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TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- A rough road of regulatory obstacles, dull demand for oil products and weak profitability has driven U.S. refiners to cut capacity, likely setting the market up for a growing reliance on imports. And consumers will be the ultimate losers. Massive regulatory hurdles make it highly unlikely the U.S. will see any new refineries built anytime in the near future, "if ever again," said Neal Ryan, a managing partner at Ryan Oil & Gas Partners LLC. The nation's last so-called grassroots refinery, one built from scratch, was completed more than 33 years ago. The lack of new refineries...

John Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6 am. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor. (MADE IN HONG KONG) He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA) designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA) After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got...

WASHINGTON – When Democrats acted last month to give the District of Columbia long-denied voting rights in Congress, the powerful gun lobby saw a target too good not to take a shot at. The National Rifle Association's lobbyists made it clear to lawmakers that they believed the bill should include a measure to overturn the capital's gun control laws. Left mostly unsaid, but well understood by all 535 members of the House and Senate, was that failure to do so would unleash a barrage of political pain on resisters. The result showed the strong sway the NRA has even over...

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/us-stocks-plunge-global-credit/story.aspx?guid=%7B7F45BE2A%2D0486%2D494E%2DB87C%2D76D9F2688338%7D

We've all read that speculators are driving oil prices artificially high — a claim that gets more interesting in light of oil's recent fall below $115. But maybe we're looking at it from the wrong perspective. Suppose that major suppliers in the oil industry are these manipulative speculators. Is it possible that oil prices are rigged? You bet. Here's how: Just how would you raise prices if you were an oil supplier? Controlling the supply — as in the 1973 OPEC embargo — has become less effective with more sources of oil worldwide. And oil suppliers clearly cannot raise prices...

Oil prices fell below $120 a barrel Monday, touching levels last seen in May, as investors began to rethink the idea that crude is on an inevitable march to $200. Light sweet crude oil fell as low as $119.50 on the New York Mercantile Exchange amid increasing evidence of falling U.S. demand and ample worldwide supplies. That helped drag down the shares of energy firms like Exxon, which fell 3% to near its 52-week low of $77.26 and oil-services giant Schlumberger, down almost 5% to $95. The pullback is vindication for analysts who for months have been saying that oil...

LAS VEGAS - Police say they have confiscated a gun belonging to Jerry Lewis that was found in the 82-year-old entertainer's carryon bag as he prepared to fly to Detroit from Las Vegas.

OSHKOSH, Wis. - This isn't how a jet pack is supposed to look, is it? Hollywood has envisioned jet packs as upside-down fire extinguishers strapped to people's backs. But Glenn Martin's invention is far more unwieldy — a 250-pound piano-sized contraption that people settle into rather than strap on.

SALZBURG, Austria (Reuters) - Maria von Trapp has taken a trip down memory lane to see her old family home just before it opens as a new hotel. Staying in the house for the first time since the von Trapps fled the Nazi regime in the late 1930s has been a deeply moving experience for the second-eldest daughter of Baron von Trapp, whose story was made famous by the "Sound of Music" film. "Our whole life is in here, in this house," the 94-year-old told Reuters in an interview. "Especially here in the stairwell, where we always used to slide...

Republicans have no lack of would-be George F. Wills. But what they really need are some more Robert D. Novaks. The distinction between the two prominent conservative journalists isn't always obvious, but it's nevertheless important to understand: One almost exclusively writes opinion pieces, while the other offers reportage with a point of view. The same might be said of the emerging differences between the conservative presence on the Internet and the liberal one: The right is engaged in the business of opining while the left features sites that offer a more reportorial model. At first glance, these divergent approaches might...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic-backed bill to rein in energy market speculators blamed for high crude oil and gasoline prices cleared a U.S. Senate procedural hurdle on Tuesday, but final passage of the legislation remained uncertain. Supporters mustered far more than the 60 votes needed in the 100-member Senate to proceed with the measure, with 94 senators voting "yes" and none against. Yet Republicans may still block a vote on approving the bill unless amendments are added to increase U.S. oil production, such as expanding offshore drilling and developing oil shale fields in the West. The Senate legislation would require...

