McDonald's says it plans to open 1,000 new restaurants next year

Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

President Obama, facing a nationwide unemployment rate north of 10%, said today he's organizing a White House jobs summit next month.

The president said people are “desperately searching for work” and that the government has “an obligation to consider every additional responsible step we can” to get people back to work.

He said the summit in December will bring together CEOs, small business owners, economists, financial experts and representatives from labor and non-profits groups to talk about how to get job creation back on track.

President Obama’s comments followed some encouraging signs out this morning on both the labor and housing fronts.

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Editor's Note: This article continues our series excerpted from AC360°'s contributor David Gewirtz's upcoming book, How To Save Jobs, which will be available in December. Over the next few months, we'll be excerpting the first section of the book, which answers the question, "How did we get here?". Last time, we looked at our changing relationship with work This time, we'll begin our look at how changes China and India will be impacting our workforce for years to come. To learn more about the book, follow David on Twitter @DavidGewirtz.

David Gewirtz | BIO

AC360° Contributor

Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

Here's an interesting universal truth: everyone wants a better life. This is as true of the desperate poor in third world nations as it is of middle-class Americans. And while economic downturns are scary to most Americans, even the poorest of Americans live a better life than the shocking level of never-ending squalor experienced by some of the poorest of the poor in developing nations.

Almost five times as many Chinese and Indian citizens live on less than $2 a day than there are people in the United States.

Nations like the People's Republic of China and the Republic of India have vowed to change all that. Together, China and India make up 37 percent of the world's population. By contrast, the United States has only 4 percent of the world's 6.77 billion people and yet our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is almost double that of China and four times that of India.

That means that if you want to understand the current job situation in America, you absolutely, positively have to understand the job situation in China and India.

China's economic overhaul

Both China and India began their long march to first-world status decades ago. Until about 1978, the PRC's economy was barely a blip on the world's radar.

When measured in terms of purchasing power, the economy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) is now the second largest in the world, with a $7.8 trillion GDP in 2008. The European Union's economy is technically larger, but that's for a cluster of countries.

China's economic reforms were gradual, often in response to specific problems or economic circumstances.

Since its inception in 1949, China ran a Soviet-style economy. Consumer spending was virtually non-existent, central planning determined nearly all economic activity, and the nation's industrial growth consisted mainly of building big factories. Entrepreneurship was not only not encouraged, it was actively punished.

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Chris Isidore
CNNMoney.com Senior Writer

The nation's unemployment rate rose above 10% for the first time since 1983 in October, a much worse jump than expected as employers continued to trim jobs from payrolls.

The reading, reported by the government Friday, is a sign of the continued weakness in the labor market even though the economy grew in the third quarter following the longest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression.

The government reported that the unemployment rate spiked to 10.2%, up from 9.8% in September. It is the highest that this rate has been since April 1983. Economists had forecast an increase to 9.9%.

There was also a net loss of 190,000 jobs in October, according to the Labor Department, an improvement from a revised estimate of 219,000 job losses in September. However, economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of only 175,000 jobs in October. This was the 22nd straight month of job losses.

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Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

Unemployed Americans are set to get up to 20 additional weeks of jobless benefits, while new homebuyers are poised to see the $8,000 tax credit extended into mid-next year.

The House approved the measures by a 403-12 vote this afternoon, one day after the Senate passed the legislation. The bill now moves to the White House for President Obama's signature.

The legislation would extend jobless benefits in all states by 14 weeks. Those that live in states with unemployment higher than 8.5% would receive an additional six weeks. The proposal would be funded by extending a longstanding federal unemployment tax on employers through June 30, 2011.

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Editor's Note: This article continues our series excerpted from AC360°'s contributor David Gewirtz's upcoming book, How To Save Jobs, which will be available in December. Over the next few months, we'll be excerpting the first section of the book, which answers the question, "How did we get here?". Last time, we looked at riots, massacres and the transactional nature of work This time, we'll look at our changing relationship with work. To learn more about the book, you should follow David on Twitter @DavidGewirtz.

David Gewirtz | BIO
AC360° Contributor
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

Our relation with work has changed as time passed. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, more and more people lived in cities and areas removed from the land. Individuals became more reliant on buying food and goods rather than growing their own.

America transformed from a tradesman-based economy to one based on the economies of scale factories and industry could produce. The shoemaker, for example, who'd spent years honing his craft and would take weeks to make a pair of shoes, couldn't compete with the industrial age shoe manufacturers that could crank out virtually identical shoes of equal (and sometimes better) quality in mere minutes, and at a fraction of the cost.

For a newly industrialized America, the Great Depression was a one-two punch. Farmers, who were normally relatively self-sufficient, were put out of work due to a man-made occurrence known as the Dust Bowl. But because of the worldwide economic downturn, there also weren't jobs in the cities. Farmers couldn't move to the city to find work, and city dwellers couldn't move to the non-arable open land.

