jim Trainor said.

McCarthy, however, said that the automakers' protocol was "systemically flawed" and "inconsistent with normal engineering practices and inconsistent with how any other company has been doing this."

EPA officials said Hyundai also had to change its organizational structure to separate product and engine development from the people who do the mileage tests. The old structure had the same people doing both, an anomaly in the industry, the officials said.

___

Krisher reported from Detroit.

What's Behind Dear Kate's No-Underwear Yoga Pants

Lingerie company Dear Kate's new no-underwear yoga pants make a lot of promises: No panty lines. No bunching. No riding up. No camel toe. No stressing about comfort. And they'll make your butt look great.

If they can deliver all that, the new pants, which have a thick, absorbent lining around the crotch, may be able to shove their way into the busy market for yoga gear. That's the plan, at least, for Dear Kate founder Julie Sygiel, whose company is making its first foray away from undergarments.

"We surveyed our customers and said, 'Hey what do you want to see from us next,'" Sygiel, who studied chemical engineering at Brown University, told the Huffington Post in an interview. "Yoga wear was by far the winner."

She may have caught on to something.

Most women wear a thong or other kind of panties with their yoga pants. But around 17 percent of women wear nothing at all underneath their pants when they work out, according to Dear Kate's market research. A survey conducted by Groupon earlier this year found that about 25 percent of women go commando while practicing yoga.

Alexandra Seijo, who teaches yoga at Equinox and Pure Yoga in New York City, said she doesn't usually wear underwear while practicing, and will definitely check our Dear Kate's new pants. She wants to be focused on what's happening internally when she's doing yoga, so something that would keep her mind from getting distracted would be a plus, she said.

"Sometimes we do get caught up in the external, when the purpose of yoga is to go within," Seijo told HuffPost. "The last thing you want to worry about is tugging, pulling, pinching, having any kind of clothing malfunction because you want to be fully immersed in the practice."

Still, no-underwear yoga pants have their limits. Some may have issues trusting the concept of shunning their underwear, especially after Lululemon's see-through yoga pant debacle in 2013. And they need to be washed after each use without an undergarment.

Dear Kate started as an underwear company, but decided to expand into yoga-wear. (Photo courtesy Dear Kate)

Founded in 2012, Dear Kate has raised $1.2 million thus far from private investors, selling a selection of undergarments that present an alternative to "period panties." They have extra lining and are made of materials that wick moisture, release stains and resist leaks. They're also aimed at women who have bladder issues after pregnancy.

Now, Dear Kate is trying to grab a piece of the growing market for yoga gear. Global sales of so-called "activewear" climbed 7 percent and surpassed $33 billion in the 12 months ending in June, according to data from market research firm NPD Group. Athletic wear companies, fast-fashion emporiums and even some haute couture labels are trying to claim their slice of the yoga pie. Meanwhile, smaller yoga apparel makers are battling each other, vying to be the next Lululemon.

The regular, full-length yoga pant from Dear Kate costs $118. Lululemon charges between $82 and $128 for most of its yoga pants, while many similar styles from rival Athleta run from $64 to $98.

While items like no-underwear running shorts have been around for a long time, Sygiel is hoping that her more versatile yoga product will set it apart. And the stretchy pants aren't just for yoga -- women use them for many athletics, from pilates to running and biking.

Sygiel's yoga pants, made at a factory in Queens, New York, are getting attention even before they become available to the public. A 30-day Kickstarter campaign for the pants attracted more than $150,000 in funding. Though Sygiel declined to share precise sales numbers, she said that in 2014, the company expects to triple its revenue total from the year prior.

Dear Kate's pants are expected to launch in mid-November, but are available for pre-order now.

Dear Kate's no-underwear yoga pants have a thick, moisture-wicking lining. (Photo courtesy Dear Kate)

The 29 States Where You Can Still Be Fired For Being Gay

Tim Cook came out as gay in an essay in Businessweek on Thursday. He said that the unequal treatment LGBT employees face all over the country was a critical factor in his decision.

