adam shapiro is here with our business beat. i guess the government can kind of back out with aig paying back the debt. >> not exactly. they are negotiating about converting the preferred shares the treasury holds in aig, make them common shares. we would begin slowly selling the shares on the open market. roughly$50billion aig owes u.s. tax pays on top of a $46 billion deal already in the work to repay some of the credit. they have a line of credit with the federal reserve worth billions upon billions as carl sagan would say. don't expect it to be paid back any time soon. >> we'll be watching that what today. then on an upswing yesterday. >> yeah, despite we had some bad economic yesterday with consumer confidence. look at that, georgetown university, symbolically doing the closing bell at the new york stock exchange. this morning, futures, don't want to talk about it. they indicate we'll open if roughly three hours and start selling off. we need to talk about hoya. it means what rock. and christopher columbus, apparently there

adam shapiro is live in new york with this morning's business beat. let's talked about the fed statement first. now, holding the rates low. it may be good news for people if you are looking to maybe buy a home or something like that. but what does it mean overall? this isn't necessarily a great thing what the fed had to say as well. >> right. the simple answer is that the fed is worried about the economy. it is slowing down and their statement, which is usually written in ancient aramais but is actually in english but hard to understand. i want it read awe a line. measures of underlying inflation are currently at levels smawtd than levels -- what that means is that the fed is worried there is no inflation. they want inflation at about 1 to 2%. we don't have it. they are word wrid about unemployment. they are concerned about that. -- they are worried about unemployment. this trying to prevent deflation. this is worrying investors worldwide. this indicates they are word wrid about global economic recovery and u.s. economic recovery. >> now, another thin

we also had a bit of inflation which is good for the federal reserve. >> adam shapiro, thank you. americans are easing up on layoffs. they report 3,000 fewer americans filed their first claims for jobless benefits last week. it's the third drop in the last four weeks. but even as companies lay off fewer workers, we are still waiting to see new hiring pick up. the senate today passed a bill designed in part to help with that. it's a measure that would set aside $30 billion of your tax money for community banks to lend to small businesses. it also would cut the taxes of those small businesses and boost loan programs from the small business administration. many republicans oppose the bill comparing it to the bank bailouts. they also argue the measure could encourage banks to make more risky loans. but democrats say the bill will help small businesses get through a period in which lending and therefore spending is tight. james rosen is live on capitol hill and as this small business bill heads to the house, the two parties are still going back and forth over the plan to extend the bus

i'm adam shapiro. >>> coming uppa city police3 officer in trouble with the law. why he was arrested and charged wiih assault. >>> and the raae for city state attorney still too close to ccll. i'm megaa gilliland. who unofficial results show winning. >>> and i'm joel d smith, live at the county board of ele

thattis business, i'm adam shapiro. >>> comingguppa howard county teenager huut in a terrorist bombing. hoo her family is planning to raise money for her meeicalú -osts. >>> it's been eating garage for years, now the chesapeake bay could ggt a pollution diet. thh plln that is expected to be released oday that could change the bayyas we knowwit. >> reporter: you think you're a ravens fan? check out this fan zzne. i'm joel good idea. you know because then they can run around and they're at your house. yea, i know. well... did you see that? my mom just took a bite of my kraft macaroni and cheese. just wait she'll do it again. i mean who am i because i'm not saying that i did it perfectly either, but, i don't know. mhmm. honey, eat. the crime wave continues. ♪ [ male announcer ] gooey creamy delicious kraft macaroni and cheese. ♪ you know you love it.

for more, we are joined by adam shapiro with fox business network live from new york with our business beat. let's talk more about that. for a lot of folks, can you tell them that it is over but they're not feeling it. >> take a look at your 401(k) or at the value of your home. i mean according to the national bureau of economic research which officially announced that in june of 2009, the recession ended. longest recession in post world war ii history. look at some of the the statistics of what we have experienced. cut 4.1% from economic pout outan cost americans 21% of our net worth. isn't that a cheery thing. well, the recession is over. welcome to the recovery. >> it is just staggering when you look at the numbers. a few numbers that have looked better are the numbers on wall street. usually, september is not a great month for stocks but it has been looking good so far this month. >> surprise, surprise, september is not such a bad month after all. take a look at year to date. we still have roughly three months of trading to go until the end of the year but if we can sustain this ra

