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Four years after Bruno Prior paid less than a dollar for an unprofitable ski resort in the Swiss Alps, the strength of the country

Egypt’s ruling military and the revolutionaries who demand they immediately step down battled for a third day in the streets on Sunday _ and competed fiercely for the support of a broader public that has grown tired of turmoil since the fall of Hosni Mubarak 10 months ago.

The generals appear to be winning the fight for the public, despite a heavy-handed crackdown on protesters around Cairo’s Tahrir Square using a roughness that rivals even that of Mubarak’s widely hated police force.

The protesters have tried to drum up Egyptians’ anger at the military by spreading videos and photos of military police savagely beating young men and women to the ground with sticks and truncheons _ and the resonant scene of a woman in a conservative headscarf being stripped half naked by soldiers who stomp on her chest.

But so far their efforts to win public sympathy don’t seem to be gaining traction in the face of the military’s campaign to depict the crowds of hundreds in the streets as hooligans and vandals, not the idealistic activists who succeeded in bringing down Mubarak. At least 10 protesters have been killed and 441 others wounded in the three days of violence, according to the Health Ministry.

“The military has failed in everything except for its stunning success in making people hate the revolution, its history and its revolutionaries,” prominent columnist Ibrahim Eissa wrote in an editorial in the independent pro-revolution newspaper, Al-Tahrir.

Led by a general who served for 20 years as Mubarak’s defense minister, the military has been methodically seeking to discredit the revolutionaries, accusing them of illegally receiving foreign funds and being part of a plot hatched abroad to destabilize Egypt. The generals have in the meantime sought to portray themselves as key players in the 18-day revolt that toppled Mubarak’s 29-year rule and hence have earned the right to rule.

In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the ruling military council on Sunday called the clashes part of a “conspiracy” against Egypt. It said its forces had the right to defend the “property of the great people of Egypt.”

Seeking to depict the protesters as hooligans _ and apparently to counter the widely published images of protesters being beaten or dragged on the ground _ it also posted on the page footage of young men throwing rocks at a basement window of the parliament building and of at least one man trying to set the place ablaze.

The generals’ campaign plays on Egyptians’ frustration with continued instability and economic woes since Mubarak’s fall. Many are now more focused on the multistage parliamentary elections that began last month and continue through March. Islamist parties have so far overwhelmingly dominated the vote, with liberals and secular parties far behind.

That trend continued with the announcement Sunday of results from the second of three rounds of voting, held last week. Out of around 160 seats up for grabs in the second round, the Muslim Brotherhood won 29 and another more conservative Islamic party, Al-Nour, won 23. Two liberal groups _ the Wafd Party and the Egyptian Bloc _ won nine and seven seats, respectively. The rest will be determined in a run-off vote to be held later this week.

The Islamists have been staying clear of the recent violence, fearing that they could jeopardize their electoral gains by taking part in the protests. Their stance has prompted many activists to accuse them of political opportunism.

The military has meanwhile been using the state media and sympathetic private TV stations to market an image of itself as the protector of the nation, filling its statements with patriotic rhetoric and grave warnings if turmoil persists.

The revolutionaries who led the protests against Mubarak accuse the military of mismanaging the transition since then, of seeking to hold on to power and of using the same autocratic ways as the ousted leader. They demand that the military hand over power to civilians immediately _ and some have begun demanding that presidential elections scheduled for the middle of next year be moved up to January to pick a civilian head of state to take the generals’ place.

“The military is looking down at us and handling everything from a security perspective,” said Shady el-Ghazali Harb, a prominent activist and an icon of the anti-Mubarak uprising. “It is trying to make the point that its way of handling things is what will be applied and nothing else.”

The latest deadly clashes began Friday, when one of several hundred peaceful protesters staging a sit-in outside the Cabinet offices near parliament was detained and beaten by troops. The protesters began their sit-in three weeks ago to demand that the military immediately step down.

In Sunday’s clashes, protesters and troops battled on two main streets off Tahrir Square, trading volleys of stones and firebombs around barriers that the military set up to block the two central avenues. The army also used water canons.

