This is a positive sign and an important step towards stabilty. I’d buy Iraqi-made goods if they were available. Anything is better than the slave labor produced crap coming out of China anyway:

One of the biggest success stories to date is the Iraqi textile industry, which hopes to export Iraqi-made clothing to the U.S. market in time for the holidays, Araji reported. The Task Force to Improve Business and Stability Operations (in) Iraq, which Brinkley heads, is negotiating with several U.S. retailers to work out arrangements.

If all goes as hoped, a factory in Mosul could be exporting teenage clothing, a factory in Najaf, ready-made suits, and other factories, leather jackets.

Araji said they’ll likely be sold in small numbers and in limited markets, possibly Washington, New York, Chicago and Detroit. “It is a modest beginning of capturing of a market,” he said.

But Brinkley said these sales will send “a powerful symbolism” that goes beyond sales figures. In addition to educating the U.S. and global market about Iraq’s capabilities, he said they’ll help restore the Iraqi people’s faith in their own products.

The Task Force to Improve Business and Stability Operations - Iraq has more information.

Poor design and cheap Chinese labor bite Mattel:

Toymaker Mattel is voluntarily recalling 9 million of its toys including popular characters such as Batman, Barbie, Polly Pockets and a toy from Pixar’s “Cars” movie because of hazards to children, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Tuesday.

Mattel’s Barbie and Tanner doll set is one of the products being recalled.

“The company has ordered that all products be pulled off retail shelves,” said Nancy Nord, acting chairman of the commission.

Zhang Shuhong, the manager of the factory implicated in the first recall, committed suicide over the weekend. Zhang’s backup is probably tying a hangman’s noose right now. Why not just do your kids a favor and avoid buying them Chinese manufactured death toys in the first place?

Dude is loaded:

Romney and his wife, Ann, hold assets worth between $190 million and $250 million, his advisers said. The campaign released details of his wealth Monday in a personal financial disclosure report filed with the Federal Election Commission and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. The value of assets in federal financial reports are listed in ranges, making a precise figure impossible to discern.

Romney reported that he and his wife have joint interest checking accounts with Bank of America of between $5 million and $25 million and a money market account between $1 million and $5 million. Both also have Individual Retirement Accounts. But the bulk of their money is in two blind trusts, which Malt said are divided evenly between husband and wife.

Mitt, can I interest you in, say, a dozen blogads?

Paul Maldment finds cause for optimism and concern. Keep an eye on the markets today to see which prevails. I’m betting on concern:

The first is that the Fed believes that U.S. credit markets are still functioning adequately, if somewhat creakily, and that there is no crisis at hand. That is consistent with its comments just two days earlier when the Fed’s interest rate-setting committee met, after which the Fed said nothing to suggest that the increasing number of banks and funds ‘fessing up to subprime woes posed any sort of systemic risk to the financial system.

The second, as some commercial bankers have publicly acknowledged, is that the ECB pulled off a spectacular act of central banking by dint of the very scale of its intervention, pushing overnight rates back down to 4.1%.

But there is a second thought to that second thought. In taking such sweeping action, the ECB may have sent a signal to investors that there could be worse still to come, that the BNP Paribas scare is only the tip of an iceberg. And that the ECB may know more that it is letting on. So, too, may the 49 banks who took its $130 billion on Thursday.

Unknown unknowns, to borrow former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s parlance, scare investors like nothing else.

Ross Kerber, of the Boston Globe, says “Now would be good time to review your portfolio.”

Forbes
Don’t go on that vacation just yet. Evidence that U.S. subprime mortgage debt woes have spread to Europe has rattled investors, who dumped shares of major banks and brokers.

MarketWatch
In the past two weeks, another 13 corporate loan or bond deals have been postponed or reduced, representing slightly less than $43 billion, according to new research released Thursday by Baring Asset Management. that lifts the total number of deals pulled since June 22nd to 46, analysts at the firm said. They valued those at more than $60 billion. Last year, no pulled deals were counted by the firm’s research staff.

CNN Money
The Dow suffered its second worst session of the year Thursday as worries about the global credit market sparked a broad selloff in stocks, following a three-session rally. Bond prices rose as jittery investors dumped stocks in favor of the so-called safer haven of Treasurys. According to early tallies, the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 383 points, its biggest one-day point loss since Feb. 27, when it plunged 416 points on worries about a global growth slowdown. The Dow’s decline Thursday equaled a loss of 2.8 percent.

Bloomberg
Rising delinquencies in the subprime mortgage market are prompting lenders to limit the availability of credit, which may mean Americans buy fewer cars and spend less on vacations. The slackening expansion won’t force the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates for the rest of the year as officials stay focused on taming inflation, economists said.

Financial Times
Home Depot is set to lower the $10.3bn sale price for its construction supply business after credit market turmoil forced its private equity bidders to ask the second largest US retailer to renegotiate the terms of the deal.

CNBC
American International Group, one of the biggest U.S. mortgage lenders, warned on Thursday that mortgage defaults are spreading. While saying that most of its mortgage insurance and residential loans were safe, AIG made a presentation to analysts and investors that showed delinquencies are becoming more common among borrowers in the category just above subprime.

Well, this has public relations disaster written all over it:

Medical firm Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is suing the American Red Cross, alleging the charity has misused the famous red cross symbol for commercial purposes.

J&J said a deal with the charity’s founder in 1895 gave it the “exclusive use” of the symbol as a trademark for drug, chemical and surgical products.

It said American Red Cross had violated this agreement by licensing the symbol to other firms to sell certain goods.

The charity described the lawsuit as “obscene”.

It said many of the products at issue were health and safety kits and that profits from their sale had been used to support disaster-relief campaigns.

My understanding of trademark law is pretty thin but I’m not sure that Johnson & Johnson has much choice here. The Wikipedia entry on trademark law seems to confirm that:

Unlike copyright law which provides for criminal penalties as well as civil damages, trademark law in the United States is entirely enforced through private lawsuits. The responsibility is entirely on the mark owner to file suit in either state or federal civil court in order to restrict an infringing use. Failure to “police” a mark by stopping infringing uses can result in the loss of protection. [emphasis mine - John]

Also in contrast to copyright or patent law, trademark protection has no expiration. As long as the mark is continually used, it can be protected from infringement indefinitely.