http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080506/ap_on_go_ot/bernanke_housing

WASHINGTON – A rising tide of late mortgage payments and home foreclosures poses considerable dangers to the national economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned anew Monday as he urged Congress to take additional steps to alleviate the problems.

“High rates of delinquency and foreclosure can have substantial spillover effects on the housing market, the financial markets and the broader economy,” Bernanke said in a dinner speech to Columbia Business School in New York. “Therefore, doing what we can to avoid preventable foreclosures is not just in the interest of lenders and borrowers. It’s in everybody’s interest,” he said.

Some 1.5 million U.S. homes entered into the foreclosure process last year, up 53 percent from 2006, Bernanke said. The rate of new foreclosures looks likely to be even higher this year, he said.

To provide more relief, Bernanke again called on Congress to give the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages, more flexibility to help distressed borrowers at risk of losing their homes. He also again urged lawmakers to move ahead on legislation revamping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which finance mortgages. And, he called on the two mortgage giants to quickly raise new capital.

Big Government Responsible for High Gas Prices

In the past few months, American workers, consumers, and businesses have experienced a sudden and dramatic rise in gasoline prices. In some parts of the country, gasoline costs as much as $4 per gallon. Some politicians claim that the way to reduce gas prices is by expanding the government’s power to regulate prices and control the supply of gasoline. For example, the House of Representatives has even passed legislation subjecting gas stations owners to criminal penalties if they charge more than a federal bureaucrat deems appropriate. Proponents of these measures must have forgotten the 1970s, when government controls on the oil industry resulted in gas lines and shortages. It was only after President Reagan lifted federal price controls that the gas lines disappeared.

Instead of imposing further restraints on the market, Congress should consider reforming the federal policies that raise gas prices. For example, federal and state taxes can account for as much as a third of what consumers’ pay at the pump. The Federal Government’s boom-and-bust monetary policy also makes consumers vulnerable to inflation and to constant fluctuations in the prices of essential goods such as oil. It is no coincidence that oil prices first became an issue shortly after President Nixon unilaterally severed the dollar’s last link to gold.

Basic economics says that when government restricts the supply of a good, the price will increase. Yet Congress continues to reject simple measures that could increase the supply of oil. For example, Congress refuses to allow reasonable, environmentally sensitive, offshore drilling. Congress also refuses to remove the numerous regulatory hurdles that add to the prohibitively expensive task of constructing new refineries. Building a new refinery requires billions of dollars in capital investment. It can take several years just to obtain the necessary federal permits. Even after the permits are obtained, construction of a refinery may still be delayed or even halted by frivolous lawsuits. It is no wonder that there has not been a new refinery constructed in the United States since 1976.

Last year, in order to provide the American people with relief from high oil prices, I introduced the Affordable Gas Price Act (HR 2415). This legislation protects the American people from gas price spikes by suspending the federal gas tax whenever the national average gas price exceeds $3.00 per gallon. The Affordable Gas Price Act also expands the supply of gasoline by repealing the federal moratorium on offshore drilling, including in the ANWR reserve in Alaska . HR 2415 also provides tax incentives and protection from nuisance lawsuits for those seeking to build new refineries. Finally, HR 2415 authorizes a federal study on the link between our nation’s monetary policy and the price of oil.

The free market can meet the American people’s demand for a reliable supply of gasoline as long as government does not distort the market through excessive taxation and regulation. Therefore, Congress should lower prices gas prices by pursuing an agenda of low taxes, regulatory relief, and sound money by passing legislation such as my Affordable Gas Act.

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2008/tst050408.htm

Mogadishu rocked by food demonstrations

“NOTHING TO EAT”

“The whole city is up in smoke,” protestor Hussein Abdikadir told Reuters while rolling a tire he said he intended to burn in the Buulahubey neighborhood of southern Mogadishu.

“Traders have refused to take old notes. Food prices are high and we have nothing to eat,” he said. “We will protest until the traders agree to take the notes and sell us food.”

Traders in the sprawling Bakara Market, which also houses a notorious open-air arms bazaar, blame the interim government and unscrupulous businessmen for the runaway inflation.

“Businessmen blame the government, which does not control the security and circulation of money. The problem is from Bakara market but I don’t know who is behind it and how,” moneychanger Abdirahman Omar told Reuters.

Somalia has been without any kind of real government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre by a coalition of warlords. Since then, the country’s agricultural bounty has withered to the point where Somalis rely on imports.