One of the streets is site of a research center set up during the three-year occupation of Egypt by France in the late 18th century. The building was almost completely gutted by a fire which broke out during the height of the clashes on Saturday, when troops on its roof and on other nearby rooftops hurled rocks down on protesters below.

Protesters, who blame the fire on the troops, have been trying to salvage valuable books and documents from the center, whose two-story building is now in danger of collapsing after its roof caved in.

Activists have flooded social network sites and sympathetic media with photos and video from the troops’ brutal assaults the past two days.

The photo of the woman protester half-stripped by soldiers ran on the front page of the Al-Tahrir newspaper, emblazoned with a headline in red, “Liars,” referring to repeated denials by the military council and military-appointed Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri that no force or live ammunition were used against the protesters.

The presenter of a political talk show on a private TV station sarcastically praised the soldiers for their bravery in wrestling the woman down.

“She is more of a man than 300,000 men put together, including me,” said Youssef al-Hussein on ONTV.

Other widely circulating footage show an army officer firing a pistol at protesters _ though it is not clear whether he was using live ammunition _ and soldiers dragging women by the hair and ferociously beating, kicking and stomping on protesters cowering on the ground.

Still, many Egyptians complain the revolutionaries have gone too far and that, almost a year after ousting Mubarak, they should now go home and let the military run the country or wait for the next parliament to decide the country’s future.

Such sentiments are not surprising given that the military has been the most powerful institution in Egypt since army officers seized power in a 1952 coup that toppled the monarchy.

Nearly 60 years later, the military continues to have the last word on policies, a position of power that has left many activists not entirely certain that the generals who succeeded Mubarak would voluntarily return to their barracks.

“The military council uses every opportunity to show itself as the land’s strongest institution,” said Mohammed Abbas, an activist who defected from the Muslim Brotherhood to side with youth groups more active in protests. “We are making it easier for the generals by our divisions and isolation.”

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Covidien plc will spin off its Hazelwood-based drug business, turning it into an independent company that may restore the historic corporate name of Mallinckrodt.

Covidien, based in Dublin, makes medical devices and medical supplies in addition to drugs. The proposed spinoff also will have its legal headquarters in Ireland, largely for tax reasons, company executives said in a conference call.

But the spinoff’s U.S. operation will be based in Hazelwood, and its new CEO will work from here. Spokesman Steve Littlejohn said the company has not made a final decision on its name, “but chances are good that it will be Mallinckrodt.”

Covidien’s pharmaceutical business has $2 billion in sales, with two-thirds of that coming in the U.S. market. It turned an operating profit of $318 million this fiscal year.

The drug business is a large provider of acetaminophen, the ingredient in Tylenol, and the largest U.S. supplier of opioids; both are pain medicines. Other lines include contrast products used with medical imagery and nuclear medicine products.

The pharmaceutical operation currently employs about 2,500 people in metro St. Louis. A company spokesman said the move should have no immediate impact on jobs here. Some jobs might be added as the firm sets up its own administrative operation.

Analysts had speculated that Covidien might get rid of the drug operation. Although profitable, it is less lucrative than the rest of Covidien and demands a higher investment in research and development. The drug operation earns a 16 cent operating profit for every dollar of sales, compared with 28 cents for the rest of the company.

The drug operation has a “lumpy” revenue history, notes analyst Aaron Vaughn of Edward Jones in Des Peres. The division is largely a generic drugmaker, and that sector suffered through a price war in past years, he noted.

“We thought they would be getting the business right-sized so that they could spin it off and let it grow on its own,” he said.

Covidien Chief Executive Jose Almeida said the pharmaceutical drug division’s performance had improved in recent years.

“We’re confident the business can now stand on its own,” he said in a conference call Thursday morning.

He said the company had been thinking about shedding the business for several years, citing “major differences” between drugs and Covidien’s other medical products. The operations have different business models, sales channels, customers and capital requirements, and demand different talents, he said.

Separating the operations would allow both to focus on their own strategies, Almeida said payday loans no teletrack. Shareholders also might get more value over the long term, he said.

