NPR 2008-10-08

If you received a quarterly statement from your retirement 1 fund over the past few days, chances are it showed large losses. And testifying today on Capitol Hill before the House Education and Labor 2 Committee, the head of the Congressional Budget Office quantified just how large the losses have been. CBO's Peter Orszag says in the past 15 months, Americans have seen two trillion dollars in retirement wealth evaporate, something he says is likely to weigh on household spending. "The decline in the value of retirement assets may well lead households to delay buying a new house or buying a refrigerator what have you consuming things." In fact, there are already signs that's taking place. The Federal Reserve says consumer spending in August fell for the first time in a decade. Meanwhile a new AARP study finds one in five workers 45 years or older have stopped putting money in their retirement fund over the past year.

A congressional panel revealed today executives of failed insurance giant AIG spent nearly half a million dollars on a company retreat at a California resort. It came less than a week after the government bailed 3 out the company to the tune 4 of 85 billion dollars. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.

The theme of the hearing by the House Oversight 5 Committee was as Republican Mark Souder of Indiana put it, the abuse of trust by companies like AIG, which lost billions of dollars. Committee chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat 6, said the company continues to pay an executive whose policies are blamed for AIG's downfall, a million dollars a month retainer, and then said Waxman, there was that retreat at the St. Regis Resort in California. "Less than one week after the taxpayers 7 rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation." Company executives blamed changed accounting 8 rules for AIG's troubles. Brian Naylor, NPR News, the Capitol.

For the first time, a federal judge's ordered a group of Guantanamo detainees released not just from prison, but into the US. NPR's Nina Totenberg has more.

The detainees are seventeen Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs who have been held at Guantanamo for nearly seven years. In June, a largely conservative panel of the federal appeals court here in Washington ruled that they are not hostile to the US, that they are in fact pro-western Muslims, that they were being held at Gitmo without any reliable justification 9. Today the judge now in charge of the case, Ricardo Urbina, ordered the Uighurs released into the United States since they would be tortured if returned to China. What's more, he ordered the government to produce the men in his courtroom this Friday. A local Chinese Muslim association has arranged for 17 families to take the men for now. The government cannot go to the appeals court or even the Supreme 10 Court seeking to block their release. It asserts that even if the men are not enemy combatants, the courts do not have the power to order their release. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 508 points today. The NASDAQ lost 108 points. The S&P was down 60 points today.

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Barack Obama and John McCain are busy preparing for their second scheduled primetime presidential debate tonight, though it appears, at least in the case of McCain, his vice 11 presidential running mate is picking up some of the slack today. In Jacksonville, Florida Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin went on the offensive today against Obama, saying that the election is about truthfulness 12 and judgment 13 needed to be in our next president, and saying McCain has it, Obama does not. The two presidential candidates will meet tonight on the campus of Belmont University in Nashville. The debate built as a town-hall format 14 will be moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw with questions coming from voters.

General David Petraeus spoke 15 to the Association of the US Army today, running through how he brought about some success in Iraq before he takes responsibility for both Iraq and Afghanistan. NPR's JJ Sutherland has more.

An obviously proud Petraeus spent over an hour detailing how he saw the war in Iraq and how he made the gains he did there. Petraeus said that since the worst days of the war, violence in Iraq has decreased 80%. He did acknowledge the current level of violence is still unacceptable. He also warned that the progress made in Iraq is still fragile and that extremists continue to evolve and adapt their tactics. "What works in Baghdad today will not work in Baghdad tomorrow. What works in Baghdad today may not work in Fallujah today, and you must be sensitive to that. By the way, what worked in Iraq may not work in Afghanistan." The situation in Afghanistan is far bleaker 16 than that of Iraq on track to be the worst year for coalition 17 forces since the invasion in 2001. JJ Sutherland, NPR News, Washington.

Crude oil futures 18 ended the session higher, up $2.25 a barrel to settle at just over $90 a barrel in New York.