The West has given up creative thinking in favor of creative blinking in the face of innovation from Asia, according to Dr. Hal Reveche from Stevens Institute of Technology when discussing how Europe and US' innovation skills are dwindling.

"Whenever you have a recession that's accompanied by a financial crisis, it tends to last longer and tends to be more severe," Prof. Kenneth Rogoff from Harvard University said Friday.

The employment report is still very important as it's the main input to your estimate of what is going to be happening to US consumption growth, Rob Carnell from ING said Friday ahead of the August US jobs data.

"Whenever you have a recession that's accompanied by a financial crisis, it tends to last longer and tends to be more severe," Prof. Kenneth Rogoff from Harvard University said Friday.

We are a little different than most banks, in that we don't lend money to anyone, which is quite useful given the current conditions, Lars Seier Christensen, CEO of Saxo Bank, said on how his bank is beating the financial market turmoil.

The smoking ban and the ongoing credit crunch hit sales at UK pubs group JD Wetherspoon. Tim Martin, chairman of JD Wetherspoon, considers how to increase consumer spending.