the u.s. central bank is hoping to kick start america's sluggish economy by selling $40 billion of short-term treasuries in exchange for the same amount of longer-term bonds. the idea is to push long-term interest rates lower even though they're already at record low ts. those are the headlines from cnn, the world's news leader. "world business today" starts now. hello, and a warm welcome to "world business today," i'm manisha tank in hon con. >> i'm nina desantos. the stock markets take a tumble. >> troubled tech giant hewlett packard could be about to give is boss a boot after barely a year in the job. >> i feel terrible. can't sleep at night because you're thinking how are you going to pay for the family's bills. >> not being able to pay your bills for five months. in sfan the public sector workers are taking matters into their own hands for now. >> let's kickoff with the markets. the only thing you can be certain of is uncertainty itself. yet again more wild swings on stock markets around the world. investors are not convinced by the fed's latest attempt to shore up the economy. urine is up and running. nina, what have you got right now? >> what we're seeing is the ftse 100 down by 3.5%, really heavy losses down in paris as well. cac 40 down 4%. the situation for the dak, the operation twist at the federal reserve doesn't seem to have convinced the investors that the ills are by any means gone. it doesn't seem to have done much for the markets today manisha. >> same here nina. i have a market screen in front of me right here on the desk. it is a wash of red. let's check in with ramy inocencio to give us the details on what's happening? >> plain and simple. a sea of red today after the u.s. fed scared investors when it warned of, quote, significant downside risks for the u.s. economy. at the same time the fed's operation twist is being a heart hearted attempt to calm the markets, maybe 2.5 if you will. the nikkei fell, the hang seng just closed a few minutes ago. it's down almost 5%. none of its component shares ended in positive territory today. this was the hang seng's biggest monthly drop in almost three years. just like in japan, financials were the big drag. the world's biggest bank by market cap fell 6.5%. the shanghai composite was down 2.75. here hsbc's china flash purchasing manager's index came out at 49.4. this is the third month in a row it's come in under 50. that implies a slowdown in china manufacturing. this could mean beijing's policy to slow down red hot growth are taking hold. the asx fell down about 2.6 today, below the 4,000 mark. global resource stocks taking a big hit. rio tinto fell nearly 5%. the aussie dollar today, that weakened against the u.s. dollar and it today hit parity one to one here. it has been stronger for the greenback for the past several months. the pmi from china and the outlook took it down. one point of light was fosters group. i'll tell you why in the next hour. >> i'm sure there's interplay going on between the equities markets and equities market. thank you very much for that. >> let's take a look at how things faired in the united states. stocks there on wednesday fell after the federal reserve announced the new measures to try to bring down the country's long-term interest rates. here is how the session actually ended. what be had was a number of markets in the red. the ones behind me are the asia pacific stock markets. what we did have is heavy losses for the football shares. some of the big day's losers as moody's downgraded a raft of u.s. banks, some of the biggest across the country, names like bank of america, citigroup, wells fargo. bank of america stock, if we start with that one, those shares falling by 7.5% on the day. citigroup on the other hand losing 5% and wells fargo ending the day about 4% lower. it looks as though u.s. markets are likely to extend wednesday's slide. this is where the u.s. futures stand. if we take a look at that, also in the red, the picture in europe the losses not quite as pronounced. we had the likes of the s&p 500 down by about .7%. i was showing you about 2% when they ended. seems we're bound to extend that. a number of hours to go before trading gets under way. we could see the losses being even more pronounced for united states when we get the opening bell on wall street given the stock market action in europe, manisha. >> bearing this in mind, we need to tell you more about the federal reserve's plan dubbed operation twist. it's not a new concept. the u.s. central bank implemented a similar policy back in the 1960s. it had pretty much the same aim, that is to keep interest rates low for an extended period. the point of that -- the idea is to reduce borrowing costs even further, and that will help the u.s. avoid another recession, this at a time when interest rates are already so low, nina. >> historic lows for the last two years. long-term interest rates are already at a record low in the united states, as manisha was just telling you. the question is, given that situation, why would the fed want to bring them even lower. part of the reason is due to the housing market. ben bernanke apparently believes that lowering rates will probably make mortgages more affordable for ordinary americans. we're already seeing that effect a little bit. sales of existing homes rose by 7.7% last month, more than analysts and economists had expected. banks are still reluctant to lend. critics are wondering if pushing rates even lower will do nug to help the current situation. looser credit is what the economy needs. businesses are sitting on huge piles of cash and not really doing