The drug business “definitely needs some investment,” said analyst Jeff Jonas of Gabelli & Co. in an interview with Bloomberg News. “They need to find new products, invest in the pipeline. That’s a multiyear process.”

Research and development consumes 7 percent of revenue in the drug division, compared with 4 percent in the rest of Covidien.

The spinoff would be in the form of a stock distribution, tax-free to U.S. shareholders, the company said. That tax-free aspect made the option of a spinoff superior to the alternative of selling the unit, company officials said.

The spinoff could take 18 months to complete and would need approval of regulators.

Bloomberg News, citing unidentified sources, reported last summer that Covidien had tried to sell the unit, but talks broke down.

Almeida said he has picked a CEO for the new company, although he didn’t name the person. The person is a ’strong leader” with “broad pharmaceutical experience,” Almeida said, and will join the spinoff from another company.

The drug operation is now headed by Matt Harbaugh, the drug division’s chief financial officer serving as interim president. Based in Hazelwood, he has led the unit since the previous president left last year.

Besides its Hazelwood headquarters, the drug unit has a research operation in Webster Groves, a nuclear medicine facility in Maryland Heights and a plant just north of downtown St. Louis.

That plant sits on what was the Mallinckrodt family farm. G. Mallinckrodt & Co. was founded there in 1867 and grew up as a chemical and drug firm. It refined uranium for the Manhattan Project, which created the atomic bomb during World War II.

Avon Products acquired Mallinckrodt in 1982. Avon sold the company to International Minerals and Chemical Corp. in 1986, which later changed its own name to Mallinckrodt.

In 2000, Tyco bought the company. After Tyco went bankrupt amid scandals, its health care operations were spun off as Covidien in 2007.

Without the drug business, Covidien would have $9.6 billion in sales. Covidien’s remaining business makes trays, hypodermic needles, retractors, pumps for patient feeding and pain management, and other medical devices.

Covidien stock rose $1.39 to $43.55 on Thursday.

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The ousted chief of Olympus, the Japanese camera-maker under investigation for hiding investment losses for years, is confident about making a comeback _ a return he vows will clean up the company’s scandal-tainted management for good.

Michael Woodford, the former President and Chief Executive at Olympus Corp., said Thursday he was lining up investor support and talking to other “influential people in the Japanese establishment” for his return to the company.

Woodford, in town this week for such meetings, declined to give specifics, saying the discussions were “delicate.” But he was clearly upbeat about the prospects, noting he had enough support to call a general shareholders’ meeting _ a key move for managerial change.

“I wouldn’t be doing this. I wouldn’t be putting myself through this enormous physical and emotional effort if I didn’t think it could be successful,” he told The Associated Press, weary but flushed from the bustle of reading email from Olympus employees cheering him on.

“This is uncharted territory. You have the world looking at this story,” he said at a Tokyo hotel.

The deception at Olympus, dating back to the 1990s, to hide 117.7 billion yen ($1.5 billion) in investment losses became known only when Woodford blew the whistle. He questioned exorbitant fees for advice on the acquisition of British medical equipment maker Gyrus Group and other expensive acquisitions in 2008.

Woodford recalled that he thought the Gyrus purchase was unwise and unneeded at the time, but said he never dreamed it involved anything illegal.

Woodford, a 51-year-old Briton and a rare foreigner to lead a major Japanese company, was fired in October after confronting Olympus directors.

Woodford is demanding the resignation of the entire board, including President Shuichi Takayama, who replaced him and initially declared all the spending as legitimate in a news conference.

“It’s offensive to common sense,” said Woodford.

The battle over who will lead the camera and medical equipment maker and its 40,000 employees could come to a head at the next shareholders’ meeting. Takayama said Thursday that might be held in March or April.

Olympus met its deadline to avoid being removed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange by filing corrected earnings for the April-September first half and for the past five fiscal years on Wednesday.

But it is still under a criminal investigation, and could be delisted later on.

Olympus appointed three outsiders to a new reform committee Thursday to beef up governance and present a plan to shareholders. The committee is in addition to an earlier panel announced by Takayama, which is investigating the scandal.

The Olympus fiasco has prompted soul-searching in Japan Inc. on living up to global standards. Ruling and opposition legislators met with Woodford earlier this week to hear his ideas about governance.