“The refusal of the old bank notes is an economic war which will automatically lead to violence and starvation,” Osman Buno, another shopkeeper, told Reuters.

The exchange rate is so bad Somalis must carry huge stacks of 1,000 Somali shilling notes just to buy daily necessities.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080505/wl_nm/food_prices_somalia_dc_5;_ylt=AtPsZVnjflOO79wEyAwhylYE1vAI

Cyclone death toll nears 4,000 in Myanmar, state radio says

YANGON, Myanmar – Almost 4,000 people were killed and nearly 3,000 others are unaccounted for after a devastating cyclone in Myanmar, a state radio station said Monday.

Foreign Minister Nyan Win told foreign diplomats at a briefing that the death toll could reach 10,000, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed doors.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma, early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph, leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_re_as/myanmar_cyclone

@ PRISON You spend most of your time in a 10X10 cell @ WORK You spend most of your time in a 6X6 cubicle

@ PRISON You get three meals a day, fully paid for @ WORK You get a break for one meal and you have to pay for it

@ PRISON For good behavior, you get time off @ WORK For good behavior, you get more work

@ PRISON The guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you @ WORK You must carry a security card and open all the doors yourself

@ PRISON You can watch TV and play games @ WORK You could get fired for watching TV and playing games

@ PRISON You get your own toilet @ WORK You have to share the toilet with people who pee on the seat

@ PRISON They allow your family and friends to visit @ WORK You aren’t even supposed to speak to your family

@ PRISON All expenses are paid by the taxpayers with no work required @ WORK You must pay all your expenses to go to work, and they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners

@ PRISON You spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out @ WORK You spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars

@ PRISON You must deal with sadistic wardens @ WORK They are called ‘managers’

THERE IS SOMETHING SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE.

Now get back to work. You’re not getting paid to check emails.

SAN FRANCISCO – Yahoo shares fell 17 percent in early trading Monday as hopes for the once-dominant search engine dimmed following Microsoft’s withdrawal of a $47.5 billion takeover bid.

Analysts believe Yahoo Inc.’s stock price will surrender most, perhaps all, of its 50 percent gain since Microsoft Corp. made its initial offer on Jan. 31 in an effort to challenge online advertising and search leader Google Inc. The anticipated sell-off would leave Yahoo’s market value hovering around $30 billion.

Last-ditch talks between Yahoo and Microsoft were fruitless, leading Microsoft to walk away from a deal Saturday.

In early Monday trading, Yahoo shares fell 17.2 percent to $23.73, below Friday’s close of $28.67, when investors were still hopeful about a deal.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_yahoo

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer Sat May 3, 3:51 AM ET

SAN RAMON, Calif. – Astounding profits in the oil industry are becoming as routine as the anguished looks of motorists filling up their gas tanks.

Chevron Corp. put yet another exclamation point on the oil patch’s long run of prosperity Friday with a first-quarter profit of $5.17 billion, or $2.48 per share. That was up 10 percent from net income of $4.72 billion, or $2.18 per share, last year.

The performance exceeded the lofty expectations of analysts, helping lift Chevron shares 38 cents to $95.32.

It was the second-highest quarterly profit in the company’s 129-year history and marked the most money that it has ever made during the January-March period. That puts the No. 2 U.S. oil company on track for its fifth straight year of record earnings.

About the only downside to the quarter was that Chevron earned relatively little from gasoline sales because it couldn’t raise its prices fast enough to recover its own rising costs for oil. Like its peers, Chevron doesn’t produce enough oil on its own to feed its refineries, forcing it to buy some on the open market.

The company’s division that refines and sells gasoline earned $252 million during the first quarter, plunging 84 percent from $1.6 billion at the same time last year.

But Chevron still pumped out plenty of oil to cash in on prices that recently approached $120 per barrel before retreating slightly. In the United States, the San Ramon-based company pocketed an average of nearly $90 per barrel for crude oil sold in the first quarter, more than doubling the $38.03 per barrel at the same time last year.

Soaring oil prices provided a similar first-quarter lift to four of Chevron’s biggest rivals — Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips, BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

Collectively, Chevron and those four companies earned $36.9 billion in the first quarter, a 25 percent increase from last year.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080503/ap_on_bi_ge/earns_chevron;_ylt=AmdPU1iKk7crdcqp0F1wsBqyBhIF