Preferential loans directed towards infrastructure and social programmes where announced by Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, at the opening of a two-day China-Africa summit.

Chinese help for African nations is designed to promote its interests in the export of raw materials and expansion of local markets. The Chinese package would encourage Chinese financial institutions to lend to smaller African firms, expand market access for African products and culitivate good will with local government by helping states cope with climate change.

Some of the financing would go to cancelling debts the most heavily indebted countries owe to China.

The loans - double those pledged at the last summit in 2006 - were promised as China and the West vie to expand their influence in Africa by portraying their interests as mutally beneficial. Chinese commentators regularly deride Western involvement in Africa as paternalistic exercises in aid hand-outs.

"Africa's development is an essential part of achieving global development, and as the sincere and dependable friend of Africa, China deeply feels the difficulties and challenges faced by Africa," Mr Wen said.

When the Berlin Wall opened two decades ago, freedom quickly swept through Germany's largest city. Prosperity, by contrast, was much slower to arrive. After the euphoria of reunification wore off, Berliners endured a recession that lasted almost without pause from 1996 to 2004. Even as imposing new government buildings rose along the stately Unter den Linden, the city of 3.4 million was in an economic funk.

Now, as Berlin celebrates the 20th anniversary of Nov. 9, 1989--the day East German apparatchiks threw open border crossings--its status as Germany's hippest and most affordable big city is finally translating into growth. Berlin has become a magnet for Internet and media startups as well as established corporations eager to tap the city's well-educated young people. Drugmaker Pfizer (PFE) moved its German headquarters to the capital from Karlsruhe last year. The top creative people of ad agency BBDO Germany will soon be in Berlin instead of Düsseldorf. And Finnish handset maker Nokia (NOK) has based its mobile mapping operations in Berlin since it bought local software startup gate5 in 2006. "You can recruit people from all over Europe to come to Berlin," says Michael Halbherr, the former chief of gate5 and now a Nokia vice-president.

HERE, in a corner of Switzerland where Italian is spoken and roughly one-third of the world's gold is refined into bars and ingots, business is booming. Every day, bangles, bracelets and necklaces arrive in plastic bags -- from souks in the Middle East, from pawn shops in Asia and from corner jewelers in Europe and North America.

"It could be your grandmother's gold or the gift of an ex-boyfriend," said Erhard Oberli, the chief executive of Argor-Heraeus, a major refiner here that processes roughly 400 tons of gold a year. "Gold doesn't disappear."

Amid a global frenzy fed by multibillion-dollar hedge funds, wealthy speculators and governments all rushing to stock up on the precious yellow metal, the price of gold briefly surpassed $1,100 an ounce on Friday, a record high.

Long considered the ultimate refuge for nervous investors, gold has climbed as the dollar has steadily weakened, budget deficits have expanded in the United States and Europe, and central banks have continued to pump trillions of dollars into weak economies, creating fears of another asset bubble that will ultimately pop.

"It's not that gold has changed, but gold buyers have changed," said Suki Cooper, a precious-metals strategist for Barclays Capital. "It's a structural shift we're seeing on the investing side, from Asian central banks right down to individual investors buying ingots and coins."

Amid the ongoing financial regulation overhaul, the banking industry is hoping to pull off a quiet power grab that has eluded its grasp since the Great Depression, by stripping the independence of the board that sets financial accounting standards.

The move could effectively let banks set their own accounting standards in rough economic times.

Astonishingly, at a time when the public is crying out for greater regulation to limit excessive risk-taking by financial institutions, the banks are trying to get Congress to agree that the next time there's a big downturn, they should have the ability to alter their accounting standards -- essentially, fudge the numbers -- so that the public and investors won't be able to tell how insolvent they really are. By ignoring their declining asset values, they can avoid the standard requirement of raising more capital.

The mechanism is contained in an amendment set to be introduced in mid-November by Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) that would move final authority over the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) from the Securities and Exchange Commission to a new body, a so-called "oversight" board, that would include the officials charged with managing systemic risks to the financial markets.

Billionaire Warren Buffett's investment firm has reported that profits almost tripled in the third quarter.

Berkshire Hathaway said its net profit was $3.2bn (£1.9bn) in the three months to September, compared to $1.1bn in the same period last year.

But most of that was due to an unrealised $1.1bn gain on some derivatives its insurance unit holds.

Mr Buffett last week said he was taking control of a US railroad in his biggest deal to date.

Berkshire agreed to buy the stock that it does not already own in Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), the biggest US haulier of products such as corn and coal, for about $26bn in cash and stock.

Iraq's parliament has approved a long-delayed law governing national elections scheduled to be held next January, officials have said.

Members of parliament passed the law with 141 votes in favour in the 275-seat parliament after overcoming disagreements over the disputed city of Kirkuk.

Sunday's vote came after delays the previous night due to concerns from the Sunni Muslim bloc within parliament.

The parliamentary election is seen as a crucial test for the country as it attempts to emerge from the sectarian carnage and civil strife that has followed the US-led invasion in 2003.

