Fuel duty cut urged as bills rise

Price of heating oil in R.I. climbs
The price of home heating oil in Rhode Island is at its highest point in more than two years and is expected to stay high for the foreseeable future because of increasing foreign demand for Crude Oil. As of Jan. 4, the average price for a gallon of heating oil was $3.24, according to a survey of 47 customers conducted by the state Office of Energy Resources. The survey reported a wide range of prices, with the high at $3.74 and the low at $2.93. The last time the energy office recorded an avera...

Food Prices Hit Record High. What Now?
On Wednesday, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization announced that food prices for basic commodities had hit record highs last month - above and beyond the soaring prices in 2008 that sparked worldwide Protests and food hoarding from Haiti to Egypt to the Philippines. Though the news has yet to evolve into the kind of crisis that unfolded that year, this round has not been without incident. In November, in China rioted in their cafeteria over the increase in School Lunch prices (our s...

Are DeLong and Boudreaux jointly Hansonian?
Brad writes (to Don's initial challenge): I can't get Don to bet that real Oil Prices will return to the energy cornucopian feast levels that they were at in the first post-World War II generation. The most that he will bet is that the average price of some index of five resources will decline. That's not a good bet for me to take. ...It is somewhat odd: given that we have different beliefs about the world, there ought to be a bet we can make where we both think we have an ed...

Oil and gold back off as dollar gains ground
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Commodities started the year on a high note, with oil above $90 a barrel and gold hitting a fresh record high. But the euphoria has been short lived. As The Dollar gained traction, commodities that are priced in the U.S. currency retreated. But this is actually a positive since it points to further signs of an economy in recovery. Email Print Comment On Thursday, The Dollar rose against the euro for the fourth consecutive day. And it's actually not a bad sign to see comm...

Ed Miliband accuses Tories of 'great deceit' in blaming Labour for deficit
Ed Miliband, speaking at Labour's campaign centre in Oldham yesterday. The Labour leader today attacked the Tories for 'rewriting history'. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA Ed Miliband accuses the Conservatives today of a "great deceit" in blaming Labour for the national Deficit and warned that they have concocted a false narrative to justify politically driven cuts. In announcing a raft of swingeing public Spending Cuts the Coalition Government has repeatedly sought to portray that its hands a...

Zoellick: G20 must act to stabilize food prices
LONDON | Wed Jan 5, 2011 9:26pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Free markets rather than protectionist polices are the solution to volatile food prices and the G20 should take steps to priorities the provision of food for the poor, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said. "The answer to food price Volatility is not to prosecute or block markets, but to use them better," Zoellick wrote in an opinion piece in Thursday's Financial Times urging G20 leaders to put access to food at the top of its agenda....

Zoellick: G20 must act to stabilize food prices
LONDON | Wed Jan 5, 2011 9:27pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Free markets rather than protectionist polices are the solution to volatile food prices and the G20 should take steps to prioritize the provision of food for the poor, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said. "The answer to food price Volatility is not to prosecute or block markets, but to use them better," Zoellick wrote in an opinion piece in Thursday's Financial Times urging G20 leaders to put access to food at the top of its agenda....

Zoellick: G20 must act to stabilize food prices
"The answer to food price Volatility is not to prosecute or block markets, but to use them better," Zoellick wrote in an opinion piece in Thursday's Financial Times urging G20 leaders to put access to food at the top of its agenda. "By empowering the poor the G20 can take practical steps toward ensuring the availability of nutritious food," he wrote. French President Nicholas Sarkozy will take the presidency of the G20 in 2011. In his column Zoellick set out nine action points to make sure the ...

Natural gas prices rise on shrinking supplies
Natural Gas Prices jumped about 2 percent Thursday after the government reported a bigger-than-expected drop in supplies, and forecasters said January could be the Coldest month since 1985. Natural Gas, which is used to heat homes and generate electricity, is still at higher levels in the U.S. than the five-year average. But the Energy Information Administration said that supplies are falling as Homeowners and businesses crank up the heat. This month promises to keep thermostats up in much of th...

Democrats, Republicans Teaming Up To Declare Oil Extraction Tax Cut Dead
With the State of North Dakota enjoying a tax revenue bonanza it seems as though the only talk in the legislature so far, in its first week of session, has been about how to spend it all. Tax relief is definitely on the back burner, including reform of the state’s sky-high, complicated oil extract tax. That tax is the third highest in the nation, and “triggers” based on the price of oil making the taxes paid by oil producers both high and unpredictable. Oil producers in the sta...

Crude oil prices settle session lower
Heating oil for February delivery tumbled 2 cents to $2.49 a gallon. At the pump, the national average price of unleaded Gasoline rose to $3.083 per gallon from Thursday's $3.079, AAA said. Jailed Gov. Ryan visits dying wife NEW YORK, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- A judge has dismissed a Copyright-infringement Lawsuit brought by the estate of author Adrian Jacobs against the U.S. publishers of the "Harry Potter" novels. NEW YORK, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Crude Oil Prices closed down Friday on the New York...

Oil prices drop after disappointing jobs report
Oil prices fell below $88 Friday after the government reported that the U.S. economy continues to add jobs, although not at the pace many experts had hoped for. The Economy added 103,000 jobs in December and figures for October and November were revised upward. More jobs means more cars will join the morning commute, which should boost Gasoline consumption in the U.S., experts said. Those who are commuting are paying the highest price for gas in the month of January since paying around $3.11 a g...

Carlos Andrs Prez
EVER since 1922, when the first gusher at Maracaibo roared up with the noise of “a thousand freight trains”, the history and destiny of Venezuela has been tied fast to oil. “Black gold” has brought highways, schools, shipyards, hydroelectric plants and the Skyscrapers of Caracas. It has also brought economic collapse, political repression and thoroughgoing Corruption. Not for nothing is it also known in Venezuela as the excrement of The Devil. Carlos Andrés Pére...