The company’s loss of 32.3 billion yen ($414 million) for the first half of the fiscal year, through September, a reversal from a 3.8 billion yen profit the same period a year earlier, was mainly from the economic downturn and losses from Thai flooding, Takayama said.

“Capital adequacy ratio is a big problem, and we are considering how we can overcome it,” Takayama told reporters. “We are considering various options, including a capital tie-up and operational or sales tie-ups.”

Woodford said he was opposed to alliances, which he said would likely compromise Olympus’ independence, and he had better ways to get capital to shore up its hobbled balance sheet.

“Because of the strong cash flows and profitability of the medical business, we could raise funding from additional sources without losing our sovereignty,” he said.

Olympus should focus on core businesses _ medicine, microscopes, industrial products and cameras and other consumer products _ and stop acquiring unrelated companies, such as pet food, plastic plates and cosmetics, he said.

He promised a more transparent Olympus, with more outside board members. He said he was preparing the candidates already.

Olympus stock, which plunged after the scandal hit, has recouped some of the losses but dropped 21 percent to close at 1,041 yen Thursday.

A third-party panel set up by Olympus, including a former Japanese Supreme Court judge, released the findings of an investigation earlier this month, which said top executives who were “rotten to the core” had orchestrated the accounting cover-up spanning three decades.

The fees for financial advice and overvalued acquisitions were part of an elaborate deception utilizing overseas banks and several funds to keep the massive losses off the company’s books, according to Olympus. Japanese magazine Facta was first to report the dubious money.

It is still unclear if Woodford will manage a comeback.

Some people, such as former board member Koji Miyata, see him as a hero and have begun an online campaign to bring back Woodford.

Miyata says Woodford, a 30-year employee at Olympus, was groomed from the start to lead the company.

“There are a lot of senior managers who might be good for the No. 2 post, but someone who is destined to be No. 1 is totally different,” he said in a recent interview with The AP.

“He has principle. He is uncompromising,” he said of Woodford, whom he has known for 25 years. “He isn’t swayed. He doesn’t avoid confrontation. He sticks to his guns that what is wrong is simply wrong.”

Woodford, who sees himself as a “salaryman,” denied it was his nationality that might make him Olympus’ savior.

“I’m sure there are some Japanese people who could do similarly to me,” he said. “I know the company. I’ve worked there. It doesn’t matter if I’m English or Japanese, in that sense.”

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Working almost to exhaustion and persuading countries one by one, European leaders agreed Friday to redefine their continent _ hoping that by joining their fiscal fortunes they might stop a crippling debt crisis, save the euro currency and prevent worldwide economic chaos.

Only one country said no: Britain. It will risk isolation while the rest of the continent plots its future.

The coalition came together in a marathon negotiating session among the 27 European Union heads of government _ hard bargaining that began with dinner Thursday evening and ended after 4 a.m., when red-eyed officials appeared before weary journalists to explain their proposed treaty.

It was a major step forward in the long, postwar march toward European integration. It was two decades ago, on Dec. 9 and 10, 1991, that European negotiators drafted a treaty in Maastricht, Netherlands, to unite their politics, create a central bank and, one day, invent a common currency.

The agreement _ with 23 countries in favor and three more saying they are open to the idea _ would force countries to submit their budgets for central review and limit the deficits they can run.

A crisis over sovereign debt that consumed Greece and spread to Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain threatened to explode into a worldwide financial crisis capable for forcing the global economy into recession.

“This is the breakthrough to the stability union,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. “We are using the crisis as an opportunity for a renewal.”

To prevent excessive deficits, countries in the treaty will have to submit their national budgets to the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, which will have the power to send them back for revision.

They must also bring their budgets close to balance. Except in special circumstances, the budget deficit of a country must not exceed 0.5 percent of gross domestic product, the amount of goods and services produced by its economy. An unspecified “automatic correction mechanism” would punish the rule-breakers.

Germany and France insist that fiscal union is the best way to regain market trust, badly shaken by the escalating financial crisis. Most economists think it will not be enough.