Before July 15, Senator Jim Bunning was probably best known to Wall Streeters of a certain age as a Hall of Famer who pitched a pair of no-hitters during a major league baseball career that ran from 1955 to 1971. That changed in a hurry, however, when the Republican from Kentucky last week delivered some chin music to three of the government's top financial watchdogs. Bunning grilled Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Chairman Christopher Cox of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Senate Banking Committee hearings on financial market developments and regulatory responses. From his...

Welcome to the conservative's worse nightmare: The law of unintended consequences. Why? Nobody wants to admit it, folks, but the conservatives' grand ideology is backfiring, actually turning the world's greatest capitalistic democracy into the world's newest socialist economy. A little history: The core principles of conservative economic ideology are grounded in Nobel economist Milton Friedman's 1962 classic "Capitalism and Freedom." Too late to stop President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, those principles became the battle cries energizing conservatives since Reagan: Unrestricted free markets, free enterprise and free trade; deregulation, privatization and globalization; trickle-down economics and trickle-up wealth to an elite plutocracy...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Emergency action by regulators to rein in abusive short-selling in some large financial firms should be expanded to include the stocks of all public companies, a former top markets watchdog said on Monday. Former Securities and Exchange Chairman Harvey Pitt said the SEC's emergency order that went into effect on Monday would help in "restoring legitimacy" to short-selling activity but should go even further. "It's something that is very good of the SEC to have done," he told Reuters in an interview. "They can't do it across the board without going through formal rule making, but...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures fell over $4 a barrel Wednesday, leaving crude with its biggest two-day drop in 17 years, after government data showed a surprise increase in U.S. petroleum inventories. U.S. crude inventories rose 3 million barrels to stand at 296.9 million barrels in the week ended July 11, the Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts surveyed by energy-information provider Platts were expecting a drop of 3 million barrels. "If there is anything that should keep the bulls in the corral while the bears feed in the berry patch, this EIA report is it," said James Williams, an...

“Republicans in the House and Senate want an immediate vote to put lawmakers on record” “Republicans on Capitol Hill have been hammering away for weeks … demanding action” “House and Senate Republicans have been working for weeks to coordinate their message on the need for an energy fix to bring down gas prices” CQ: “House Republicans … filed another discharge petition seeking a floor vote on legislation they say could lower gas prices pretty quickly. The bill, the fifth piece of energy legislation the House Republicans have filed discharge petitions on in recent weeks, would cut the number of localized...

Washington - Three decades ago, during an earlier energy crisis, Ronald Reagan strode into an Atlanta hotel for a political meeting. As he approached the auditorium, someone asked: "Governor Reagan, as a conservative, don't you think the 55 miles-per-hour speed limit imposed by the government to save gas is a violation of our freedom?" In his amiable manner, Reagan chuckled quietly and, as I recall, he replied something like this: "Well, that could be. But, speaking just personally, I think it's not a bad thing if we all slow down just a bit and enjoy the scenery a little more."...

Beginning next month, most Utah government employees will not go in on Fridays. Many cities and counties already have four-day workweeks, and some states have voluntary programs for shorter workweeks, but Utah is the first state to institute the four-day week as a policy. Brigham Young professor Rex Facer, who has studied changes in workplace schedules, says workers often like the change, but employee satisfaction is not the main reason government employers are taking new looks at alternative work schedules. Facer says employers are looking for ways to reduce commuting costs, congestion and pollution. Facer started studying alternative workweeks in...

In a web video emailed to supporters Thursday, Barack Obama explained that he was opting out of the public financing system because John McCain is “not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.” Republicans can only wish that were the case. Obama’s alarmist prophecy — a bit of typical campaign rhetoric meant to scare his own donors into reaching for their credit cards — is wildly at odds with the flatlined state of conservative third-party efforts. The truth is that, less than...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Some cash-strapped US municipalities are resorting to slapping fuel surcharges onto tickets issued to speeding drivers in order to fill dwindling city coffers hit hard by skyrocketing gas prices. Beginning July 1, the Georgia town of Holly Springs, near the city of Atlanta, will add a surcharge of 12 dollars for each moving violation as a means to avert a budget deficit brought on by high fuel prices. "It's a creative and innovative idea of our police chief," said Holly CothranDrake, spokeswoman of the city administration which on Wednesday received queries from several American municipalities that are...