Free Republic

ASSOCIATED PRESS - Construction of new homes posted the biggest increase in more than two years in April. While it was a rare bit of good news for the housing market, analysts said it's far too soon to declare an end to the extensive slump. The Commerce Department reported yesterday that housing construction rose by 8.2 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.03 million units. Building of single-family homes continued to weaken, however. The growth came from a big jump in apartment construction. Analysts predicted the surprising rebound in April would be temporary given the headwinds...

The highly-respected Lausanne-based Institute for Management Development (IMD) has just issued its 20th anniversary ‘World Competitiveness Yearbook 2008’ [see: ‘Britain slips down key economic league table’, The Times, May 14/15]. It is not a pleasant read for the UK. In this annual assessment of national competitiveness, the UK has fallen one place from twentieth, to twenty-first, having been overtaken by Israel. But, more significantly, the IMD report downgrades the UK’s position against its global rivals on the crucial factor of economic performance, from seventh out of 55 countries to an alarming sixteenth. And the cause of this decline? Yes, you...

Construction of new homes posted the biggest increase in more than two years in April. While it was a rare spot of good news for the housing market, analysts said it's far too soon to declare an end to the prolonged slump. The Commerce Department reported Friday that housing construction rose by 8.2 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.03 million units. Building of single-family homes continued to weaken, however. The growth came from a big jump in apartment construction. Analysts predicted the surprising rebound in April would be temporary given the headwinds builders are still...

Initial construction of U.S. homes rose unexpectedly in April, according to a government report released Friday. Privately owned housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,032,000 in April, according to the Commerce Department. The rate was up 8.2% from March's revised reading of 954,000 but 30.6% lower than April of 2007. Economists were expecting housing starts to decline to 940,000, according to consensus estimates compiled by Briefing.com. Construction of new single-family homes, however, was at a rate of 692,000 in April, or 1.7% below March's number. That is the lowest reading of that measure since January 1991....

NEW YORK - Oil prices continued to rise Friday after a whipsaw overnight session that paired the expiration of options with a bevy of news that swung the price of oil per barrel in a $6 range. Light, sweet crude for June delivery was up $1.08 to $125.20 a barrel in electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Europe. During Thursday’s session, the front-month crude oil contract dropped as low as $120.75 before bouncing back to finish at $124.12 a barrel.

A couple of ... readers got together for dinner this week -- both well-educated types -- and chatted about the world for a few hours and what's ahead when present trends are projected and barring some miraculous change for the better. Afterwards, an email:Bottom line we got to, after all was said: OK, so we fortunate oddball ones have advance warning of a coming, indeed impending, broad scale societal collapse/restructuring - on multiple fronts - economic cycles, energy, K-wave, solar energy downturn (sunspot cycles). We can, and have, to the extent of our limited abilities, positioned ourselves individually to survive...

There may be no cuts in interest rates until 2010, the Bank of England has indicated. However, inflation is predicted to rise far above previous forecasts and stay well above the Government's target of two per cent for up to two years. Mervyn King, the Bank governor, said price increases would cause "a squeeze on real take-home pay, which will slow consumer spending and output growth, perhaps sharply". Saying that "the nice decade is behind us", he added that it was "quite possible we may get the odd quarter or two of negative growth". Presenting the UK quarterly forecasts, the...

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain today gave the following remarks at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio. In it, he spells out how a McCain presidency will change America. *** Thank you. The hectic but repetitive routine of presidential campaigns often seems to consist entirely of back and forth charges between candidates, punctuated by photo ops, debates and the occasional policy speech, followed by another barrage of accusations and counter accusations, formulated into the soundbites preferred by cable news producers. It is a little hypocritical for candidates or reporters to criticize these deficiencies. They are our...

HOBBS -- Sen. Pete Domenici will be featured speaker at a national energy policy conference May 27 at the Lea County Event Center titled "The Making of Energy Policy: Where Are We Going?" The conference is sponsored by New Mexico Tech, the Economic Development Corporation of Lea County, and the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy. Co-sponsors are the United States Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute. NMCEP, operated by New Mexico Tech, is organizing the conference, the group said in a news release. Registration will begin at 10 a.m., followed at 11:30 a.m. by a welcome and...