Both of these problems (the economic downturn and the bad land) were man-made. Every school child has been taught about the 1929 stock market crash and the massive bank failures that led to the economic disaster that followed.

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Candy Crowley | BIO
CNN Senior Political Correspondent

On that unusually balmy Chicago night a year ago, the candidate who campaigned on what he called the "fierce urgency of now" became the president-elect who needed time.

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term," Barack Obama told the crowd in Grant Park. And he still needs time to turn a myriad of campaign promises into policy.

The list of the undones is long, varied and mostly difficult - immigration reform, new financial market regulations and a game-changing energy bill.

And compounding problems on the president's lengthy to-do list is that 2010 is an election year, generally an inefficient time for lawmaking.

Obama can put down several major campaign promises as "in the works."

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Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

CIT Group, one of the nation's leading funders of small and medium-sized businesses, filed for the fifth-largest bankruptcy by assets in U.S. history over the weekend as part of a reorganization plan that has the support of a majority of its debt holders.

Not to be confused with Citigroup, CIT is seeking quick approval of the prepackaged plan in bankruptcy court and said none of its operating subsidiaries would be affected by the filing, allowing them to continue operations.

In the bankruptcy filing, CIT said it had $71 billion in assets and $64.9 billion in liabilities. Only Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, WorldCom and General Motors had more in assets when they filed for protection.

CIT's position in the business world is crucial: it’s a top lender to women and minorities and it says it is the leading provider of “factoring,” a key element in the day-to-day financing of the retail industry. It’s also the nation's third-largest lessor of rail cars and the world's third-largest lessor of aircraft.

One company that did not seek bankruptcy protection this year or take any government bailout money was Ford Motor.

And today, Ford reported a surprise profit of just under $1 billion for the third quarter - helped by a bump in sales from the government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, a reduced cost structure and problems at its rivals Chrysler and General Motors.

Ford said cost cutting during the past year and an improved outlook for sales leads the company to believe it will be "solidly profitable" in 2011 - the most bullish outlook Ford has offered investors since it started losing money in 2005.

Ford, along with the rest of the auto industry, reports sales figures for October tomorrow. And the post-clunkers hangover is expected to continue.

It’s also a very busy day on the housing and economic fronts.

The number of signed sales contracts to buy homes rose for the eighth straight month in September.

The National Association of Realtors said its September Pending Home Sales Index spiked 6.1% to the highest level since December 2006 as people rushed to take advantage of an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers.

It's estimated that between 200,000 and 400,000 additional sales will have been made because of that incentive. The credit lapses at the end of this month, and the housing industry is bracing for a major turndown in sales if Congress fails to pass some kind of extension.

Meanwhile, a key index of manufacturing activity jumped in October, reaching its highest level in three and a-half years.

The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index rose to a reading of 55.7 in October from 52.6 the month before. It was the highest reading since April 2006 when the index registered 56.

The monthly report is a national survey of ISM members, who are purchasing managers in the manufacturing field. Readings above 50 indicate growth, while levels below 50 signal contraction. Readings below 41.2 are associated with a recession in the broader economy.

The index first showed growth back in August after 18 months of contraction. It dipped slightly in September from the previous month, but has held above the level indicating growth for three months in a row.

And construction spending also rose in September as the increase in housing starts over the last few months has finally shown up in the residential construction numbers.

Follow the money… on Twitter: @AndrewTorganCNN

CNN Money

CIT Group Inc., one of the nation's leading funders of small and medium-sized businesses, filed for the fifth largest bankruptcy by assets in U.S. history Sunday as part of a reorganization plan that has the support of an overwhelming majority of debtholders.

In a statement, the company said it is asking the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York for a quick approval of the prepackaged plan. CIT said none of its operating subsidiaries would be affected by the filing, allowing them to continue operations.

"The decision to proceed with our plan of reorganization will allow CIT to continue to provide funding to our small business and middle market customers, two sectors that remain vitally important to the U.S. economy," said CIT (CIT, Fortune 500) chairman Jeffrey M. Peek.

In the bankruptcy filing, CIT said it had $71 billion in assets and $64.9 billion in liabilities. Only Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, Worldcom and General Motors had more in assets when they filed for protection.

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CNNMoney.com assistant managing editor Mark M. Meinero, reporter David Ellis and Fortune senior writer Colin Barr contributed to this report.

Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

The first quarter of economic growth in more than a year was a cause for celebration yesterday, albeit one tempered by the realization that until job creation picks up, any recovery will not be felt on Main Street for some time.

Today, the Obama Administration weighed in on that subject, saying the largest stimulus program in the nation's history has created or saved about 650,000 state and local jobs.

Based on approximately $150 billion in spending from the $787 billion recovery package, the tally is the first broad, concrete look at the stimulus program's impact on the economy. The numbers are drawn from tens of thousands of reports from state and local recipients as well as private companies.

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