Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush urged Congress Thursday to approve $770 million to help alleviate dramatically escalating food prices that threaten widespread hunger and increasing social unrest around the world. In a surprise midafternoon appearance at the White House, Bush announced he is asking lawmakers to approve the additional funds for global food aid and development programs. The money — to be directed primarily at needy African nations — is being included in a broader $70 billion Iraq war funding measure for 2009 that the White House sent to Capitol Hill on Thursday. "In some of the world's poorest nations,...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices rose sharply Friday on news reports that a ship under contract to the U.S. Navy fired warning shots at two Iranian boats. The report on Fox News raised concerns that a conflict between U.S. and Iranian forces could cut oil supplies from the Persian Gulf region. Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose $2.85 to $118.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising as high as $119.50. Prices were already up before the report on news of a pipeline attack in Nigeria and a looming refinery strike in Scotland. At...

April 24, 2008 Is Wall Street’s Top Cop Involved in a Subprime Cover Up? The ongoing subprime credit crunch is far from over. As my colleague Eric Roseman pointed out in an article yesterday, the prime-indicator that signaled the crisis is flashing red again… this time in several economies overseas. Here at home, Uncle Sam is doing his level-headed best to simply sweep this crisis under the rug. In fact, regulators have even gone so far as to hush-up an investigation into the demise of Bear Stearns. Shocked? Don’t be… Back in January I described how U.S. credit-rating agencies were...

SEVERE fuel shortages could hit northern England and Scotland for up to a month because workers at Grangemouth, Scotland’s only oil refinery, have voted to go on strike. Petrol stations will run dry and aircraft may be unable to refuel from the end of April through much of June unless the dispute is resolved in the next few days. Grangemouth’s 1,200 workers are said to be furious at plans to slash the value of their pension scheme and close the final salary pension scheme to new workers. The strike is scheduled to last only two days, on April 27-28, but...

Dubai: The food price and supply situation is turning worse, and in some places is uglier than expected and could lead to domestic turmoil, including the "risk of war", a top official said. The food price situation has already claimed its first victim - the Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis - who was forced to quit, and food ration lines in Bangladesh are becoming longer everyday with sporadic incidents, reflecting a near explosive situation due to hunger. "Food prices, if they go on like they are doing today... the consequences will be terrible," International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Retail gas prices surged to a new record above $3.30 a gallon Friday and appear poised to rise further in coming weeks as gasoline supplies tighten. Oil prices, meanwhile, supported the gas price rally by jumping more than $1 a barrel after a dismal employment report sent the dollar lower. At the pump, gas prices rose 1.4 cents overnight to a national average of $3.303 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. That's the latest in a series of records, and about 60 cents higher than a year ago. While oil's surge...

NEW YORK (AP) — Gold futures had their worst day in nearly two years Wednesday, beaten down after a smaller-than-expected interest rate cut bolstered the dollar and diminished the metal's appeal as a hedge against inflation. Other commodities also traded lower, with crude oil, silver, copper and agriculture futures all falling sharply as part of a broad commodities sell-off. The Federal Reserve on Tuesday lowered interest rates for the sixth time since September, moving aggressively to counter growing turmoil in financial markets that led to the near-collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. The Fed cut its benchmark federal funds...

JOE LEWIS, the secretive British billionaire, has lost an estimated $800m in the collapse of the American investment bank Bear Stearns. The 71-year-old currency trading tycoon, who runs his empire from the Bahamas, holds almost 10% of the bank's shares. Bear’s shares fell 40% on Friday to $27, after it secured a 28-day credit lifeline to stave off collapse. Lewis began building a stake in Bear last September, when the shares were changing hands for more than $100. The huge paper losses could force Lewis to sell out of some of his other positions, according to traders, in order to...

WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) -- The seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index was virtually unchanged in February, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday. Following a 0.4 percent rise in January, analysts had expected a 0.3 percent rise in February but that did not occur. The index for energy declined in February with a 1.7 percent increase in energy services offset by a 1.9 percent decline in energy commodities, the report said. Downturns were noted in apparel and new and used cars. Healthcare costs rose modestly at 0.1 percent and food prices rose 0.4 percent. The index for housing increased 0.2...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street sank Monday as oil's surge above $108 a barrel and more worrisome signs for the financial sector led investors to extend last week's losses. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 150 points, bringing its three-day loss to nearly 515, while broader indexes showed steeper percentage losses.

The legal fallout from the sub-prime crisis in the United States continued yesterday as Goldman Sachs conceded for the first time that it was the target of legal action and the FBI opened an investigation into 14 companies involved in America’s mortgage bond industry. Morgan Stanley revealed yesterday that it, too, was the subject of new lawsuits, relating to the bank’s role in underwriting secondary share offerings for New Century Financial and Countrywide, the US mortgage lenders. Goldman Sachs reported in its annual report, published yesterday, that it had received requests from regulators for information relating to high-risk sub-prime mortgages...