anything with it during these tough times. theer et clif lowering long-term rates could even further convince them to try and part with some of their cash, put their hends above the parapet so to speak. people are hoping businesses might be persuaded to invest some of their money in the economy instead. most crucially they could decide to spend on hiring, bringing down the unemployment rate across the world's largest economy, down from where it is at 9.1%. the problem is that the scheme is also going to raise rates in the short term. in any case, more intervention might not necessarily be the answer. that's what the republicans seem to think. top gop members of congress have been telling mr. ben bernanke that more stimulus is actually a bad idea in the long term john boehner and eric candor have been saying that quantitative easing just haven't worked over the last couple of years. they say that those moves will only lead to more uncertainty, more volatility and they have respectfully asked the fed to think twice. well, have a look at this behind me. this is the basis of the game twister. one move could see it all go wrong. so here is how it works. we start up here. the fed would have to do this in order to reduce the longer tsh term rates. they'll do that to shift this problem with the interest rate. they want to shift the yield curve. what it will do is sell short-term debt and put the money into long-term debt. the idea of that is it should push down the long-term interest rates. that means big investments like mortgages might become more attractive. how much money will the fed puts in? that's the question, $400 billion. maturities between six and 30 years for treasuries. a lot of people are asking is this really going to work? if you look at the markets, it doesn't look like they think it will. there's no guarantee that reducing rates will convince americans to buy or convince businesses to invest in the economy as it stands. a complicated game of twister. let's see if it will work out. up next, a company known for innovation, but now some investors say hewlett packard needs to reinvent itself. we'll look at reports the caused the company's stock to surge 8%. that's just ahead on "world business today." prescription strength reliefzt from my worst allergy symptoms. so lily and i are back on the road again. with zyrtec®, i can love the air®. at aviva, we wonder why other arlife insurance companies. treat you like a policy, not a person. instead of getting to know you they simply assign you a number. aviva is here to change all that. we're bringing humanity back to insurance and putting people before 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hewlett packard. leo apotheker has been at the helm since november of last year, but his number might be up. the past ten months have seen a bumpy ride and talk is that the he may be replaced possibly by former ebay chief executive meg whitman. a spokesman refused to comment on the possible exit. but the stock movement spoke volumes, jumping no less than 8% when work leaked out. the company has lowered sales forecast three times and investors railed against stop of apotheker's strategic moves. he canceled the web os tablet operating system months after announcing it was the next big thing. nina was mentioning the jump on the stock price on news he might be about to go. another reason why hp investors have been unhappy with leo apotheker's leadership, it is the performance of the stock price. have a look at how this chart looks. says it all, doesn't it? hewlett packard stock has been hammered since last november when he actually took over. have a look at this figure, down 43%. that really says it all, nina. the woman that's been tipped to replace apotheker is fairly well known to many people who follow the technology sector. meg whitman is a 55-year-old veteran of silicone valley, a member of the hewlett packard board since the beginning of this year, best known as the former ceo of ebay which she ran for no less than ten years, she was also a republican candidate for the governor ship of california back in 2010. before her entry into politics she held jobs at disney, the toy maker hasbro, fortune magazine's most powerful woman in business. seems like leo apotheker may have to watch his back. there have been other women in charge of hewlett packard, famously carly feiorina spectacularly fired by the board. it must be difficult being a technology chief executive these days, nina. >> i don't know if it's just a technology chief executive. i wonder if it's difficult being an hp senior executive. an interesting article in "the new york times" suggested one of the problems that apotheker ran up against was the internal culture at hp. while he started out saying i want to focus strategy on the higher value, high-end hardware products, when it came to rolling it out and communicating it to the rest of the company, he came up against resistance. the thing with these sorts of firings, you never really know what goes on behind the scenes. at the ends of the day, being a ceo is about leadership. your stock price is going to suffer. it's hardly a wonder if this is true that he's come up against problems with the board. it will be interesting to see if it gets better. >> we'll have to see. we still have so much to come up on the show including this. >> translator: almost everyone here lives month to month. when you miss a paycheck, it's over. >> in spain one town is so cash strapped it can't pay the police. they say they've had enough and they're walking off the job. that story just ahead. it's real milk full of calcium