They say the euro countries need to have enough money on hand to guarantee everyone can pay their debts. Euro leaders put off until March a decision on whether to provide money on top of a euro500 billion, or $668 billion, bailout fund for euro countries.

European leaders did agree to add euro200 billion to the International Monetary Fund to help ailing countries.

Only 17 of the 27 European Union countries use the euro currency, and its stability has been threatened by the massive national debts of some of those 17. All but two of the non-euro countries _ Britain and Denmark _ are committed to adopting it eventually.

The countries that use the euro found they had friends among those that do not. At least six and as many as nine non-euro countries are willing to bind themselves to the euro countries in a pact aimed at having their economies converge.

Britain said no for two reasons: Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party includes a strong anti-EU element, and Cameron, despite trying deep into the night, failed to win an exemption from regulation for the British financial industry.

The other leaders would have none of it: Bankers and lack of regulation are viewed on the continent as a prime cause of the financial crisis.

“What was on offer is not in Britain’s interest, so I didn’t agree to it,” Cameron said. “We’re not in the euro, and I’m glad we’re not in the euro. We’re never going to join the euro, and we’re never going to give up this kind of sovereignty that these countries are having to give up.”

Britain, which prides itself on its fierce independence, joined the then-European Economic Community in 1973 _ only after French President Charles de Gaulle, who had vetoed the U.K.’s membership along with Germany’s leader, fell from power.

Since then, it has retained a frosty skepticism toward the ambitions of France and Germany to forge ever closer political and fiscal ties. It eschewed both the euro single currency and the Schengen open borders policy, fearful of losing power to determine its own fate.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy blamed the British leader for scuttling what could have been an EU-wide treaty. He said Cameron’s exemptions for British finance “seemed to us unacceptable.”

Some countries may face parliamentary opposition to the pact, which would allow for unprecedented oversight of national budgets.

Stocks and the euro climbed on the news of the treaty, even though it offers only a long-term solution and leaves many details to be worked out. Stocks rose 3.4 percent in Italy, 2.5 percent in France and almost 2 percent in Germany. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.5 percent and vaulted back over 12,000.

Borrowing costs for European countries fell, but only slightly, a sign of cautious confidence from the bond market. The yield on the benchmark Italian government bond fell to 6.33 percent, down about 0.05 percentage point. A yield above 7 percent is considered unsustainable.

One by one through the long night, the leaders of the 17 euro nations persuaded the non-euro nations to come along.

Hungary, the Czech Republic and Sweden said they would need to consult their parliaments. The six other EU countries that use currencies other than the euro _ Denmark, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania _ agreed right away. The leaders want the treaty written by March.

The countries hope to help European nations tame their long-term debt. Such an agreement is considered necessary before the European Central Bank and other institutions commit more money to lower the borrowing costs of heavily indebted countries like Italy and Spain.

How exactly that will happen remains unclear. Financial markets around the world had hoped the ECB would buy massive amounts of national bonds, flooding the market with money and lowering borrowing costs. But ECB President Mario Draghi dashed those hopes Thursday and said there was no plan to buy more bonds.

On Friday, Draghi called the treaty agreement “a very good outcome for the euro area, very good.

“It is going to be the basis for much more disciplined economic policy for euro-area members,” he said. “And certainly it is going to be helpful in the present situation.”

A breakup of the euro would have disastrous consequences. It would almost certainly trigger a financial crisis while banks figured out who owned what and while countries leaving the union awkwardly transitioned back to their own sovereign currencies.

Such a disorderly exit could cause banks to become fearful and stop lending money to each other. In 2008, a credit crisis followed the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers investment house and triggered a meltdown in the stock market.

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Twelve former employees of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch sued the newspaper today for fraudulent inducement and negligent misrepresentation, alleging the newspaper reneged on a promise to pay for health insurance for life.

The former employees sued the newspaper, publisher and president Kevin Mowbray and Astrid Garcia, vice president of human resources and labor operations, in St. Louis Circuit Court.

The Post-Dispatch denied the allegations.

“The St. Louis Post-Dispatch believes there is no basis for these allegations and that we will be vindicated in court,” spokeswoman Tracy Rouch said in a statement.

