Survival News Network

Source: money.cnn.com

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Gasoline demand: The government’s inventory report reinforced a weekly survey released Tuesday from MasterCard Advisors that showed demand for gasoline at the pump had hit its highest level since the beginning of the year, though it still remained significantly lower than the same week a year ago.

“It seems the hard lessons that were learned at $4 a gallon (gasoline) and above have faded,” said John Kilduff, energy analyst with MF Global in New York.

Average prices for regular gasoline in the U.S. fell for the 13th straight day Wednesday to $3.926 a gallon after hitting a peak of $4.114 on July 16. Still, prices remain more than 35% higher than they were a year ago, according to motorist group AAA.
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Source: LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE

The breakdown of the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations signals a “new world order” in which the West can no longer unilaterally impose its will on the rest of the world, Norway’s foreign minister said Wednesday.

“I may have been present as the world order crumbled. But at the same time, I have witnessed the emergence of a new world order where all of the world’s countries are present and defend their rights,” Jonas Gahr Stoere wrote in an opinion piece in the Norwegian paper of reference Aftenposten.

“Just a few years ago, the United States and the EU resolved all disputes. When they agreed on a solution, that was often the way it turned out. Those days are numbered,” he wrote, pointing to the mounting influence of countries like China, India and Brazil.

The Geneva talks collapsed Tuesday after nine gruelling days of negotiations aimed at reaching a consensus on subsidy levels and import tariffs for a new deal under the WTO’s seven-year-old Doha Round.

“The failure in Geneva should encourage us to develop a world order that is in line with a new era,” Stoere said, insisting that the aborted talks should not be the final word on the matter.

Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, has traditionally imposed high duties on imported agricultural goods to protect its heavily subsidised farmers.

Source: Reuters

The minimum wage in the world’s richest country has just been raised by almost 12 percent. That followed a 13.6 percent hike last year and looks like major progress for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. At first sight, at least.

Examined more closely, the figures highlight poverty and economic inequality of Third World proportions.

The latest increase took effect last week and brought the minimum wage to $6.55 an hour. Adjusted for inflation, this is less than it was in 1964, the year President Lyndon Johnson declared “unconditional war on poverty in America.”

Poverty won, as free-market champion Ronald Reagan put it a quarter of a century later.

Then, 13 percent of the U.S. population lived below the official poverty line. In 2006, the most recent year for which the U.S. Census Bureau has statistics, it stood at 12.3 percent, or 36.5 million people. On the other end of the scale, the U.S. economy produced billionaires at a steady pace.

Source: Reuters

As home foreclosures rise and property values slump, U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday signed into law a rescue package that includes emergency backstops for mortgage financing companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Despite opposition to a provision that offers $4 billion in grants to states to buy and repair foreclosed homes, Bush reversed his opposition to the overall legislation because it included numerous other key housing reforms.

The new law boosts oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee almost half the country’s $12 trillion in home mortgage debt. It also expands a temporary line of U.S. Treasury credit and gives the government the option to buy shares in them if they ran into trouble.

“We look forward to put in place new authorities to improve confidence and stability in markets, and to provide better oversight for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Bush signed the measure in the Oval Office shortly after 7 a.m. EDT with his economic team on hand, including Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson who helped negotiate the package with the Democratic-controlled Congress….

Source: FT.com

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced that it was extending two emergency lending facilities for banks until the end of January of next year.

Both had previously been scheduled to expire at the end of September, and the announcement means that the emergency measures will stay in place until after the next president takes office.

Markets responded positively to the move, which came before trading opened in New York, and the dollar strengthened on the news. While the moves had been expected, the timing – a week before the Federal Open Market Committee is due to meet on monetary policy – came as a surprise.

The Term Securities Lending Facility, which provides loans of Treasuries, and the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, which provides direct loans to securities firms, were both introduced in March at the same time as the Fed revealed special financing to allow the purchase of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase.

“These pre-emptive moves underscore that the liquidity tensions are with us for a while yet,” said Ciaran O’Hagan, strategist at Société Générale.