Thousands of people set up shop this week to protest the big banks and the American Bankers Association convention in Chicago, armed with banners, sneers, and shouts. No big deal to the U.S. media, apparently, so read this morning's account in the Guardian (U.K.), "Protests at US bankers' convention."

Is it that the number of protesters seems small? It's not that most Americans are happy, that's for sure: Consumer confidence has now fallen to a 26-year low, according to the venerable Conference Board gauge. Economists had expected confidence to rise slightly, which shows you how little any of us really know about what the fuck is going on.

Maybe people are too depressed to take the streets and reporters are too depressed about the state of the dying newspaper industry to take their notebooks and cameras to the ABA convention. Look in vain for coverage of this in even the Chicago Tribune. The WSJ's account is solid and thorough, as usual, but the NYT relies on a Reuters story and a DealBook post.

Emerging economies get new role (BBC)

G-20 roundup from Pittsburgh. Click on the above video for Russian TV footage of black-clad cops rousting black-clad protesters, as a robotic-sounding voice emanates from a police loudspeaker: "No matter what your purpose is, you must leave." NYT story here.

Twitter's Value Is Set at $1 Billion (WSJ)

Thanks to all of you who get paid nothing by Twitter despite your being its only product/asset, the company that hasn't yet generated any significant revenue is about to get $100 million in new funding. In August 2008, Twitter had 4.3 million unique visitors; this August it had 54.7 million. Now hooked, users are, like it or not, about to be bombarded by advertisers and marketers. Too bad most of you are either out of work or otherwise can't afford to buy all the shit you'll be told to buy. (See next item.)

The Long Slog: Out of Work, Out of Hope (WSJ)

Typically excellent human-interest WSJ story, this one focuses on jobless Americans. Introducing an array of hard-luck yarns: "Nearly 15 million Americans are jobless, and the number is widely expected to remain high even as the economy slowly begins to recover. Part of the problem many of the unemployed face: the very fact that they have been out of work a long time."

IPO Market Snaps Back as Taste for Risk Returns (WSJ)

Five companies go public — the biggest IPO week in a year and a half. One of them is electric-car battery maker A123 Systems. Two others are REITs.

Boss blames smartphones for stress as company suicide rate comes under scrutiny (The Age, Melbourne)

CFO at France's biggest telecom warns that, as story says, "the barrage of emails from smartphones and personal computers was stressing out employees."

Market's Eyes Are Bigger Than Its Stomach; Chokes On New Supply (StreetInsider.com)

Double bubble trouble.

Yes, Celebs Have Tax Issues Too (ABC News)

No, not a reality show, but a slideshow.

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Peter Schiff doesn't need to make any campaign videos for his just-formalized bid for the Senate seat now held by Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd.

Schiff predicted the subprime crisis, general real-estate crash, bank fiasco and just about every other facet of last year's Wall Street meltdown. And it's all captured on Fox and MSNBC talking-head shows.

At least one newspaper has money to burn. The Zimbabwean may be the world's most relevant paper; it definitely has the best ad campaign.

Western hopes that Iran's stormy presidential election shows glimmers of democracy are well and good, but if the oil giant emerges from the grip of the mullahs, it's more likely to cast its lot with the East than the West.

Practically overlooked over the tumultuous events in Iran was this weekend's meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Yekaterinburg. (See Moscow-run Russia Today's video above.) This was kind of an anti-G20 summit. Iran has observer status at this Russia/China-dominated version of the UN. China's the real power behind the SCO.

Meanwhile, while the SCO grows in political and economic clout, here in the West it's more of the same, as the Financial Times says this morning in "Greed, fear, interest rates and bond yields."

In 2005, I noted, "While the Bush regime sinks into Iraq quicksand, China and Russia remake the world order."

Protesters and pols descended in full force on London today.

The pols at the G-20 summit were sharply dressed in business blues and didn't carry signs. The protesters were dressed in hoodies. In warmup rallies last weekend, there were bigger crowds, along with chants of "Burn the bankers!"

Today, the crowds outside the Bank of England are smaller, and no bankers have been reported burned.

There have also been chants of "Money is for losers!" Ludicrous chants in many ways, but especially considering the money raked in by such losers as AIG's bonus babies and ousted GM CEO Rick Wagoner (not to mention the loot that Royal Bank of Scotland CEO Fred Goodwin got when he was kicked out).

Today, there's been lots of pushing and shoving between riot cops and protesters (see above video). No direct shoving of bankers has been reported. You won't see such unseemly behavior when riots start on Wall Street because New York City cops and officials know how to stifle protests, thanks to their experience in blunting the public's anger during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama is trying to prop up Gordon Brown, at least in public. BBC commentators are noting this morning how the still-popular Obama is freely spending his enormous political capital to try to bail out the British P.M., who doesn't have a pot of popularity to piss in.

As previously noted, whatever comes out of the G-20 summit is likely to be disagreement on how exactly to disagree — but couched in polite language.

There goes Bruce Ratner's latest plan to pump life into his stumbling, bumbling, Frank Gehry-designed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.

Only a few days ago, the New York Times reported, in "Slow Economy Likely to Stall Atlantic Yards," that Ratner was still desperately trying to drum up tenants for the flagging project — which is heavily subsidized by hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and other perks for the developers — by invoking Gehry's name:

But as I noted yesterday, speaking of the massive development's future, Gehry told The Architect's Newspaper, "I don't think it's going to happen."

Oops, there goes that sales scheme.

This morning, Gehry is reported to be backpedaling as fast as an 80-year-old architect can. The New York Post says:

Without much help, obviously, from Ratner's invoking of Gehry's name to find corporate tenants.

By the way, the Times story notes that Ratner may be seeking more public dollars to help him get the project done. In effect, that would be a another round of bailout money. Good luck with that — with or without invoking Gehry's name to try to get it.

Gehry's collapsing-buildings design for Atlantic Yards (above) would actually look better in lower Manhattan, the county seat of Recession U.S.A., than anywhere else.

In the meantime, the development still features the drawing card of a new basketball arena for the NBA's New Jersey Nets. It's scheduled to be called the Barclays Center, which is another bailout-money saga altogether.

It's tense in France but so far only tents in the U.S.

The global financial meltdown has sparked massive protests in Paris and elsewhere, where a million people — yes, a million — have taken to the streets and are expected to do so again in two months to rally against the French government's economic policies.

Meanwhile, Americans made homeless by the crisis are pitching tents (joining those who already were homeless), and European outlets are scouring the U.S. to report on it. See the above video, which the BBC has been airing, because the growth of tent cities is getting comparatively little national play here.

It's a good thing for U.S. government officials that they've spent decades destroying unions, because those in Europe are flexing their muscles by going out on strike, while here in the U.S. there have been no massive protests. See this morning's BBC story "New nationwide strike hits France."