US slump to prop up India as next offshoring hotspot 14 May, 2008, 0750 hrs IST,Chiranjoy Sen, TNN BANGALORE: Belt-tightening by global technology giants—a fallout of US economic slowdown—is likely to reinforce India as the most preferred offshoring destination. Top technology firms are actively moving part of their workforce from the US, UK and European markets to lower-cost destinations. They cite availability of local talent, better delivery and conducive enviroment as key offshoring reasons. While they may not admit it, firms would be looking at stepping the gas on offshoring to curb bloating costs and to lift margins. Networking and...

WASHINGTON — The House overwhelmingly approved a $300 billion farm bill on Wednesday afternoon, making it probable that the measure will become law despite President Bush’s anticipated veto. The 318-to-106 vote, far over the two-thirds needed to override a veto, sends the bill to the Senate, where the measure is also expected to have veto-proof support. Although predictions can be dicey in political Washington, the measure’s strength in the Senate has been seen as even more robust than in the House. The House result, with 100 Republicans joining 218 Democrats to vote for the bill, made good on the predictions...

Consider This by 3-wood Here's something that should drive the MSM up a wall. Consumer-level inflation's tame in April, U.S. says "WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) ~ Growth in consumer prices came in below expectations for April even as food prices rose at the sharpest rate in 18 years, a government report showed Wednesday. The consumer price index rose a moderate 0.2% last month, the Labor Department said. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the core consumer price index increased 0.1%. Inflation was just a bit weaker than expected, but financial markets welcomed the April CPI figures. Consumer prices are up 3.9% in...

In his first years in the United States, Carlos B. Jacinto endured the itinerant life of a Guatemalan migrant worker, from picking fruit in Florida to moving logs at a sawmill in Washington. Eventually, he settled here in northern Georgia and erected a middle-class American life. The carpet factories that sustained this town were desperate for workers to supply a nationwide boom in home construction. The wages Mr. Jacinto earned over the last decade were enough to buy a minivan and a brick house with a yard and a swing set for his four young girls. It was a long...

NEW YORK - The economic downturn is hitting roughly one in 10 middle-aged and older Americans especially hard, compelling them to borrow money for everyday living expenses and to seek help from family, friends or charities, according to a survey released Tuesday by the AARP. In the telephone survey of 1,002 adults 45 and older, nearly four in 10 said they had helped a child pay bills or expenses. Among retirees, one-third said they’d helped their children pay bills. Eight percent said they’d helped a parent pay bills or expenses. The survey’s margin of sampling error was plus or minus...

Inflation pressures ease in April despite biggest jump in food prices in 18 years WASHINGTON (AP) -- Inflation pressures eased a bit in April despite the biggest jump in food prices in 18 years.The Labor Department reported Wednesday that consumer prices edged up 0.2 percent last month, compared to a 0.3 percent rise in March. The lower inflation reflected a flat reading for energy, which helped offset a 0.9 percent jump in food costs as prices climbed for many basic items, from bread and milk to coffee and fresh fruits.The unchanged reading for energy reflected a big 4.8 percent jump...

<p>A funny thing happened to the economy on its way to recession: It's taken a detour.</p> <p>That, at least, is the view of a growing number of economists -- including some who not long ago were saying a recession was all but inevitable. They note that stock and credit markets have steadily improved ...while a series of economic reports have been stronger than expected.</p>

One of the striking features of modern politics is the speed at which a candidate, or a cause, can topple from the pedestal to the doghouse. Just a few years ago the emergence of biofuels was considered so important to our country's drive for energy independence that Congress voted a fifty-one-cent-per-gallon subsidy for ethanol to help get this fledgling industry on its feet. Now ethanol and other biofuels are being blamed for everything from global warming, to increased pollution, to the sharp rise in food prices that have triggered riots in parts of Asia and Africa. My colleagues here at...

Democrats' Budget Agreement Assumes Bush Tax Cuts Will Expire By Andrew Taylor, Associated Press CNSNews.com May 13, 2008 Washington (AP) - Democrats controlling Congress are leaving grim decisions on automatic tax increases to the next president and the newly elected Congress under a freshly negotiated House-Senate blueprint for the upcoming budget year. The fiscal 2009 budget plan worked out in private talks between House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., and his Senate counterpart, Kent Conrad, D-N.D., awards an approximately 4 percent increase on average to nondefense Cabinet budgets passed by Congress each year. But it makes no effort...

