Free Republic

The Smartest Investment Of The Decade by Simon Blackon November 12, 2012 Here’s something crazy to think about. Roughly 200,000 people were born today. That’s net world population growth, births minus deaths. Each one of them constitutes a new mouth to feed. And when they come of age, those 200,000 people will consume, conservatively, about 1,250 Calories per day. Collectively, that’s 91.25 billion Calories per year for the entire 200,000 people that were born today. Where will they get that food from? Consider that a cup of rice contains about 300 Calories. An average annual rice harvest yields about 150...

Forget Fact Checking: Where’s the Logic?- By: Larry Walker, Jr. -In a real town hall meeting, the person asking a question gets to follow up. What we saw Tuesday night wasn’t a town hall meeting at all. The readers appeared to be simply mouthing someone else’s prearranged questions. There wasn't any passion. But what if the public was allowed to retort? Following are my thoughts on the lecture Barack Obama provided in response to the second question, a rather simple one which he has yet to answer. QUESTION: Your energy secretary, Steven Chu, has now been on record three times...

When you pull up to that gas pump and nearly faint from how much it costs you to fill 'er up, you may be tempted blame the government for not doing enough to keep a lid on prices. Resist the temptation. The truth is the global nature of the world's energy supply means that no president has much power over what you pay at the pump. The question of whether the nation's chief executive can do anything to lower soaring energy costs has been a bone of contention between President Barack Obama and his GOP rival, former Mass. Gov. Mitt...

The Home Price Rally Is Spreading To More Housing Markets Mamta BadkarOctober 2, 2012Home prices, including distressed sales, were up 4.6 percent year-over-year according to CoreLogic's latest home price index. Prices were up 0.3 percent from a monh ago. This is the sixth straight increase in home prices. Excluding distressed sales home prices were up 4.9 percent on the year, and 1.0 percent on the month-over-month. One of the criticisms leveled at those that say housing has turned the corner is that housing is a local story and many markets are getting worse. But Mark Fleming, CEO of CoreLogic said...

An Autumn Surge In Corn Prices Will 'Shock The US And Global Livestock Industry' Rob WileSeptember 11, 2012 The historic U.S. drought caused corn prices to explode to record highs during the summer. However, prices haven't budged in a month and stands near $8/bu. In his latest note, Morgan Stanley commodities guru Hussein Allidina reiterates his thesis that the corn price rally isn't over. While the market continues to test what price will ration demand, it will eventually figure it out: While many have cited recent weakness in ethanol production and exports as a sign that prices have risen enough...

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced on Thursday that he would resign if that was the will of the people, the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency reported. .....

On Thursday morning, hundreds of PA Arabs blocked roads and burned tires in the Ramallah area, protesting the high price of products in the PA. The Thursday protest was the latest in a series of demonstations in PA controlled area over high prices. On Wednesday, hundreds of residents of Shechem gathered in one of the town's main squares. demanding the removal of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and PA chief Mahmous Abbas. ...Fayyad and Abbas did not represent them, and that they demanded a new government. Joining them were Hamas members of the PA parliament. Protests have been taking...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Police in southeast Michigan say a man called to complain that a woman he had agreed to pay for sex unexpectedly increased the price. AnnArbor.com reports (http://bit.ly/Rw4Wcl ) that police were called to an Ann Arbor home late Wednesday on a report of a robbery. Police say the 45-year-old man and a 19-year-old Ohio woman he contacted online had agreed on a price, but that the man claimed she upped the cost after taking his money.

This coming Wednesday features a myriad of important economic, housing and mortgage reports: GDP, Pending Home Sales, Mortgage Purchase Applications, Pending Homes Sales and Corporate Profits. But on Tuesday, the Case-Shiller home prices indices will be released (and that means a busy day on TV for Yale Professor Robert Shiller). What are we expecting for Tuesday’ Case-Shiller 20 metro home price index? In a nutshell, it will show that house prices are recovering. FNC (blue) and FHFA (gold) have already released their home price indices last week and both show an uptick in their recent release for June 2012. What...

How To Save Money On Meat As Corn Prices Soar Andrea Woroch, AndreaWoroch.com Aug. 19, 2012, 12:14 PM A few weeks ago, the USDA warned about the impending increase in food prices as drought continues to diminish corn and soybean crops. More recently, however, the USDA advised corn crop yields are even less than previously estimated, making the future of grocery bills even more bleak. Since 40 percent of US-grown corn is used for animal feed, beef, pork and poultry will see the most significant price increases. If you and your family depend on meat as a primary source of...

