Main Street 9

  Europe may be reeling from the worst recession in living memory, but in Italy you can barely tell. As leaders around the continent suffer the backlash from factory closures and job losses, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is more popular than ever, there is not a hint of social unrest and unemployment remains close to [...]

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U.S. oil prices rose above $35 a barrel  parring but not reversing  nearly 7% drop on renewed economy concerns, slumping demand and bloated inventories. U.S. crude for March delivery rose 32 cents to $35.25 a barrel. “The crude market is still hanging on to the low end of its range,” said Tom Bentz, an analyst at [...]

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Only good economic news lately has been the collapse of oil prices. At the beginning of July, just five months ago, the price of a barrel of was more than $140. By the beginning of December, it was down to about $45. That’s a drop of more than two-thirds. In the U.S., we consume about [...]

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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 by controlling demand in the physical oil market; ultimately, they need to sell their oil, [...]

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Gas prices  fell back, yet again, marking the sixth straight decline, according to a nationwide survey of credit card swipes at gasoline stations. The average price of unleaded regular dropped 1.3 cents to $3.726 a gallon, from $3.739 a gallon, according to the survey released Tuesday by motorist group AAA. While prices have now dropped [...]

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  While the Federal Reserve had been tipped to leave rates on hold, analysts said a cut looked more likely after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. The Fed has sought to soothe nerves and earlier injected $70bn  into markets to boost liquidity. Central banks worldwide have faced the twin threat of quickening inflation and a [...]

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Federal regulators said Thursday they could not determine after a lengthy review how much speculators have influenced commodity prices, especially the runup earlier this year in oil prices. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission released a much-anticipated report examining the activities of large index investors and so-called “swap” traders – those who trade on behalf of [...]

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Comments by chief producer Saudi Arabia that the market was “fairly well-balanced” was seen to suggest that output would be unchanged. US light, sweet crude for October fell $1.15, to $105.19. London Brent crude dropped $1.17 to $102.27. Prices have sunk from a record of more than $147 a barrel seen in July. Opec members [...]

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Americans are feeling a lot more economic pain than the government’s official statistics would lead you to believe, according to a growing number of experts. They argue that figures for unemployment and inflation are being understated by the government. Unemployment and inflation are typically added together to come up with a so-called “Misery Index.” The [...]

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