The former employees who filed suit are: Rayburn Jordan, Melinda Krummrich, Mary Delach Leonard, Samuel Leone, John Linstead, Linda Lockhart, Odell Mitchell Jr., John Naunheim Jr., Carolyn Olson, Kathleen Richardson, Suzanne Tarrant and Larry Williams.

The former employees allege in the lawsuit that they agreed in 2007 to voluntarily early retirements from the newspaper with benefits including payment for health insurance for life payday loans for bad credit.

However, all of the employees were notified in late 2010 by the newspaper’s parent company, Davenport, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises, that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would stop paying for their health insurance effective Jan. 1, 2011.

“Had they known that the Post would renege on their promise for lifetime health insurance benefits, my clients would not have accepted the early retirement offer and buyout,” the former employees’ attorney, Staci Yandle, said in a statement.

The former employees are seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages.

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People are finally replacing the cars and trucks they held onto during the economic slump, giving a boost to sales at Chrysler, GM and Nissan in November.

Chrysler’s sales rose 45 percent from a year earlier, while GM’s climbed 7 percent and Nissan’s 19 percent. The three companies were among the first to report U.S. sales of new cars and trucks on Thursday.

Dealers say they’ve had strong floor traffic all month, with surprisingly high sales for a month that’s normally lackluster because of colder weather and holiday distractions. But this November, buyers went to showrooms because of good deals on leases, more confidence in the economy and a need to trade in older cars, says Ryan LaFontaine, a partner in a six-dealer chain in Michigan.

The activity underscores projections that Americans bought new cars at the fastest pace in more than two years as they replace aging vehicles. Analysts expect that the annual sales rate for November could range between 13.3 million and 14 million cars and trucks. That is far better than the rate of 12.6 million through the first 10 months of the year.

November sales also could approach the 14.1 million annual rate from August of 2009, when the government offered big rebates for drivers to trade in their gas-guzzling clunkers.

Sales at Chrysler Group LLC last month were led by the Jeep Compass small SUV, which had a nearly ten-fold increase in sales. Jeep brand sales rose 50 percent, while Chrysler brand sales nearly doubled on strong demand for its 200 and 300 sedans. But Chrysler also raised its incentives to nearly $3,300 per vehicle, up 6 percent from October.

At General Motors Co., buyers snapped up small cars and pickup trucks. Sales of the Chevrolet Cruze compact rose 54 percent, while the Silverado pickup, GM’s top-selling vehicle, saw sales jump 34 percent.

“We are seeing a broad spectrum of customers return to the market,” says Don Johnson, GM’s U.S. sales chief.

At Nissan, the tiny Versa led sales with a 38 percent increase, but SUV and truck sales also rose 32 percent.

People have been holding onto their vehicles in an unstable economy, and the rate of cars that are scrapped has surpassed sales for several years. The average age of a car on U.S. roads is a record 10.6 years, according to the Polk auto industry research firm.

The sales increases at the three car companies also reflect consumer confidence for November, which rose to the highest level since July, according to the Conference Board. October’s number was the lowest since the recession.

With the increased confidence, car buyers are releasing pent-up demand, said Larry Dominique, executive vice president of data for the TrueCar.com automotive website. “I think consumers are just starting to say `it’s time to start spending money again,’ ” he said.

TrueCar expects November sales to be nearly 12 percent higher than a year earlier, capping six months of sales gains compared with the same month in 2010. Last November, the annual sales rate was only 12.3 million as the auto industry was just starting to recover from the economic meltdown.

Sweet lease deals, helped by low interest rates and high used-car values that make leased vehicles worth more when they’re returned, also are fueling sales. GM, for instance, is offering a Cruze lease $169 per month for 39 months. According to TrueCar, the average industry spending on incentives such as leases and low-interest loans was $2,534 per vehicle in November, up 2.5 percent from October.

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Bistate wage gender gap

The wage gap between men and women yawns wider in Missouri and Illinois than elsewhere, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The average full-time woman worker in Missouri made just 75 percent of the average man’s earnings in 2010. Women in Illinois did a little better at 78 percent. The national average is 81 percent.

