Grand Theft Economics
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Burton Frierson
News Daily
Fri, 16 May 2008 14:25 EDT |
NEW YORK - Consumer confidence tumbled to its lowest in 28 years this month, a survey showed on Friday, as short-term inflation expectations reached the highest levels since the stagflationary early 1980s.
The news heightens the dilemma for the Federal Reserve, which has bet that slowing economic growth will tame inflation pressures. The report also showed that lower-income households were the focus of the downturn in sentiment.
 | | ©REUTERS/Joshua Lott | | Pedestrians walk past a Banana Republic store along 5th Avenue in New York City, May 11, 2008. |
The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers' preliminary index of confidence fell to 59.5 in May, the lowest since June 1980. In April it was at 62.6.
"Troubling all around, lower confidence and ongoing inflation worries," said Ian Lyngen, interest rate strategist at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut.
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Cal Mankowski, Ellis Mnyandu and Kristina Cooke
News Daily
Fri, 16 May 2008 14:20 EDT |
NEW YORK - Stocks fell on Friday after the price of oil hit a record and consumer sentiment data came in surprisingly weak, reviving concerns over spending.
The unease about the state of the consumer outweighed earlier optimism following a surprise rise in U.S. housing starts and stronger-than-expected earnings from retailers Nordstrom and Abercrombie & Fitch .
U.S. consumer confidence tumbled to its lowest in 28 years this month, according to the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, as short-term inflation expectations hit their highest since the stagflation era of the early 1980s.
 | | ©REUTERS/Brendan McDermid | | Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, April 29, 2008. |
The price of oil shot to a record high near $128 a barrel after Goldman Sachs , the most active investment bank in energy markets, sharply raised its price forecast for the second half of 2008. |
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Tom Harper |
Bring It On!
Mon, 12 May 2008 05:18 EDT |
Well, technically it isn't murder. And Monsanto isn't the only culprit; they're just the biggest.
Tens of thousands of farmers in India have committed suicide during the past few years. A large part of the problem is Monsanto's increasing stranglehold on the world's seed supply. Their patented seeds cost three times as much as most other seeds. |
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G. Pascal Zachary
Foreign Policy
Fri, 16 May 2008 01:17 EDT |
For years, Western experts promised Africans that free-market ideology would save them from poverty and famine. Now, one African country is showing that sometimes, a little protectionism can work wonders.
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Festus Akanbi
AllAfrica.com
Sun, 11 May 2008 18:01 EDT |
United States of America has launched a comprehensive probe of the Nigerian oil industry over an alleged bribery scandal involving a former Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root, (KBR) and some unnamed Nigerian officials during negotiation for its work on a key Royal Dutch Shell project in Nigeria. The probe is to cover a period of 20 years.
Halliburton's Nigerian scandal widened from accusations of bribery to accusations of embezzlement by senior executives. The company recently dismissed two of its most senior executives, Robert Stanley and William Chaudin, on suspicion of embezzling $5 million from a Nigerian energy project. |
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Chris Kelly
Reuters
Mon, 12 May 2008 16:37 EDT |
Long-term growth prospects in China should continue to fuel the country's insatiable demand for raw materials like copper and keep a commodity boom in place for years to come, a hedge fund executive said. |
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Wall Street Journal
Tue, 13 May 2008 14:27 EDT
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The Justice Department has just indicted a private banker and a trust-company owner for allegedly helping an American billionaire avoid taxes on $200 million in income.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, names Bradley Birkenfeld, an American who resides in Switzerland and worked for two large Swiss banks (which aren't named). It also names Mario Staggl, a Liechtenstein-based owner of a trust company.
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Ian Angus
Global Research
Sun, 11 May 2008 14:17 EDT |
 | | ©GlobalResearch.ca |
"Nowhere in the world, in no act of genocide, in no war, are so many people killed per minute, per hour and per day as those who are killed by hunger and poverty on our planet." - Fidel Castro, 1998
When food riots broke out in Haiti last month, the first country to respond was Venezuela. Within days, planes were on their way from Caracas, carrying 364 tons of badly needed food.
The people of Haiti are "suffering from the attacks of the empire's global capitalism," Venezuelan president Hugo Chàvez said. "This calls for genuine and profound solidarity from all of us. It is the least we can do for Haiti."
Venezuela's action is in the finest tradition of human solidarity. When people are hungry, we should do our best to feed them. Venezuela's example should be applauded and emulated.
But aid, however necessary, is only a stopgap. To truly address the problem of world hunger, we must understand and then change the system that causes it.
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Simon Whelan
World Socialist Web Site
Wed, 14 May 2008 14:12 EDT |
The choice of headline to mark 20th aniversary of the Sunday Times Rich List will hardly have given the newspaper's editor sleepness nights: "Rich Get Richer under New Labour." The same headline would suffice for each of the past 10 years.
But this time the uninterupted growth of wealth amongst the already super-rich takes place amidst a period of extreme economic turbulence, during which the living standards of working people have fallen sharply. As Sunday Times journalist Philip Beresford's opening gambit illustrates: "Even as the storm clouds gather, Britiain's super-rich have never been richer." |
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Bernard Woodall
News Daily
Thu, 15 May 2008 13:43 EDT |
LOS ANGELES - Alaska hit a milestone on Wednesday that could be a sign of things to come around the United States this summer -- it became the first state where the average price for regular gasoline reached $4 per gallon.
"It wasn't totally unexpected," said Geoff Sundstrom, spokesman for the travel and auto group AAA which issues a daily gasoline price report.
"Oil prices recently brushed against $127 per barrel so certainly, $4 gasoline could be in the cards for other states as well this summer," said Sundstrom. |
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