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November 04, 2011 | | ECONOMY last month, and the numbers for August and September were revised upward. That’s good, right? The Washington Post’s Brad Plumer says no. He writes that the economy isn’t growing fast enough to keep up with population growth, and not nearly fast enough to bring down unemployment. As if the recovery hasn’t been slow enough, a new study shows that workers feel the effects of unemployment for years—and even generations. “So there’s good reason, as ever, to see mass unemployment as a full-blown national crisis,” says Plumer. Revealing Clothes Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has been trying to shut down the unsavory story line that he sexually harassed at least two female co-workers while heading the National Restaurant Association from 1993 to 1996, by proclaiming that he was “falsely accused” and suggesting that he’s the victim of a witch hunt, a liberal—or perhaps Republican—conspiracy, or some other kind of evil voodoo. MARKETS Groupon raised $700 million in its initial public offering Friday, selling 35 million shares at $20 each—above the initial range of $16 to $18 per share. That makes it the largest IPO for an Internet company since Google went public in 2004, raising $1.7 billion. Investors drove up the price in part by putting just a tiny share, or “float,” of the company on the market—just above 5 percent. Groupon will begin trading on NASDAQ Friday under the ticker symbol GRPN. G20 As Greece continues to debate what to do with the bailout, attention at the G20 summit has turned to the next potential problem for the eurozone: Italy. The financially troubled country agreed to allow the International Monetary Fund to look over its finances every three months to make sure its $75 billion austerity plan is being carried out. Speaking at the summit, President Obama said that Europe has a “strong partner in us,” but that “European leaders understand that ultimately what the markets are looking for is a strong signal from Europe that they're standing behind the euro." European leaders want a strengthened IMF to help contain the debt crisis, but the United States the fund should use the resources it already has. INTELLIGENCE The CIA looks at 5 million tweets a day in an attempt to get a feeling for public sentiment in Pakistan, China, and elsewhere. At the Open Source Center in Virginia, a team of several hundred analysts nicknamed the “vengeful librarians” scours Facebook, newspapers, local radio stations, and chat rooms in order to monitor public reactions to major events, like the killing of Osama bin Laden or the revolution in Egypt. When President Obama gave his Mideast speech a few weeks after the bin Laden raid, the center found that Twitter users in Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, and Algeria found the speech too pro-Israel, while Israelis thought it was too pro-Arab. The analysts also monitor developing news, such as the riots in Bangkok, following social-media users they believe are publishing accurate information. | | 
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