The changeover is creating supply-chain bottlenecks because much work must be done at fuel terminals and service stations to handle ethanol.

The maintenance-related shutdown of one area refinery, production problems at another, and the change from winter-blend to summer-blend gasoline are exacerbating the problems.

"There is truly a dearth of supply in the Philly and New York markets today," Wayne Hummel, of Liberty Petroleum L.L.C., said yesterday. His firm supplies 40 stations in the Philadelphia region.

Hummel said four Liberty stations had run out of fuel the last two days, as tanker trucks drove from terminal to terminal, unable to find fuel. "It's ugly. It's very ugly," he said.

AAA Mid-Atlantic warned drivers yesterday that gasoline-supply disruptions could continue for the next few weeks and contribute to higher pump prices.

The group said the average gasoline price in Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania suburbs had climbed 52 cents a gallon - or 22 percent - to $2.85 since the most recent upturn began on March 7. In South Jersey, yesterday's average was $2.71 a gallon, an 18 percent increase from a month ago. A key benchmark price for crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday was $71.95 a barrel, up more than $10 from a month ago.

Catherine Rossi, spokeswoman for AAA, said she knew of eight stations in the region that were out of fuel yesterday.

Areas of Virginia and Texas, also going through the ethanol conversion, have experienced similar supply disruptions, said Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores.

Locally, gas retailers said scheduled deliveries had been late - sometimes up to a day or more - causing them to turn customers away.

Lou Stiles' Sunoco service station in Mount Laurel ran out of gas at least four times this month. Yesterday afternoon, he ran out of regular and was waiting for a tanker.

"We're a 24-hour operation and pay two men to stay on when there's nothing to do but wait for a load of gas," said Stiles, who has operated the station at Route 38 and Hartford Road for 40 years.

As of 6:25 p.m., cones were blocking the gas lanes at the station.

Jai Kulkarni, owner of a Lukoil station and Kwik Farms convenience store on Route 23 in West Conshohocken, said he was out of gas for about four hours Wednesday. He kept the convenience store open, but he closed the pumps - at a cost of $200 an hour in lost sales.

At that station yesterday was Vinnie Zambuto, a 31-year-old graphic designer from Coatesville who said he had never seen a dry gas station before encountering one last week. Recalling the gas shortages of the 1970s that his "parents keep talking about," he said he hoped the new shortages were short-lived.

"I'm hoping it will work itself out."

The conversion to ethanol was prompted by the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, which left refiners vulnerable to groundwater contamination suits and mandated greater use of renewable fuels. The use of ethanol forced gasoline retailers to clean their tanks, remove all water from them and install extremely fine filters on their pumps.

Ethanol is a solvent that picks up any gunk in tanks and readily blends with water. Those properties could ruin a 9,000-gallon tank of gasoline at a huge cost to a retailer.

It costs up to $1,500 to clean tanks, said Kevin S. Kan, president and chief executive officer of American Auto Wash Inc. in Malvern, which operates 18 stations in the region, including 13 BPs that have converted to the ethanol blend.

Ethanol is logistically more complicated than the petrochemical it replaced - MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether. Refiners could blend MTBE into gasoline at the refinery and send the finished gasoline through pipelines to terminals.

But ethanol must be blended into gasoline at the terminal because it would mix with water if it were sent through pipelines, ruining the fuel. So, fuel terminals have to go through a similar process of cleaning tanks to store ethanol before it is blended.

They must also install blending equipment.

Independent gasoline distributors said few fuel terminals had gas yesterday. Those that did, such as the former Exxon terminal in South Philadelphia now owned by Pacific Energy Partners L.P., had trucks waiting four hours for fuel because the terminal was filling trucks in only two of the five lanes that they use normally. "We are doing our best to activate the others," said Jennifer Shigei, manager of investor relations for the Long Beach, Calif., company.

The three companies that operate refineries on the Delaware River - Sunoco Inc., Valero Energy Corp., and ConocoPhillips - declined to discuss the supply situation in much detail.

Valero spokeswoman Mary Rose Brown said the company's Paulsboro refinery began blending ethanol yesterday, but did not respond to a question about a disruption there this week.

Shannon Breuer, a spokeswoman for Sunoco, said the company was "focused on being a reliable supplier" and was confident that any problems would be short-term.

"First, there's general concern about globalization and its effect on American manufacturing jobs," says GOP pollster Whit Ayres. "We see low unemployment, but the headlines are dominated by the thousands being laid off by General Motors and Ford."

Underlying that, he adds, is concern about healthcare and being able to afford and keep health insurance if something happens to one's job. The latest run-up in gasoline prices also doesn't help the Republican-led government in Washington, even if there's little it can do in the short term about that.

Independent pollster John Zogby sees the public's skepticism over the economy as part of a larger picture of overall concern over the direction of the nation and a president struggling to recapture Americans' confidence. "It's not just the economy," he says. "If we were at peace or the war was going well or there was confidence in other areas, then the economic news could be bolstered and people could begin to feel better."