and vitamin d. and tastes simply 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your own doctor and hospital that accepts medicare, get help paying for what medicare doesn't... and save up to thousands of dollars. call this toll-free number now. it's one of those very famous ferries making its way across victoria harbor, a murky day in hong kong. i'm all too familiar with that. welcome back to "world business today" here on cnn. >> pretty murky here as well, manisha. >> putting the human face on the eurozone crisis. state educators in madrid are staying off the job in large numbers over staff cuts. schools of workers in one town haven't been paid since the spring, some ending up at local soup kitchens to feed their children. cnn bureau chief al goodman says they're fed up and they're taking action. >> reporter: at first glance the village seems idyllic, lots of sun, life at a leisurery pace. but 130 municipal workers here are seething. they haven't been paid in five months. now they're in open revolt and the town's police force is leading the battle. >> translator: i feel variable. you can't sleep at night because you're thinking how are you going to pay for the family's bills. >> reporter: this man has been a local cop for 26 years but now sports a different uniform. the shirt says "we want to get paid." the police officers here say they're owed on average about $14,000 each in back pay. for their families, that's real money. they can't go on strike by law, all 16 officers have called in sick. they have doctor's notes. there seems to be an epidemic of psychological problems among the police force. other local workers sympathize. >> translator: almost every one here lives month to month. when you miss a paycheck, it's over. everyone supports the police and other city workers. >> reporter: this woman and her husband are suffering, too. he's a city maintenance worker. >> translator: it's very, very bad, horrible. there are five of us, three kids. i cannot give them anything to hea eat. >> reporter: they eat at local soup kitchens. who is to blame? the local council ran up a $75 million debt in a town of just 13,000 people, that's more than $5,000 per person. when the conservatives won elections here in may defeating the socialists, they started to make cuts. even so, credit is tight says this town councilman. >> translator: clearly the financial situation in spain is a bit more complicated. it makes a solution here more difficult, but there are solutions. >> reporter: one of them is to beat the ruling socialists in national elections in november. many of spain's regions and municipals are struggling with high debt and that may derail the national government's efforts to refuse the country's deficit. in valverde, the town councilman doesn't think city hall will have to close, but he can't say when the next paycheck is coming. al goodman, valverde dell camino, spain. let's move to very different matters. typhoon rokei was battering japan. it's been improving, but areas down towards the south as well as the west of tokyo, they picked up heavier rainfall as well as stronger winds. but the totals were quite impressive, talking 600 millimeters of rainfall, these two feet of rain for some parts of japan, areas down towards the south as well as the central area including sendai, 319 millimeters of rainfall. what does it look like now across japan? you can see for yourself, the typhoon is pulling away towards the russian maritime. it looks as we go through the next couple days things will be nice and dry. let's go to video and show you exactly what it looks like or what i looked like when the typhoon was getting close to tokyo. you can see the winds whipping around. we know many areas are still dealing with flooding as well as power outages. the problem is with the area still being so saturated, we'll deal with the risks for landslides. another big story out of china, flooding there as well. this time in the central region. we're talking about the shunning ching province as well as the szeshwan province. let's go to images out of that region. we'll show you exactly what it looks like. if we go to some of that individual -- oh there it is right there. it's showing the flooding situation happening across that area. the problem is the rain has been unusually heavy. typically this is an arid region. now we do know that reportedly 70,000 people have been forced to evacuate that region. more video, this one showing you an overpass that collapsed after days of heavy rainfall. luckily no one was actually killed during that collapse. it's going to take a while to get things back together. as i take you back here in the satellite imagery, things are quieter for the szeshwan province and over towards the east it looks like we'll get a break from the heavier rain faum. lit be a bit cool for this time of year, but luckily things are going to start to dry out. we'll send it back over to you. >> all right, jennifer. i did notice a cameo on the october fest there. relieved to see things -- >> i can't tell you you caught it all. the weather will be beautiful the next couple days. can you have bad weather and drink? no. it always gets better. >> you begin to see whatever you want to see. >> as long as you do it smart. >> be smart, please, if you're going there. jennifer delgado. executives as one of the world's top brewing companies will be toasting their success. a london-based brewer has made a break through in its attempts to go down under. we'll have details with ramy all ahead on "world business today." . three smart new ways to sweeten. same great taste. new splenda® es