we have adam shapiro with us. >> as long as we're talking about september, maybe this will be the new normal. i usually hate thattic operation. it look like we'll fin under with one of the best september in decades if not the best since 1939. s&p 500 up 9.1%. the dow is up almost 9%. this has been a very strong month, part of it having to do with the fact we were oversold coming into the month. futures are indicating we will open in negative territory. a lot of that has to do with debt issues and the concerns over the irish debt problem. but our situation, we could still go positive. bottom line, september has been very, very good or as they used to say to tv, baseball been very, very good to me. >> thank you. probe it. >>> flood and stand watches throughout the area this morning. stay tuned to fox 5. we continue to follow today's top stories. >> there was a fatal accident on i-# 07 yesterday afternoon. i'll have the latest on the investigation and what can you expect when you head out this morning. -- there was a fatal accident on i-270 yesterday afternoon. mmmm. you don't love me an

adam shapiro joins us with with our business beat. so you get a little good news, a little bad news. but at least we had news yesterday. >> southwest going to buy airtran. still has to be approved but both companies, their stock both shot up. iewrkly, the company being acquired, their stock will go up whereas the company doing the acquiring, that you are stock will go down because they have to come up with the cash. southwest stock went up, a signal that this merger is really liked. southwest did not have access to a left east coast and airtran does. now, southwest by merging with airtran will have access to those markets as well as mechanic owe and the caribbean. the plan is to have one company but still operate two different airlines. this deal still waiting regulatory approval but it looks lick all systems go, ready to take off. >> southwest has always been known for -- they preach low prices, no baggage fees. kind of like listen, we're your airline. does this hurt the whole competition thing though if they are bringing somebody el

adam shapiro has our business beat this morning. good morning. >> good morning. >> let's talk about the economy first. the dow is on a pretty good roll here and if things continue the way things are going, september will be the best since, what, 1939? >> the best since 1939. year to date, the dow is up. i got the figure here for you. 4.1%. just the month of september, up 8.7%. s&p 500 up #% for the year for the month. europe right now back and forth. we are back into positive territory on the major exchanges in paris, london and frankfurt but our futures indicating that we could open positive. just kind of, although futures are positive, fair value look like we'll be flat at the start but we still have three hours to go before opening bell. it could be a happy september. >> that would be great. unfortunately, not happy times for hyundai. i guess we're looking at a recall of almost 150,000 vehicles. >> that is right. hyundai motor company announcing they will recall right now 140, 140,000 sonatas. they've skivered potential problem w

fox business network adam shapiro is with us now. give us a little perspective on this, if you could. >> the numbers went up, 465,000 initial claims for unemployment. wall street saw this and read into it some numbers that sound like good news. that's a horrible number. the good news is that the four week moving average fell by about 3,000 and the continuing claims fell by 48,000. but shep, these numbers are still very high. the so-called summer of recovery for millions of americans is no such thing. >> we've heard some positive news on housing developments today. but i guess the devil is often in the details. >> devil is in the details. ok, so existing home sales were on pace for 4.13 million sales this year. that's supposed to be a lot better than what we saw. a third of those sales, the numbers we got in august were homes that were foreclosed. that's causing prices to remain distressed and we have an inventory of 11.6 months worth of supply on the market. it for the long range looks very bad still for housing. >> how did the finan

fox business network's adam shapiro is here. >> reporter: before we have fun we have to go through the numbers. this heavy breathing is not jenna lee. it's big foot. we'll tell but that in a second. deloitte put out a prediction that will see holiday sales go up about 2% this year. jon: the big accounting firm. >> reporter: $852 billion. that includes everything, food, going out with the family. excuse me a second big foot we have business to do. the number for brick and mortar retail sales, they have a different prediction it will come out actually if october. take a look at where we've been. 2,007,452,000,000,000 in sales. recovered a bit in 2009. the question is will we recover this year. we did recover back to school sales. we could have a pretty good holiday season but the numbers aren't out just yet. as long as we are talking toys. jenna: toys r us came out with this list just released today of the top 15 or so. >> reporter: 36. jenna: 36 okay they had multiple lists. these are the hot toys for your kids and we have a few of them. >> reporter: can you hold that up. jenna: of cour

i'm at the business assignment desk here with adam shapiro. explain something to me, because that looks like a bad number to me, but wall street actually likes this? >> reporter: well, they don't like that headline number, but the dow's up right now, and one of the reasons are when you get into the details, there are trends which some people call good. the four-week moving average of that number is down. it's heading in the right direction, claims falling by about 3200. and then continuing claims fell by 48,000. jon, formerly 489,000 americans receiving unemployment benefits, and no one should read into in the sigh of relief for the recession which supposedly ended in 2009. wall street likes it because the trend is going in the right direction. jon: if you've got 4.5 million people unemployed, that's an awful lot of earning power that didn't doing anything. >> reporter: and that's the problem. wall street will react when we get another metric which gives them reason to start falling off. but when you have continuing claims fall, that's a posit