The bureau doesn’t blame the gap on state-to-state differences in sexism. Instead, it cites “variations in the occupations and industries found in each state and the age composition of each state’s labor force.”

In Missouri, the median weekly wage stood at $813 for men and $616 for women. Illinois was at $814 for men and $634 for women. The national average is $824 for men and $669 for women. (Jim Gallagher)

Ralcorp in ‘buy’ mode

Americans’ confidence in the economy in November bounced back to its highest level since July, the latest sign that they are beginning to feel more cheerful about spending during the holiday shopping season.

The Conference Board, a private research firm, says Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index rose 15 points to 56.0. That’s up from a revised 40.9 in October _ the lowest level since the recession _ and the biggest jump since the 59.2 reading in July. The November number is encouraging, but far below the reading of 90, which indicates an economy on solid footing.

The confidence numbers are widely watched by economists because consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. The confidence of U.S. consumers slipped after the summer amid renewed fears about a second recession. But Americans, who have been grappling with high unemployment and a weak housing market, have shown that they are feeling much more comfortable spending. Over the past weekend, for instance, they spent more than they ever have before during Black Friday weekend, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season.

“Consumers appear to be entering the holiday season in better spirits, though overall readings remain historically weak,” said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center in a statement low fee cash advance.

Franco noted that consumers’ assessment of current conditions improved after six months of steady declines. Consumers’ anxiety regarding the short-term outlook for business conditions, jobs and income prospects eased considerably.

One barometer of the index, which measures how shoppers feel now, rose to 38.3 from 27.1. The other gauge, which measures how shoppers say they will feel over the next six months, rose to 67.8 from 50.0.

Consumers have several reasons to be more confident as there have been some signs of improvement in the economy. Earlier this month, for instance, the Labor Department reported that the job market improved modestly as unemployment rate nudged down to 9 percent in October from 9.1 percent in September. The month marked the 13th consecutive month of job gains.

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Whether people celebrate or criticize Occupy Wall Street, the movement has reinvigorated calls for local buying just in time for the manic holiday shopping season.

Buying local and American-made became a battle cry for some in the movement that blames big business greed for shuttering American operations and shipping those jobs overseas.

“Some people talk about buying local and not supporting large chain stores, but really I think we want to encourage people to think consciously about where they shop,” said Zach Chasnoff, 33, of south St. Louis.

Chasnoff has wielded a bullhorn at a few Occupy St. Louis rallies, though he said he couldn’t speak as a representative of a movement. He said he’d been waiting for an opportunity to ignite this particular discussion.

Chasnoff owns a house painting business that fluctuates from two to seven employees during his busy season. When the bottom fell out of the economy in 2008, he was virtually unemployed for about seven months and didn’t know if he’d keep his house, he said. Meanwhile, bank bailouts and news of continued executive bonuses infuriated him. He blames greed for companies’ transferring jobs overseas and cheap foreign goods for undercutting American-made items.

Many economists challenge that logic, saying that free trade ultimately benefits the U payday loans.S.

“It feels almost anti-patriotic to buy goods made elsewhere right now. You are perpetuating the loss of manufacturing jobs,” Chasnoff said, echoing long-standing protests by some against, for instance, buying foreign cars.

Buying local, on the other hand, puts consumers, not corporations, in control, he said.

Would it work?

Steve Farazzi, a professor of economics at Washington University, said that the wage disparity concerns at the root of the Occupy Wall Street movement wouldn’t be solved by shopping at boutiques and farmers markets.

“I’d have a hard time telling people that their holiday shopping patterns will have an important impact on income distribution,” Farazzi said.

If globalization has killed American jobs and driven down wages, then the tool to combat the trend would be higher wages in emerging markets such as China, not necessarily closing operations there. China’s extremely cheap labor is the problem for American workers, not the fact that Chinese workers have jobs formerly held by Americans, Farazzi explained.

Rising global wages would level the playing field for American workers, he said, and it would increase the demand for all goods if we have more people who can afford to buy. But Farazzi acknowledged that a push to boost wages for Chinese workers