Free Republic

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....

Obama Promises Lower Gas Prices and Defends Keystone XL DecisionBy Tara Dodrill | Yahoo! Contributor Network – Fri, Mar 23, 2012 President Obama signed an executive order earlier this week approving the Keystone XL pipeline connecting Cushing, Okla., to the Texas Gulf Coast, National Public Radio reports. Obama concluded his four-state energy tour at Ohio State University in Columbus on Thursday. While in Ohio, Obama toured an experimental "high-tech" automotive facility and viewed the "fasted electric car in the world," the Buckeye Bullet 2, according to the Columbus Dispatch. The automotive research center has garnered millions in federal funding for...

Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a House panel Tuesday that he’d give himself top marks when asked to grade his policies’ effects on energy prices. Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House committee on Oversight and Government Reform, asked President Obama’s top energy official if he’d grade himself with an “A minus” on “controlling the cost of gasoline at the pump.” Chu responded by saying he’d give himself a better grade than that. “The tools we have at our disposal are limited, but I would I say I would give myself a little higher in that since I became...

A sharp jump in gas prices drove a measure of U.S. consumer costs up in February. But outside higher pump prices, inflation stayed mild. The Labor Department said Friday that the consumer price index rose 0.4 percent in February, the largest increase in 10 months. Gas prices rose 6 percent to account for most of the gain. Food prices were unchanged for the first time in 19 months. And excluding food and energy, so-called "core" prices rose just 0.1 percent. Mild inflation allows the Fed to maintain its low interest-rate policy. "Not much to stew about on the inflation front,"...

President Obama's Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, renounced his previously-stated desire to see gas prices rise to match European levels in order to motivate alternative energy research, telling the Senate today that he wants gas prices to fall for the sake of the economy. "We have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," Chu said in 2008. When reminded of that comment today during his congressional testimony, Chu backed away from that position. "I no longer share that view," Chu told Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, today.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gas prices increased for the third straight day Friday, to an average of $1.626 for a gallon of regular unleaded gas, according to motorist group AAA. That's nearly a one-cent jump from the previous day's average of $1.618. The price of gas is down by nearly 20 cents from the prior month's average of $1.803, and prices are off by nearly 47%, or $3.052 from this time a year ago. Prices have plummeted along with the price of crude oil, the main ingredient in gas. Oil has shed more than $100 a barrel since July, and...

White House defends Obama on gas prices after poor poll numbersBy Andrew Restuccia - 03/12/12 01:41 PM ET Interior Secretary Ken Salazar took to the White House briefing room Monday to defend President Obama’s energy plan after a new poll suggested high gas prices are eroding the president’s approval numbers. Salazar insisted that Obama is reviewing short- and long-term actions to lower gas prices, while also noting that there are no quick fixes to the problem. “All options are on the table because the president obviously feels the pain that the American people are facing,” Salazar said when asked if...

Newt Gingrich predicts high gas prices will 'crater' the economyBy Vicki Needham - 03/04/12 05:41 PM ET Former House Speaker and GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich hit the president again on Sunday over rising gas prices, saying that increasing pump prices would "crater" the economy by August. “The price of gasoline is becoming a genuine crisis for many American families. If it continues to go higher, it will crater the economy by August because people will have no discretionary income,” said Gingrich on CNN’s State of the Union. Republicans along with Gingrich have hammered Obama over rising gas costs, demanding...

Obama campaign: Consumers ‘don’t blame’ the president for gas pricesBy Ben Geman - 03/02/12 10:26 AM ET A top official with President Obama’s reelection campaign expressed confidence Friday that consumers won’t punish Obama politically for rising gas prices and touted “significant accomplishments” on energy, including tougher auto mileage rules. “They don’t blame the president. They understand what’s going on with the global marketplace,” said Stephanie Cutter, the president’s deputy campaign manager, on MSNBC. “But they also acknowledge that we have to do everything we can to make sure that America is independent and not tied to foreign oil and they...