In order to understand the full picture on public concerns about the economy, he says, a raft of "secondary indicators" must be factored in: health benefits, pensions, gasoline prices, as well as 401(k)s and stock portfolios.

Even though stocks are strong again, memories of a market dive in the not-too-distant past remain fresh. Mr. Zogby sees a 9/11 effect in people's thinking, not just about the stock market but about other factors close to home, such as safety and security - a concern that something terrible could happen again.

Iraq is also dragging down overall confidence, says Daniel Mitchell, an economist at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. And he blames Republican politicians for "being so fiscally irresponsible" on the spending side of the budget. "Even if the tax cuts have helped, between the bridge to nowhere and now the railroad to nowhere people are probably figuring it's only a matter of time before the bills come due and this all falls apart," he says.

For months, the Republicans have held a losing hand on the array of issues facing the nation, and even on their strongest issue, terrorism, often the best they can do is muster a tie with the Democrats in polls. But on the economy, at least, the White House is hopeful that better use of the bully pulpit can boost public confidence.

"The advantage the White House has on this issue, which they don't on other issues, is the reality really is good," says Mr. Ayres. "The truth may not set them free, but it might improve public perception. So someone with an ability to articulate the good economic news in a compelling and memorable way day after day after day could have an effect on public perception."

In a roundtable discussion with a group of mostly small-business people Monday in Sterling, Va., President Bush acknowledged that "Americans need to keep hearing" his message on the economy. On that day, Tax Day, he stressed his push in Congress to make tax cuts permanent, and asked some at the table to reveal how much they had already saved from tax cuts.

Sitting nearby was Treasury Secretary John Snow, who reinforced the message. What remained unstated was the open secret that the White House is shopping around for a new Treasury secretary, someone who can bring a new voice to the economy-is-strong message - probably someone from the world of economics or finance.

Meanwhile, debate rages among Democrats over how best to take advantage of public disillusionment with Republican government, including the economy. Are bumper stickers saying "Had Enough?" enough, or does the party really need a multipart plan to persuade voters to toss out their incumbent Republican members of Congress? Various Democrats - from Sen. Hillary Rodman Clinton of New York to Clinton-era Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin - are launching strategies to spark debate.

In a recent speech in Chicago, Senator Clinton focused on the middle class, arguing that "tax cuts are not the cure-all for everything that ails the American economy." Secretary Rubin, in his newly launched initiative called the Hamilton Project, has centered concerns on growing income inequality in the US.

At a Monitor breakfast on Wednesday, Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean said "the problem with the president's, with the Republicans' economy is that it's good for their base - 20 percent of the public - but it's not so good for 80 percent of the public."

After the bell, Google shares jumped nearly 6 percent to $439 in electronic trading from a Nasdaq close at $415. Google Inc., the leading Web search company, reported its quarterly net income and revenue surged, driven by gains in market share against rivals such as Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

General Motors gave the biggest boost to the Dow after it reported a narrower-than-expected loss and said its turnaround was working. Shares of the world's largest automaker jumped 10.1 percent.

"Today, it can be summed up with GM, eBay and metals and mining stocks," said Jon Brorson, managing director of growth equities at Neuberger Berman. "It's all related to earnings, and it's a mixed bag."

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 64.12 points, or 0.57 percent, to end at 11,342.89. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 1.53 points, or 0.12 percent, at 1,311.46. But the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 8.33 points, or 0.35 percent, at 2,362.55.

For the Dow, this was the highest close since January 20, 2000.

The final week of trading for April stock options typically creates volatility as traders adjust their positions.

Shares of eBay dropped 8.9 percent, or $3.58, to $36.77 after it gave a conservative forecast. The stock was the heaviest drag on both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500.

GM shot up 10.1 percent, or $2.07, to $22.64 on the
New York Stock Exchange in its biggest rise since billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian offered to double his stake in the company. It also gave the biggest lift to the Dow after it posted a narrower first-quarter net loss that beat expectations.

Shares of Altria Group Inc. rose 1.6 percent, or $1.08, to $70.04 after the Dow component and the parent of cigarette maker Philip Morris reported a profit that beat estimates by a penny.

Overall, earnings reports for the last quarter have been strong, Brorson said.

"Our forecast was for earnings to come in around 13 percent year-over-year growth, and they're on track to do it," Brorson said. "They are surprisingly better than expected, and outlooks have been good, generally speaking."

Shares of metals mining companies slid as gold and silver prices retreated from their highest levels since the early 1980s. Gold in New York had touched a 25-year peak of late, while silver hit a 23-year record. Both gold and silver have gone on dramatic runs in recent months, as have other metals and oil.

The CBOE Gold Index slid 6.6 percent, with all 11 components lower, while the broader Philadelphia Gold/Silver Index was off 6.1 percent.

Among the day's biggest percentage decliners was Rambus Inc., whose shares sank 17.4 percent, or $8.10, to $38.50 before a verdict in its closely watched patent infringement case against South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor.