President Bush toured a display of Volvo renew- able- energy vehicles March 5 at the AB Volvo Group booth at the International Renewable Energy Conference in Washington. The trucks are designed to run on a variety of renewable fuels, ranging from natural and synthetic biodiesel that can run in today’s engines to more exotic liquid and gas fuels that would require vehicle modifications to make them practical, clean and efficient. Refinery and distribution networks also would have to be built. Mack, a Volvo brand, showed off a heavy-duty electric hybrid dump truck designed to recover energy from the brakes and...

Some Central Georgia truck drivers say they could face bankruptcy due to higher diesel fuel costs. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, this week's average price-per-gallon of diesel fuel in the Southeast is at $3.64. That's up 10 cents from last week and more than $1 from a year ago. "The days of truckers getting good long hauls and making good money are over with," said trucker Danny Ashley, a Laurens County native. "The price of diesel fuel is... eating us alive now." As a result, Ashley says he and others in the trucking industry around Central Georgia have...

From The Times March 1, 2008 Britain accumulated so much gold in its Imperial heyday that the floor of the Bank of England vault is said to have collapsed beneath the weight. More than a century later, the boom in oil and mineral prices has led to another bout of state-driven gold-buying. This time, however, the beneficiaries of the oil-price explosion are driving the demand for gold. Research by the World Gold Council shows that Qatar, the gas-rich Gulf state, has been buying about one tonne of gold - worth more than $34million today - every month for at least...

The price of oil shot to a new high last night as Wall Street traders bought fuel contracts to offset the falling value of the dollar. Energy traders were also unnerved by a fire at Shell’s Bacton gas terminal in Norfolk, which threatened more than 45 million cubic metres of gas supplies, about 13 per cent of National Grid’s forecast demand. The blaze – which started at 6pm – was extinguished. National Grid sought to reassure markets that the facility, the third-largest in the UK, was still receiving adequate supplies. Light sweet crude oil for April delivery rose $2.95 to...

Profits at federally insured banks and thrifts plunged to a 16-year low in the fourth quarter as institutions set aside a record-high amount to cover losses from bad mortgages, data released Tuesday show. The quarterly banking industry statistics, compiled by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., highlighted a dramatic deterioration in the fourth quarter as major Wall Street banks such as Citigroup Inc. took large write-downs in the value of their assets to reflect losses on mortgage-related investments. "Weakness in the housing sector and the credit squeeze in financial market made it a very challenging time for many institutions," said Sheila...

In the wheat price surge on Monday this week, the leading wheat contract in Minneapolis, US, rose by more than the entire worth of the contract just months ago. Prices rallied by $5.75 a bushel, or by nearly 30pc, at one point from Friday’s close. Eight months ago on June 19, the lead Minneapolis wheat contract settled at over $US5.00 a bushel. Panic over commodity shortages continues to emerge as the dominant factor in the global markets, with both end user and speculative buyers of corn, soybean, cotton, rice and a host of other commodities taking note of what’s happening...

The Gulf states' dollar pegs restrict their ability to draw out monetary policy suiting domestic economic condition, independent of the US policy stance, the former FOMC Chairman Alan Greenspan said Monday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Most gulf states are experiencing record high of inflation, with Qatar reporting a 14% surge last year, followed by the UAE, Kuwait and other countries. Saudi Arabia's inflation hit a twenty seven year high of 7% in January, while UAE's inflation topped 9.3% in nineteen years during the month. The regional inflation average hit 6.3% in 2007, compared to 0.3% in 2001, according to Merrill...

NEW YORK, Feb 8 (Reuters) - U.S. platinum futures rallied toward $1,900 on Friday on the back of a supply squeeze due to ongoing mining issues in top producer South Africa, while gold contracts also rose sharply on strong buying by commodity funds. Market watchers had forecast that the global platinum market to be in a slight deficit, even before a power crisis in South Africa crippled mining operations in the world's largest precious metals producer. The country accounts for about 80 percent of the world's output. James Moore, analyst at TheBullionDesk.com in London, told clients in a note that...

Bank of America abruptly notified cardholders in good standing their rates would skyrocket if they didn't opt out fast. Is BofA greedy or needy? Credit-card issuers have drawn fire for jacking up interest rates on cardholders who aren't behind on payments, but whose credit score has fallen for another reason. Now, some consumers complain, Bank of America (BAC) is hiking rates based on no apparent deterioration in their credit scores at all. The major credit-card lender in mid-January sent letters notifying some responsible cardholders that it would more than double their rates to as high as 28%, without giving an...