Mr. Buffett is...betting against the more technology intensive, labor intensive, and industrial based part of (the US) economy.  If that were to do well, the dollar would strengthen and resources would be pulled out of the commodity sector - the more "modern" part of our production is not now commodity-intensive. The G20 will stand pat, waiting for the recovery and hoping for the best; "peer review" will turn out to be meaningless.  But this raises three dangers.

   1. China will overheat, with capital inflows fuelling a giant credit boom.  Books with titles like "China as Number One" and "The China That Can Say No" will appear.  The boom-bust cycle will resemble that of Japan in the 1980s - you don't need a current account deficit in order to experience a costly asset price bubble.  Other emerging markets may follow a similar pattern (think India, Brazil, Russia.)

   2. US and European banks will be drawn into lending to China and other emerging markets, directly or indirectly.  In a sense this would be a re-run of the build-up of debt in Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1970s, leading to the debt crisis of 1982 (remember Poland, Chile, Mexico).  Banks with implicit government guarantees will lead the way.

   3. We hollow out the middle of the global economy - with a few people doing ever better and most people struggling to raise their living standards.  Increasing commodity prices hit hard at poorer people everywhere (recall the effects of the relatively mild run-up in food and energy prices in the first half of 2008).  Global volatility of this nature helps big business but at the cost of undermining the middle class.

By betting on commodities, Mr. Buffett is essentially taking an "oligarch-proof" stance.  Powerful groups may rise to greater power around the world, fighting for control of raw materials and driving up their prices further.  As long as there is growth somewhere in emerging markets, on some basis, Mr. Buffett will do fine. As for the G20, they are already a long way behind the curve.

Executive Summary

1. According to BLS, payrolls fell at a 188,000 a month rate over the last three months. But their own household survey says employment fell at a 589,000 a month rate.

2. Why the discrepancy?

3. Chris Manning of the BLS told us last month that payrolls were overestimated in the twelve months ending March by 824,000. The source of this error was the birth/death model. BLS used "plug" numbers for the number of births and deaths. These "plug" numbers were wrong. They led to estimated positive contributions to employment that were too high. Most of the error (675,000 out of a total 824,000 jobs) occurred in the first quarter of this year. The birth/death model was adding significantly to payrolls when all other payrolls were falling. In reality the contribution from net births and deaths was in fact negative.

4. Manning told us that the faulty birth/death model was still being used for the months after March of this year. The implication was that the faulty birth/death model would continue to overstate payrolls and understate the payroll job losses in the months since March.

5. And, in fact, the BLS is doing just that. For the last three months they are assuming net birth/deaths have added 18,000 jobs a week. Last year over the same period they assumed it added 17,000 a week, the year before 18,000 a week, and the year before smack in the middle of the economic boom 18,000 a week.

6. It is obvious what BLS is doing. They are simply plugging in an extrapolated figure with zero adjustment for the most severe labor market contraction in three generations. And, worse yet, they know the birth/death number they are using is pure baloney.

7. NUTS!

8. Therefore, reality probably lies somewhere between the payroll survey monthly rate of job loss of 188,000 and the noisy household survey rate of job loss of almost 589,000. A best guess would be that jobs continue to be lost at a rate of 300,000 a month or more.

The earlier discussion of CDS, Einhorn, and the US UST-CDS basis trade, sparked a flurry of queries on the topic of "really big numbers." Therefore, even as ZH staff awaits the most recent data out of the BIS, we present for your numeric (in)comprehension pleasure lots and lots of zeroes. The chart below summarizes the biggest relevant numbers currently out there, appearing as pixels occasionally on every single computer in the financial world. And what does it say? That the total notional value of all OTC derivative contracts as of the most recent count (sucks to be on the recount committee), was $592,000,000,000,000.00 at the end of 2008. Fear not: this number is actually a reduction from the most recent previous read of $683,700,000,000,000.00 in June of 2008. Well wait, that thing we said about fear not, ignore that: because the net notional, or the market value of all OTC contracts, i.e. what someone (cough taxpayer cough) would be on the hook for when the Fed's plans go astray, increased by 66.5% over the same period, to $33,900,000,000,000.00. Like we said, big numbers - and this is just OTC. The real number includes regulated exchanges, and to estimate that, double the numbers above. In totality, the "sidebets" on everything from interest rates, to F/X to corporate default risk, amount to about $1.3-$1.4 quadrillion (that's 15 zeroes before the decimal comma) in terms of uncollateralized liquidity (think inflation buffer): take all those zeroes away and the value of the dollar would go down by 1E10-15: you listening yet American middle class? And the actual exposure, or "money at risk" is roughly $60 trillion: a number which is about the same as the world GDP if one were to remove all the various stimulus programs. Take away Goldman, JP Morgan, and all the other wannabe BSD's, and this is what you end up with: the heart and soul of the Too Big To Fail monster itself. And there is no way on earth to stop that mangled, mutated heartbeat without destroying the very fabric of both our capital markets and societal system. Please give the Federal Reserve a golf clap for this truly amazing accomplishment.