McCain Economic Plan Across America, families are facing economic challenges. Gas prices are rising, mortgages are threatened, and thousands have lost their jobs. Now is the time to act and John McCain has outlined several near-term, tangible plans to address some of the challenges confronting Americans today Helping Americans Confront Higher Living Costs: John McCain Will Help Americans Hurting From High Gasoline And Food Costs. Americans need relief right now from high gas prices. John McCain will act immediately to reduce the pain of high gas prices. John McCain Believes We Should Institute A Summer Gas Tax Holiday. Hard-working American...

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - The International Energy (otcbb: IENI.OB - news - people ) Agency has slashed its 2008 oil product demand forecast again in its monthly report, this time by 390,000 barrels per day, and hinted at more cuts in the future. Oil product demand this year is now seen at 86.8 million barrels per day (bpd), against 87.2 million bpd forecast in last month's report, said the energy adviser to 27 oil consuming countries in its May monthly report. Slower growth in the United States and other industrialised nations will weaken demand, said the IEA. 'This report sees...

Oil and Gas executives say that the price-per-barrel of oil will drop significantly from the current high level by the end of the year, according to the results of a survey conducted by KPMG LLP's Global Energy Institute. In this year's KPMG survey, which polled 372 financial executives from oil and gas companies in April 2008, 55 percent of the respondents think that the price-per-barrel of crude oil will drop below $100 by the end of the year. Twenty-one percent think that the price will close between $101 and $110; 15 percent think between $111 and $120; and nine percent...

Congressmen are like myna birds. If you teach them a phrase, they will repeat it over and over, without the slightest idea what they're saying or what it means. Like “upside down.” Last week a congressman was boasting about a big mortgage bailout plan the Democrats flushed through the House of Representatives. It would put the taxpayers on the hook for the mortgages of people who weren't making their payments. Under the legislation, home lenders would sell their bum mortgages to the federal government at 90 percent of the value of the mortgaged property. That requires the lender to take...

"Ohio has three things it is promoting that is destined to make it the newest state to suffer a mass exodus going forward of it's existing population and absolutely zero attractability for new residents: A limited and parochial world view of Foreign Direct Investment, the UAW and TEAMSTERS Unions, and a state income tax that is funding legacy health and welfare systems that need to be rethought. The three great things: Ohio State, Lake Erie, and the Cleveland Clinic have an uphill battle to balance the above. Ohio Democratic Representative Marcy Kaptur ranted, "They are selling America" when recent Asian...

As immigrants, we're proud of America and the strength it derives from being uniquely open to trade, to investment, and to ideas and people. Recently, prominent voices in punditry and politics have questioned the benefits of America's openness and called for an isolationist U-turn that would choke off our innovation and prosperity. In every state of the union, such a retreat would be disastrous for jobs, economic growth and consumer choice. Nowhere is this more clear than here in Torrance, Calif., where today we are visiting a Hitachi plant that remanufactures auto parts. This "foreign" company employs 16,000 Americans --...

Is $120 oil even real? Not if you ask the Saudis, or even Lehman Bros. The investment bank’s oil expert said this week that the oil boom is due to bust. Economic growth across the globe will slow just as new refineries kick in, raising supply.

t's low in fat, low in food miles and completely free range. In fact, some claim that Sciurus carolinensis - the grey squirrel - is about as ethical a dish as it is possible to serve on a dinner plate. The grey squirrel, the American cousin of Britain's endangered red variety, is flying off the shelves faster than hunters can shoot them, with game butchers struggling to keep up with demand. 'We put it on the shelf and it sells. It can be a dozen squirrels a day - and they all go,' said David Simpson, the director of Kingsley...

Analysis: Some good economic news is a mirage masking weakness in national economy WASHINGTON (AP) -- The unemployment rate drops. Productivity grows. The trade deficit shrinks. Sounds great, right? Not so fast. Borrowing radio broadcaster Paul Harvey's signature saying: let's hear the rest of the story. ADVERTISEMENT Some seemingly good economic numbers can be something of a mirage masking weaknesses in the national economy. Let's take the unemployment rate, which dipped to 5 percent in April, from 5.1 percent in March. A closer look reveals that the decline in unemployment is not as good as it looks at first blush....

ELK GROVE VILLAGE, Ill. — The foreclosure crisis is hitting yet another American locale: the self-storage center. As they lose their homes, people are turning to these humble cinderblock and sheet-metal boxes to store their stuff. But some people cannot keep up with their storage bills any better than they could handle their mortgage payments, and storage companies are auctioning off their property for a pittance.

