Free Republic

Pricey picks: Powerball lottery tickets will double in price to $2 beginning in JanuaryBy Associated Press, Published: January 1 DES MOINES, Iowa — Powerball lottery organizers are betting that bigger jackpots will entice more people to play, but gamblers are going to have to dig deeper into their wallets to try their luck. Tickets for the multistate game are doubling in price to $2 beginning Jan 15. While the odds of winning one of the game’s giant jackpots also are improving, those in charge of the lottery are gambling that people are willing to pay more for the hope of...

Expiring Ethanol Credit to Add to Gas Price JumpBy WRAL POSTED: 9:04 am EST December 28, 2011 RALEIGH -- Lack of action by state lawmakers and Congress is expected to raise gas prices in North Carolina by more than 8 cents a gallon, starting Sunday. Half of the increase comes from the state. North Carolina's gas tax is linked to the price of gas and is adjusted every six months. Because gas prices have gone up since July, the state tax, which is already one of the highest in the country, is going up by 3.9 cents a gallon on...

Many people in America believe that wages of employees are as low as they are merely because of “corporate greed” and that companies want to take advantage of their employees. However, most people that think rationally and for themselves don’t believe this. If the leaders of America would let free markets work, companies and corporations would have to offer competitive pay for their workers to beat out competition. Government regulations and minimum wage laws are the reason why unemployment is so high in America, these problems don’t occur because people on Wall Street are greedy. The first and most important...

California's increasing use of renewable power will come at a price, pushing up electricity bills across the state. And while it's impossible to tell how big the cost to consumers will be, some experts fear the total cost of renewable energy in California will be in the billions of dollars. In the next three years, many long-planned solar plants and wind farms will come online, bringing California closer to its goal of getting one-third of the state's electricity from renewable sources by 2020. As soon as they start delivering power to utility companies, the utilities' customers will start paying for...

Tide turns against dark pools Shanny Basar and Giles Turner 25 Oct 2011 Some of the world’s largest corporates have expressed concern regarding the growth of trading on dark pools, amid an increase in regulatory activity against the trading venues. A BNY Mellon Global Trends in Investor Relations survey of 650 companies across 53 countries, published today, discovered that a third of respondents believed dark pools “negatively impact global trading markets and that more oversight is necessary.” Peter Kondrup from drinks company Carlsberg said in the survey: “If you take it from our view point, we believe that it definitely...

The decadence of 'dark pool' markets Updated: 2011-11-07 07:49 By Daryl Guppy (China Daily) The collapse of MF Global Holdings again highlights the perils of derivative leverage in a loosely regulated market. It shows the need for genuine transparency in financial markets. The decadence of 'dark pool' markets MF Global had $1.4 billion in equity which it used to run up $44.4 billion in liabilities largely in trading European debt. The collapse of MF Global also dragged down its other trading operations, hitting individual investors and traders who found their accounts frozen and positions liquidated at unfavorable prices. MF Global...

Shortages have more than tripled since 2005, according to the University of Utah's Drug Information Service, and by the end of the year more than 300 products are likely to be back-ordered, in short supply or totally unavailable. Some are anesthetics and pain therapies, others emergency room "crash cart" drugs. But most—about 70% in 2010—belong to the class of drugs known as "sterile injectables" that are mainstays of the chemotherapy arsenal, such as paclitaxel or cytarabine.

Gasoline price in Jasper County, Indiana jumped 26 cents a gallon between 8am and 1pm on Thursday, 13 Oct 2011

...The Labor Department on Thursday said consumer prices rose a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in August. The increase was largely responsible for a 0.6% drop in the average hourly wages of U.S. workers, adjusted for inflation. It marked the biggest one-month decline in more than three years. Stripping out the volatile food and energy categories, the “core” rate of consumer price inflation rose a smaller 0.2%. Yet the core rate has also been rising steadily, hitting a 12-month level of 2.0% for the first time since November 2008.

Gold this morning is plunging by the most since December 2008. For those seeking the reason for the sell off, it once again appears that the market is about 24 hours late in processing news that has been out for over a day. One of the main catalysts for today's gold price is the realization that the Shanghai Gold Exchange hiked gold margins by 26%. Of course that this happened not one but two days ago (as we reported) is irrelevant. There are other factors to be sure: on Tuesday holdings of the SPDR Gold Trust , the world's...