Oil Prices Update
by CalculatedRisk on 1/07/2011 11:01:00 PM From Ronald White at the LA Times: Gasoline prices' rise evokes 2008 "It's just ridiculous. Every day it's another big bite out of my income. I've gone from $40 for a fill-up to $60 for a fill-up in just the past several weeks," said Eric Ott, a 47-year-old Valley Glen resident. ... Oil closed Friday at $88.03 a barrel in New York futures trading. ... "[W]e cannot expect brisk Economic Growth with oil at $120, $130, $140 a barrel and gasoline at $4 a...

German imports hit all time high in November
German imports hit a record high level in November, slashing the national trade surplus as a global recovery drove up prices for oil and other commodities, official data showed on Friday. Imports soared by an annualised 33.3 percent to 75.1 billion Euros (97.5 billion US dollars), while exports gained a slightly less impressive 21.7 percent to 88 billion euros, the national statistics office said. "As regards imports, a higher value than in November 2010 has never been recorded since foreign tra...

Oil prices drop after disappointing jobs report
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil Prices fell below $88 Friday after the government reported that the U.S. economy continues to add jobs, although not at the pace many experts had hoped for. The Economy added 103,000 jobs in December and figures for October and November were revised upward. More jobs means more cars will join the morning commute, which should boost Gasoline consumption in the U.S., experts said. Those who are commuting are paying the highest price for gas in the month of January since p...

Sudanese vote to create a new nation
A Referendum worker prepares a Polling Station in Kadugli, near the border between the northern and southern regions of Sudan. Southerners will vote all week on Secession from the north One of the world's most bizarre yet uplifting exercises in Democracy begins in southern Sudan today when millions of people who have suffered decades of war vote to split from the north and form a new nation. If, as expected, they succeed, Africa's largest country – equivalent in size to Germany, Italy, Fra...

The best editorial page you will find is
Investor's Business Daily. IBD publishes easy to read editorials that show the benefits of free markets and Capitalism. Public Employee Unions: Economist Kevin Hassett warns that the snowplow slowdown in New York could be a glimpse of America's future. Some forward-looking states, though, are moving to limit the damage. Obama's Oil War: Energy Policy: Oil Prices are surging to levels that will soon crimp Economic Growth. And what's our government doing about it? Just making it worse. Political ...

KEVIN WILLIAMSON: Massive Inflation, Right Under Our Noses. Food prices are hitting record highs.
Kevin Williamson: Massive Inflation, Right Under Our Noses. “Food prices are hitting record highs. Sugar, meat, oils — boom, boom, boom. Food-related products, like Fertilizers, are on a pretty steep upward trajectory. (Even the reliably pessimistic cotton farmers are celebrating.) Inflation is nipping at the Chinese Economy and threatens to exacerbate social unrest in the world’s largest for-profit Police State. Meanwhile, Oil Prices are zooming, and the boom in gold and other preci...

Properly positioned for growth?
By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent LONDON | Fri Jan 7, 2011 9:58pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Investors have entered 2011 eager to embrace riskier, higher-yielding assets, but happy to dump them at the first whiff of anything negative. It portends rocky but potentially Bullish market sentiment in the coming week with a new U.S. earnings season getting underway and signs that the world's biggest economy is mending. Positive U.S. economic news -- including an improvement in the labo...

Properly positioned for growth?
By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent LONDON | Fri Jan 7, 2011 11:40am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Investors have entered 2011 eager to embrace riskier, higher-yielding assets, but happy to dump them at the first whiff of anything negative. It portends rocky but potentially Bullish market sentiment in the coming week with a new U.S. earnings season getting underway and signs that the world's biggest economy is mending. Positive U.S. economic news -- including an improvement in the lab...

What is Cornucopia? Boudreaux vs. DeLong, by David Henderson
Blogger and GMU Economics Professor Don Boudreaux has challenged blogger and Berkeley Economics Professor Brad Delong to a bet. Brad has turned down the bet and proposed his own bet, a bet that Don has not accepted. It seems to turn on the issue of what "cornucopia" means. It started out when DeLong, in his January 2 blog post, nominated Don, Mark Perry, and John Tierney for DeLong's "Stupidest Man Alive" award. This is a typical DeLong attack. Parenthetically, I don't think this is a good wa...

Natural gas prices rise on shrinking supplies
NEW YORK (AP) — Natural Gas prices jumped about 2 percent Thursday after the government reported a bigger-than-expected drop in supplies, and forecasters said January could be the Coldest month since 1985. Natural gas, which is used to heat homes and generate electricity, is still at higher levels in the U.S. than the five-year average. But the Energy Information Administration said that supplies are falling as Homeowners and businesses crank up the heat. This month promises to keep thermo...

Men shave heads to spite genetics
Sandy Poirier, the owner of Shag salon, said he started shaving his head five years ago "when no one else was doing it," and he learned there are new obligations that come with the style. "You have to dress well, be more fashionable, or you're going to look like you don't care," Poirier said. "There should be a Moratorium on the word 'bald.' Everything else is politically correct, why not this?" he said. Santa Monica, Calif., Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Actress Jaime Pressly was arrested in Santa Monica, C...

Algeria debates food price cuts to quell riots
By Lamine Chikhi ALGIERS | Sat Jan 8, 2011 8:52am EST ALGIERS (Reuters) - Fresh Protests erupted in Algeria on Saturday against soaring food prices as the government considered measures to limit the cost of staple foodstuffs to quell the unrest. Algerians have held violent demonstrations across the country since Wednesday in protest against high Unemployment and food price Inflation which has seen the cost of staple products like sugar, cooking oil and flour double in recent months. Fresh pro...