In other earnings news, Bank of America Corp.'s (NYSE:BAC - news) profit beat estimates. Shares of the No. 2 U.S. bank rose 0.5 percent, or 23 cents, to $46.28.

Energy-related shares such as Exxon Mobil Corp. fell as U.S. crude oil for May delivery fell 22 cents to settle at $71.95 a barrel -- off a record high at $72.49 hit in electronic trading overnight. The May contract expired on Thursday at the close of NYMEX trading. Exxon Mobil shares fell 0.6 percent, or 38 cents, to $63.92.

Volume was heavy on the New York Stock Exchange, where about 1.78 billion shares changed hands, above last year's daily average of 1.61 billion. On Nasdaq, about 2.16 billion shares traded, above last year's daily average of 1.80 billion.

Declining stocks outpaced advancing ones on the NYSE by a ratio of about 9 to 8, while on the Nasdaq, about five stocks fell for every four that rose.

This is certain to include the Bric economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China. Mr de Rato will chair a committee of key individuals today to try to help broker a deal.

Mr de Rato said he would propose changes to the voting shares on the fund's key International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), which is chaired by Gordon Brown, on Saturday. "The emergence of strong new economies has to be recognised," Mr de Rato said. "It is not a regional issue but getting new legitimacy for the institution."

Power in the IMF stems from quotas, which are broadly linked to the size of a country's economy. However, these quotas are changed only every five years, with the next review due in 2008.

The US indicated this week it was prepared to give up part of its 17 per cent vote - but only on condition that the European Union, whose members have 44 per cent and seven seats on the 24-strong board, give up some of their share. It has proposed that individual European countries that have votes join under one European Union vote, a suggestion that has not gone down well with the European countries involved.

Mr Rato said: "I am very glad to see that the biggest shareholder in the fund has expressed its support for the agenda. It is not a question of losers and winners. This is about making the institution legitimate and representative of countries based on their places in the world economy. My proposals will be to increase [some countries' voting rights] and that means that countries will adapt to their actual size and there are clear examples of countries that have changed in the last 15 years."

There has been growing pressure for a shake-up of the IMF to reflect the changes in the economy since 1992, the date of the last major reform to voting powers.

Critics highlight Belgium has 2.16 per cent of the executive board vote, compared with China's 2.98 per cent, though Belgium's economy is only one-third the size of China's. Turkey, Mexico and Korea would look for higher shares.

Last week the Institute of International Finance, which represents 345 of the world's biggest financial institutions, called for Europe to accept a lower voting share. Charles Dallara, its managing director, said: "That would not only be in line with progress on European integration but also help increase the voice of emerging markets."

Mr de Rato declined to give details of his proposals for a multilateral forum, but said it would bring together "systemically important countries to work through the impact of global imbalances".

Robert Kuttner recently argued in the Boston Globe that while people are blaming undocumented workers for driving down wages, the real villains are "the people running the government, who have made sure that the lion's share of the productivity gains go to the richest 1 percent of Americans. With different tax, labor, health and housing policies, native-born workers and immigrants alike could get a fairer share of our productive economy." Kuttner points to Census data showing that "median household income fell 3.8 percent, or $1,700, from 1999 to 2004... during a period when average productivity rose 3 percent per year." And as income is falling, working people are increasingly squeezed. Costs for housing, healthcare, education and childcare rose 46 percent between 1991 and 2002, according to economist Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute.

And the situation is getting worse. Look at the Delphi Corporation's moves. The company asked a bankruptcy judge to void its union contracts so it could lower wages and benefits. CEO Steve Miller played the ever reliable global-competition card, saying in a recent Washington Post article, "At the end of the day, Delphi must be competitive in the global marketplace." But as Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University, makes clear, this new tactic will further erode labor's power in the workplace. "What in our laws and in our democracy gives a bankruptcy judge the right to take away freedom of association and collective bargaining?" Bronfenbrenner asks. "Bankruptcy judges should not have that power."

In the current climate--with tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, a minimum wage frozen for eight years in a GOP-dominated Congress, deterioration of labor's power in the workplace and corporate-written free-trade agreements that exacerbate these trends--it is heartening to hear Sherrod Brown make the case that "a hard day's work should mean a fair day's pay."

The Democratic Party needs to find its moral compass, its heart and soul. Closing the gap between workers' pay and CEO compensation and raising the minimum wage (a movement that is under way in many states)--is what heart and soul are all about.

Many ordinary Russians view the oligarchs with a mixture of envy and resentment and are quick to accuse them of having made illicit gains.

Russia's richest amassed massive fortunes and influence in the chaotic privatizations that followed the fall of the Soviet Union.

They have bolstered their wealth in recent years in a wave of initial public offerings and attempts to present a more friendly face to foreign investors, who have been attracted back to Russia's sometimes turbulent markets since the 1998 crisis.

Still, Russia's economy remains reliant on commodities and economists say small and medium size businesses account for a much smaller part of the economy than in developed countries.

Vishnepolsky said the dominance of raw materials had declined in the list as other sectors grow.