Two years after questions arose regarding the viability of the U.S. rice industry, the sector has emerged stronger and has a very promising outlook with total U.S. rice exports forecast to increase around 20 percent, according to a new Rabobank report, “U.S. Rice.” “The outlook for U.S. rice growers remains strong, with more cause for optimism than concern. However, with global rice stocks already at low levels, prices are especially susceptible to any shocks,” said Michael Whitehead, food and agribusiness research and advisory vice president. “Adverse weather in a particular rice-growing region could be one cause of price increases, while...

The subprime mortgage meltdown has cost the world 15% of its market capitalization, about $9 trillion. The primary culprit who caused all of this financial loss, pain and suffering is not the mortgage companies. Neither is it the overextended borrowers. It is our own federal regulations interfering with the free market. ... The unintended consequences of good intentions can do more economic harm than all the mean-spirited greed within capitalism. Part of the good intention was forcing banks to be good neighbors by making altruistic loans that discriminated in favor of underprivileged communities. Any attempts by banks to set higher...

"It's a recession," said President Harry Truman, "when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours." For people facing home foreclosure, job loss or the struggle of paying high gas prices, the definition a recession seems immaterial and insignificant. True. But during an election year, the media's constant use or expectation of "recession" does matter. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's likely nominee, already considers the U.S. economy "in a recession." So are we — at least as economists commonly define the term? No — not even close. But a recent typical news wire story, however,...

Washington - Today, the Club for Growth released its 2007 annual scorecard, awarding the Defender of Economic Freedom award to six senators and forty-nine representatives who scored a 90 or above on the Club's scorecard.... "These top-scoring members of Congress are staunch defenders of American taxpayers," said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. "Their votes are critical to lowering taxes, cutting wasteful spending, and promoting economic growth for all Americans. The Club for Growth scorecard allows taxpayers to see how their senators and representatives are performing in Congress and find out who is truly fighting for pro-growth, limited-government policies...." The...

Regional air pollution regulators have again cited TXI Riverside Cement for allowing plumes of potentially harmful dust to escape its century-old plant north of Riverside. "Riverside Cement will continue to get notices of violations until they solve their dust problem," Sam Atwood, spokesman for South Coast Air Quality Management District, said Saturday. A recent air district investigation found that dust from the plant contains hexavalent chromium, a cancer-causing substance that is a byproduct of cement-making. The plant, located just south of the border between Riverside and San Bernardino counties, was cited for producing dust clouds longer than 100 feet and...

Hard numbers: The economy is worse than you know Ever since the 1960s, Washington has gulled its citizens and creditors by debasing official statistics, the vital instruments with which the vigor and muscle of the American economy are measured. The effect has been to create a false sense of economic achievement and rectitude, allowing us to maintain artificially low interest rates, massive government borrowing, and a dangerous reliance on mortgage and financial debt even as real economic growth has been slower than claimed. The corruption has tainted the very measures that most shape public perception of the economy: • The...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Thursday reported a stronger-than-expected 3.2 percent rise in sales at U.S. stores open at least a year in April. Analysts, on average, were expecting the company's same-store sales to rise 2.1 percent, according to Reuters Estimates, while Wal-Mart forecast a gain of 1 percent to 3 percent. The world's biggest retailer said net sales in the month, ended May 2, rose to $29.18 billion from $26.57 billion.

Last week, the government released two important figures: GDP growth (or lack thereof) for the first quarter of this year, and the number of jobs created (or lack thereof) for the month of April. The day before the released GDP report, a headline in USA Today read, "USA TODAY survey: We're in a recession, economists say." The first two sentences read as follows: "The U.S. economy is in recession, or soon to be in one. … the economists said the U.S. economy is in recession." the 52 economists' predictions. They predicted 0.1 percent economic growth for the first quarter, 0.5...

What does that mean for all of us tax-paying angry renters and honorable homeowners who have paid their loans on time?

How could job loss for 80 small-town residents be a "great story?"

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Thursday that the worst of the credit crisis is over, according to attendees at a New York speech. Greenspan also said house prices still had a long way to fall and it was unlikely they would stabilize by year-end, according to meeting attendees who provided Reuters details of the speech delivered at the Alternative Public Strategies Conference. The attendees, who declined to be identified by name, said Greenspan mentioned that U.S. growth was likely to be sluggish for an extended period of time. The U.S economy is reeling from a housing-led slowdown,...

