Thursday, October 9, 2014

Friday October 10 Housing and Economic stories


A counter intuitive collapse could see oil drop - (www.marketwatch.com) Rising oil prices are one thing you can usually count on when all hell breaks loose overseas. Fear of supply disruptions is catnip for black gold. Yet here we are, with the Middle East again a hotbed of fireworks and bloodshed, and still no pulse. In fact, it’s down almost 10% over the past couple of months. U.S. shale producers would have you believe that the surge in domestic production is taking the shine off OPEC’s dominance. True, to an extent. But it probably has a lot more to do with the fact that demand isn’t growing like it once was. The sexiest CEO in the world smiles at this notion. Former CIBC World Markets chief economist Jeff Rubin pointed out that U.S. oil consumption has dropped to 18.6 million barrels a day, down from nearly 21 million prior to the last recession. In Europe, it has fallen every year for five years, after peaking more than 20 years ago. Even China seems not to have the appetite it once did. Hence, oil demand forecasts are getting chopped everywhere. “If crude prices end up mimicking their fossil-fuel cousin (coal), prices could be heading as low as $40 to $60 a barrel in the not-too-distant future,” he wrote. That’s a long, long way to drop.

Tapes showing meek oversight of Goldman are about to rock Wall Street - (www.nypost.com) Wall Street is about to be rocked by secretly recorded audio tapes that purport to show a too-cozy relationship between the New York Federal Reserve Bank and the financial institutions it is supposed to regulate. The 45 hours of tapes, made by Carmen Segarra, a former NY Fed worker, capture former co-workers, whose job was to keep banks like Goldman Sachs in line, instead deferring to the banks, being unwilling to take action and being extremely passive, according to public radio’s “This American Life,” andProPublica which obtained the tapes and is scheduled to air a program about the matter Friday night. Segarra, ironically, was hired by the NY Fed in October 2011 to help toughen up their oversight. She was fired in 2013 after, she claims in a lawsuit, she tried to get Goldman to toe the line on regulations.

State Farm dumps pitchman Rob Schneider over anti-vaccine views - (www.latimes.com) Rob Schneider has learned the hard way that there's no way to inoculate yourself against an Internet backlash. State Farm Insurance has dropped an ad campaign featuring the "Deuce Bigalow" star in a reprisal of his "Richmeister" character -- a.k.a. the "making copies" guy -- from "Saturday Night Live." The decision stems not from an objection to rehashed humor from the mid-'90s, but to Schneider's outspoken stance against childhood vaccines.  Along with former "View" co-host Jenny McCarthy, Schneider, who has lately been busy trying to revive his career with a spec sitcom, has been one of the most vocal celebrity proponents of the thoroughly discredited theory linking immunizations to autism. In 2012, he campaigned against California Bill AB 2109, designed to make it harder for parents to receive vaccine exemptions for their children. When it passed, he registered his unhappiness in rather inflammatory terms on Twitter. "Today California passed a law to force parents to get a Doc's permission to not vaccinate their kids or they can't attend school! Nazi's," he wrote. 

Corn Prices Slump to Five-Year Low on Bumper U.S. Crop - (www.bloomberg.com) Corn futures fell to a five-year low as farmers started harvesting the largest-ever crop in the U.S., the world’s top grower, reducing costs for livestock producers and grain processors. Rains and cool Midwest temperatures boosted plants this year with 74 percent of the crop rated in good or excellent condition as of Sept. 21, the best in two decades, U.S. Department of Agriculture data showed. Farmers will harvest a record 14.395 billion bushels this season, up 3.4 percent from a year earlier, the USDA estimates. Cheaper grain is bolstering prospects for companies including Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. and Tyson Foods Inc. Increasing global supplies helped drive world food prices in August to the lowest in almost four years, a United Nations gauge showed this month. Corn may extend a slump into the second half of October as the harvest accelerates, Societe Generale said today in a report.

Monsanto GMO Wheat Found in Montana as Oregon Probe Ends - (www.bloomberg.com) Experimental wheat engineered by Monsanto Co. (MON) was found on a Montana research field years after testing concluded, reopening compliance issues for the world’s largest seed company. The genetically modified wheat discovered in July at a Montana State University test plot near Huntley was engineered to tolerate Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, the U.S. Department of Agriculturesaid today in a statement. The Montana site hasn’t hosted wheat trials since 2003, the USDA said. The discovery comes as investigators closed a probe into a similar incident last year in Oregon that led some countries to postpone U.S. wheat imports. The latest case shouldn’t affect trade since the rogue wheat was found on a non-commercial farm and the USDA found none in commerce. “We’ve now opened an investigation into this regulatory compliance issue,” Bernadette Juarez, investigations director for the USDA’s Agriculture’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service, said today on a conference call with reporters. “We remain confident that the wheat exports will continue without disruption.”






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