"I’ve had the good fortune to work at a company that loves creativity and innovation and knows it can only flourish when you embrace people’s differences," Cook wrote. "Not everyone is so lucky."

Indeed, there is no federal law protecting LGBT workers against discrimination based on their sexual orientation. And while some states and cities have passed their own protections, there are still 29 states where you can actually be fired for being gay, leaving more than half of all total workers vulnerable to employment discrimination.

Most Americans incorrectly think that this problem has already been solved. A 2013 HuffPost/YouGov poll found that 69 percent of Americans think that firing people for being gay is illegal.

A proposed federal law called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act would provide protections for all LGBT Americans working for employers with at least 15 employees. It's been introduced in nearly every Congress since 1994, but has never passed.

Apple's home state of California has some of the most robust anti-discrimination laws in the country, and the company itself is an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights.

"If hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy," Cook wrote in his essay.

What Your Cell Phone Company Isn't Telling You When You Sign A Contract

When you sign a cell phone contract, you’re not just agreeing to pay thousands of dollars over a few years to AT&T or Verizon. You’re also signing away your right to sue the company or participate in a class action lawsuit against it.

If the cell phone provider systematically overcharges you or doesn't deliver, say, on its promise of "unlimited data," your only remedy -- unless the government steps in -- is forced arbitration, a private negotiation between the company and the customer where a non-judicial party decides your fate. Typically, the process is stacked in favor of the giant corporation.

Forced arbitration clauses have become widespread in recent years and there's one
buried in AT&T’s terms of service. It’s why the Federal Trade Commission, not customers, just sued AT&T for allegedly slowing down Internet speeds on customers' smartphones -- even though customers were complaining about the practice for years.

AT&T isn’t alone: the four other largest cell phone carriers – Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon – also have forced arbitration in their terms of service.

The policies are aimed primarily at restricting customers from class action lawsuits, but they also forbid customers from taking cell phone providers to just about any kind of court -- except small claims court, familiar to most Americans as the setting for The People’s Court; hardly the venue for exacting justice against multibillion dollar corporations.

Buried in these contracts from AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are clauses that take away your right to sue

T-Mobile is unique in having a forced arbitration opt-out policy, but it must be completed within 30 days of activation to be valid. So before you applaud the company for such a progressive policy, consider the likelihood that someone who just bought a new phone would also have the forethought to consider the best potential legal strategy against the company they bought the phone from. If a customer really envisioned becoming entangled in a legal dispute with a company over a purchase, they wouldn’t probably simply avoid doing business with that company.

Telecom companies are hardly outliers. Banks, retail stores and electronics giants have all found ways to get customers to sign away their right to take a company to court.

Even Cheerios tried to jump on the bandwagon. In April, the General Mills' cereal brand changed its terms of service so that simply liking the cereal on Facebook voided a consumer’s right to sue. But after a New York Times story drew attention to the policy, the company quickly reversed itself.

In 2011, the practice was upheld by the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote in AT&T vs. Concepcion. The court also upheld the legality of class arbitration waivers. That means that not only can terms of service waive your right to participate in a class action lawsuit, but also your ability to enter arbitration with other consumers. Individual arbitration is the only option.

The legality of these types of class action waivers was broadened even further by the Supreme Court in 2013 to include terms of service between businesses in the case of American Express vs. Italian Colors Restaurant. The court held that American Express could include class action waivers in its terms of service with merchants.

Some customers have tried to find justice against cell providers in small claims court, including one California man who sued and won $850 from AT&T in 2012. The stakes are low, but the companies’ monetary and legal advantage is narrowed. Here’s how Consumerist described the scene: “Since lawyers are not allowed in California small claims courts, AT&T was represented by its area sales manager.”

If you’re looking for a venue outside small claims court to shame companies into changing their policies, a petition may not be your best bet. Change.org has a forced arbitration clause in its terms of service.