The number of newly laid off workers seeking unemployment benefits dropped much more than expected last week. The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for unemployment benefits fell to 365,000, a decline of 18,000 from the previous week. Economists had been looking for a much smaller decrease of around 5,000. Weekly jobless claims have been exceptionally volatile in recent weeks because of strike-related layoffs in the auto industry and an unusually early Easter, which has played havoc with the government's seasonal adjustment measurements. Many economists believe that a prolonged housing slump and severe credit crisis have pushed the economy into...

If the globaloneyists had their way, a man named Jed would still be “a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed.” In the short span of 30 years, the Greens have cooked up massive global warming hysteria, stood in the way additional oil exploration and gasoline refinement, and refused to allow viable alternatives to oil (nuclear, coal, natural gas, etc.) to even be seriously considered. As Americans consider proposals for a national energy policy, it is important to keep in mind the words of Lincoln: “He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.” For all...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5UYNX_XGQA&NR=1

Economists received gloomy news last week that the worst economy since the depression grew by over a half percent. “At this rate I’ll be dead before most of humanity is killed and the rest of us are forced to endure a hand-to-mouth existence as subsistence farmers and mastodon hunters,” Malbert Crickendale, economist for the DotPenn financial report said. “I wish the Democrats in Congress would get off their asses and do something to speed up this demise.” Crickendale said that mainstream media’s continual harping on the “subprime implosion,” “credit massacre,” “unprecedented foreclosures” and “Brittany’s meltdown” should have had far worse...

Click on the link to check gas prices in Europe. And take a look at other factors regarding the cost of gas. And what happended to the Great Depression we were promised? Whatever happened to the Great Depression? Not the real one from 70 years ago, the lost decade of unimagined misery and Steinbeckian angst, the worst period in the history of modern capitalism. I mean the replay we were promised this year. I don’t know about you but I feel a bit cheated. There we all were, led to believe by so many commentators that the sub-prime crisis was...

The White House's top economist said he's confident the U.S. economy hasn't dipped into recession, and expressed optimism that stimulus checks could bolster growth in the current quarter, earlier than expected. "The data are pretty clear that we are not in a recession," Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear told a meeting of editors and reporters from the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. Battered by the housing crisis and rising energy prices, the economy grew at an anemic 0.6% rate in the first three months of the year, the same pace as in the fourth quarter of...

Paulson Says Worst Of Credit Crisis May Be OverCBS News Interactive: Eye On The Economy WASHINGTON (AP) - The worst of the nation's credit crisis may have passed, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday, though he acknowledged rising gas prices will blunt the effect of 130 million economic stimulus checks. He ruled out a second stimulus package for now. In an interview with The Associated Press, Paulson said the turmoil that has gripped Wall Street and that took a turn for the worse again in March has eased somewhat. "There's progress," he said. "I think we're closer to the end...

It’s an election year, and partisan acrimony has escalated. Democrats and Republicans portray themselves as the nation’s saviors against all the programmatic atrocities of the other side. Can we find a refuge of common-sense agreement amid this self-serving political din? Well, here’s a proposal for the economy: Enact a temporary extension of unemployment insurance from the standard 26 weeks to 39 weeks. The proposal’s virtue is precisely its modesty. Benefits have been extended in every recession except one since the 1950s. Although most unemployed usually find new jobs within the normal six months, the task becomes harder in a slump....

For more than 200 years, America reigned as the worlds most productive, prosperous, powerful and generous nation on earth. Like all nations, America is nothing more or less than the sum of its people and their belief system. In the case of America, they were once a people who had risked all to gain national independence and sovereignty, individual liberty and personal freedom for every man, woman and child. Generation after generation volunteered the blood of its best citizens to protect individual rights from all who would attack them in the name of some greater common good. The brave who...

Worker productivity rose by a better-than-expected amount in the first three months of the year while labor cost pressures eased. The Labor Department reported Wednesday that productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, increased at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter. That was slightly higher than the 1.5 percent increase which had been expected. In a sign that inflation could be easing, labor cost pressures slowed a bit. Unit labor costs rose at an annual rate of 2.2 percent, down from a 2.8 percent rise in the final three months of last year. While...

President Bush may turn out to be the top economic forecaster in the country. About a month ago, he told reporters, "We're not in a recession — we're in a slowdown." At a White House news conference a few weeks later, despite the fact that reporters pressed him to use the "R" word, Bush refused. And last Friday, after the most recent jobs report — which produced a much-smaller-than-expected decline in corporate payrolls, a huge 362,000 increase in the more entrepreneurial household survey (the best gain in five months) and a historically low 5% unemployment rate (4.95%, to be precise)...