For the second time since voters approved California's massive bullet train project, the state on Tuesday raised the total price tag for the first stretch by several billion dollars -- and now the cost for the entire rail line is on pace to skyrocket to an eye-popping $60 billion to $80 billion or even more. The latest estimates put the cash-strapped state even further behind in bankrolling its biggest, and one of its most polarizing, public works plans ever, as California struggles to secure funds from shy investors and broke governments. Still, project officials are ramping up to spend billions...

There’s one question that I’ve been seeing over and over for the last several weeks as the price of gold has taken out its all-time highs and continued a nearly uninterrupted ascent: Should I buy gold now? It’s understandable, especially for people who don’t own precious metals yet. Nobody wants to be the sucker who buys gold at the top, only to watch it crater back to $1200 or below. But here’s some food for thought– The US dollar is shattering historic lows against currencies like the Swiss franc, Australian dollar, and Singapore dollar. Any currency that isn’t a complete...

AEI’s Michael Barone wrote recently about the higher education bubble, which could also described as a “low-interest education loan bubble” to reflect the government’s role in subsidizing higher education, similar to its role in subsidizing homeownership. The topic has been receiving a lot of attention lately, and there is even now a Wikipedia listing for “higher education bubble.”

Hinde Capital's Ben Davies says the debt crises in Europe and the U.S. will lead to only one thing: Gold 2K. He tells King World News: “This has the smell of 1998 when I was trading US government bonds and everyone was away on holiday and problems were beginning to brew. Stock markets were beginning to get violent in reaction to Russia’s problems and it all kicked off in the summer months and people were being called back to their desks. I just have that same kind of feeling now. This is not one I want to fight, the market...

Market regulators forcing short squeezes? Check. Central banks using mob-style gimmicks to push the price of "assets" around? Check. Market confidence back to 100%? We'll have to get back to you on that. Gold spot just touched on a fresh new intraday all time high of just under $1,579... and is going much, much higher. After all, the most important question - Everyone is broke? Check.

US President Barack Obama had made a secret deal with Libyan rebel leaders to capture the freed Lockerbie bomber from Libya and return him to face justice in the US, the Mail on Sunday reported yesterday. The British daily quoted senior congressional sources in Washington as saying that Mr Obama had told the Libyan rebels through intermediaries that a condition of Washington's continued support was that they must hand over Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to US special forces if they enter Tripoli. The mission would involve Megrahi being flown to a neutral Arab country by US special forces and on to the

On Nov. 5, 2009, at the behest of Rep. Michele Bachmann, thousands of tea party activists descended on the Capitol to vent their rage over the health care overhaul bill pending before Congress. The assembled activists chanted, "Kill the bill! Kill the bill!" and waved signs opposing a government takeover of health care — but they may not have known that the same government was paying for the event. According to House expense reports, Bachmann and three conservative GOP colleagues — Reps. Tom Price (Ga.), Steve King (Iowa) and Todd Akin (Mo.) — each paid $3,407.50 that day, a total...

(CNSNews.com) - Senate Democrats are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate possible price-fixing of gasoline by U.S. refineries because “recent reports,” according to the senators, suggest the refiners are trimming supply to keep prices high. But a federal report from November shows that refinery stockpiles started to decline in 2008, if not earlier. At a press conference on Tuesday, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that they had sent a letter that day to the FTC, “to request the Commission begin an investigation into potential price fixing of gasoline by U.S. refiners.” “Recent...

Can anyone provide a current breakdown of gas prices? I want to forward to my friends who think that Big Oil is the big winner when prices spike up. I'm assuming that all the Fed, State and Local taxes are the main reason. Thanks.

Silver's shine is fading fast, and the market for the precious metal may have reached a top in a speculative, mad dash by ETF investors. "The last move higher over the last month or so has really been driven by the strength of the retail investment demand, so the levels up here are not supported," said Suki Cooper, precious metals analyst with Barclays Capital. "At levels above $40, we've seen some concern rising on the industrial demand side. The last leg higher has been investment-driven, rather than fundamentally supported. In that respect, the correction was due. I would say from...