The head of the world's largest food producer believes high prices are due to the growing of crops for biofuels."The time of cheap food prices is over," says Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe. He is highly critical of the rise in the production of bio-diesel, saying this puts pressure on food supplies by using land and water that would otherwise be used to grow crops for human or animal consumption."If no food was used for fuel, the prices would come down again - that is very clear," he says. "We are now in a new world with a completely different level...

Corn Is Still Ripping Higher, And Is Now Up More Than 50% In Less Than A Month Joe Weisenthal Jul. 16, 2012, 8:14 PM Non-stop going up. Thanks to the drought... December corn futures via the CME, now up more than 50% from recent lows.

In a not-so-subtle rebuke of President Obama’s tendency to offer unsolicited recommendations on how Europeans should handle their debt crises on Sunday evening, Germany’s finance minister suggested that perhaps His Munificence should focus on his own problems before trying to fix everybody else’s. Wolfgang Schaeuble told public broadcaster ZDF in an interview late Sunday that “people are always very quick at giving others advice.”He says: “Mr. Obama should first of all take care of reducing the American deficit, which is higher than in the eurozone.” An unfortunate and embarrassing truth — the EU’s debt-to-GDP ratio is well over eighty percent,...

WASHINGTON, June 11 (UPI) -- Federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico, along with output from Texas and North Dakota, pushed U.S. oil production to its highest level in 14 years, the EIA said. The U.S. Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reports that U.S. oil production during the first quarter of 2012 topped 6 million barrels per day for the first time since 1998. "The roughly 6 percent growth in U.S. oil production from October 2011 through March 2012 is largely the result of increases in oil output in North Dakota, Texas and the Gulf of Mexico," the agency said...

Just got the scoop from my guy who works at Bryan Mound (Strategic Petroleum Reserve). As you may know, the largest reserve site in the U.S. is located a few miles from where I work in Freeport. It hold 200+ million barrels of oil. They got a visitor from Washington D.C. authorizing the release of 80-90 million barrels across all 4 sites in the U.S. It will be sold to Exxon Mobil for the purpose of flooding the market to bring down gas prices (temporarily). Just in time for the election. The president can do this without Congress. What an...

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index Data for March 2012, the Consumer Price Index for fresh vegetables purchased for home use rose 4.5 percent from the same time last year. Recent USDA data also shows that the price of grains such as corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans has increased 234% since January 2002...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Central Florida supermarket chain is about to close almost all of its local stores. It's part of a move by Albertson's to end the majority of its operations in the state. For the last year or so, Albertson's has been shrinking the number of stores it operates in Florida. In Central Florida, six more stores are going to close in the next few weeks. Only a store in Altamonte Springs will remain open. Albertson's says the Florida market is not good for it, and with fuel and utility costs being what they are, it's closing all...

Why High Oil Prices Even At $200 Won't Cause A Recession Commodities / Crude Oil Apr 12, 2012 - 07:43 AM By: Money Morning Martin Hutchinson writes: Last Friday's weak unemployment numbers, with only 120,000 jobs created, brought renewed wails that high oil prices were causing a recession. Having heard this refrain so many times, I thought I'd dig a little deeper. After all, a peak of $145 per barrel in the West Texas Intermediate oil price pretty well coincided with the onset of the 2008 recession. The question is whether or not high oil prices are always correlated with...

Detroit - Remember “sticker shock”? After several years of heavily discounting their products in a desperate bid to keep assembly lines rolling, automakers are finding themselves back in the driver’s seat again – pushing prices to record levels. And it’s “not a blip,” warns one senior analyst, who expects the trend to continue for several years. The good news for shoppers is that trade-ins are also yielding better prices – and while that new car, truck or crossover may command more money than ever before it’s also likely to include significantly more features and markedly better fuel economy than

The Obama administration is blaming Israel for the recent rise in global crude oil prices, according to a Sunday report in The World Tribune. The rise in fuel prices is deemed as harming the U.S. economy and has also hurt Obama in the polls as he seeks re-election in November. The report cited a leading U.S. analyst, Robert Satloff, who returned from talks with Israeli officials. Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said, according to The World Tribune, that the Israeli leadership saw Washington as attributing the higher gas prices to “Israel’s posturing” on Iran....