The Price of Wheat Will Effect Pizza Prices 

When most people think about something that is going up in price, they immediately draw one conclusion, gasoline; however, recent environmental, agricultural and economical trends have brought another commodity to the table, wheat.

Wheat is integral to our economy. Flour makes all-around favorite like bread, pasta and of course, the undisputed king of culinary consistency, pizza. On the Web site for the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission a press release, posted Feb. 8, commented on the approval of several amendments to increase the daily price limit on wheat contracts to 60 cents per bushel, up from 30 cents per bushel — with a further hike to 90 cents per bushel if necessary. This basically sets the maximum price advance from the previous day’s closing price.

From Groceries To College Tuition. Why Are They Getting So Costly? Why? Why? Why?

1. Eggs  Ethanol (made from corn)–otherwise known as chicken feed results in egg producers having to reduce their number of birds because they can’t afford to feed them. Annualized rate of price increase between December 2004 and December 2007: 15%
2. Coffee   Much of the coffee swilled in the U.S. comes from Brazil, and bumper crops have been hard to come by in recent years. Annualized Rate Of Price Increase: 6%
3. College Tuition and Fees   Rising high school graduation rates translate to a crush on college campuses which leads to outstripping capacity. Annualized Rate Of Price Increase: 6%
4. Milk  As global demand for protein products spikes (especially in China and India), so too have prices for all dairy products. Annualized rate of price increase: 6%
5. White Bread  Less supply and same demand equals higher bread prices. Annualized rate of price increase: 6%
6. Admission to Sporting Events  Baby boomers have money to burn on recreational activities like a day at the ballpark. Consequence of all that demand: higher ticker prices. Annualized rate of price increase: 5%
7. Tobacco and Smoking Products   Both higher taxes and federal laws compelling Big Tobacco to cover tobacco-related health care costs have jacked up the prices.  Annualized Rate Of Price Increase: 5%

Here’s the rest of the list.

There Are No Excuses For Why You’re In Debt

Self-deception and a lack of control are the chief reasons for many poor spending decisions, and whiny explanations about wasteful purchases are nothing more than excuses for bad spending behavior.

1.  I could die tomorrow, so I’ll live for today. This immature attitude justifies actions of the buy-it-now and pay-for-it-whenever class. It’s the primary excuse for not saving money.

2. I work hard, I deserve it.  While it is true that many Americans are overworked and that you have to treat yourself occasionally, self-gifting is more prominent today because of advertising pitches to buy things “because you deserve them.” You also deserve to live out a retirement.

3. I don’t have a head for numbers. This is the excuse given for not paying attention to personal finances. Managing money doesn’t require complicated mathematics. Consumers now have a plethora of free online tools to help with all sorts of financial planning.

4. I’m too busy to compare prices or manage money. This might be true for a small fraction of people, but mostly it’s a lie. Shutting off the TV one night a week will provide most people plenty of time to manage their finances. For those truly time-strapped, consider hiring a good financial adviser.

5. It’s an investment. Most consumer purchases aren’t investments, because almost all of them plummet in value the moment you leave the store. So you don’t “invest” in a car, a plasma TV or a new pair of shoes unless somehow they’ll make you money. They are expenses. Calling them an investment is self-delusion.

6. I don’t earn enough to save money. Saving is not about what you earn, it’s about what you keep. If your paycheck truly covers only the cost of bare necessities, you have an income problem. It’s time to work more hours or earn more with the hours you work.

While most of us think that money is used financial transactions, for some it’s also a place to jot down notes, scribble and doodle.

GM Posts Record US Automotive Loss of $38.7B for 2007

General Motors Corp. reported a $38.7 billion loss for 2007 on Tuesday, the largest annual loss ever for an automotive company, and said it is making a new round of buyout offers to U.S. hourly workers in hopes of replacing some of them with lower-paid help. GM won’t say how many workers it hopes to shed, but under its new contract with the UAW, it will be able to replace up to 16,000 workers doing non-assembly jobs with new employees who will be paid HALF the old wage of $28 per hour.

Families moving out of apartment complexes, schools reporting enrollment drops, business owners complaining about fewer clients. What’s going on?

While it is too early to know for certain, a consensus is developing among economists, business people and immigration groups that the weakening economy coupled with recent curbs on illegal immigration are steering Hispanic immigrants out of the state. The state has enacted one of the country’s toughest laws to punish employers who hire illegal immigrants, and the county sheriff here in Phoenix has been enforcing federal immigration laws by rounding up people living here illegally.

State Representative Russell K. Pearce, a Republican from Mesa and leading advocate of the crackdown on illegal immigration, takes reports of unauthorized workers leaving as a sign of success. An estimated one in 10 workers in Arizona are Hispanic immigrants, both legal and illegal, twice the national average.

Although prosecutors in the state do not plan to begin enforcing the sanctions against employers until next month, several employers have reportedly already dismissed workers whose legal authorization to work could not be proved, as required by the law. Property managers report that families have uprooted overnight, with little or no notice. The Cartwright Elementary School District in west Phoenix, for instance, reported a loss of 525 students this school year. Maybe this is another reason why.

There is still $300bn of bad debt out there, and Japan could be hiding most of it.

Just as battered investors had begun to glimpse signs of recovery in America, the next shoe has dropped with an almighty thud in Japan. The Tokyo bourse has crumbled, suffering the worst start to the year since the Second World War. The Nikkei index is down 17% since Christmas, and the shares of Japanese banks are leading the slide. Americans and Europeans have so far confessed to $130bn of the estimated $400bn to $500bn of wealth that has vanished into the sub-prime hole.

Could the U.S. be in recession?

61% of the public believes the economy is now suffering through its first recession since 2001. The fallout from a depressed housing market and a credit crunch nearly caused the economy to stall in the final three months of last year. Some experts, like the majority of people questioned in the poll, say the economy actually may be shrinking now. The worry is that consumers and businesses will hunker down further and pull back spending, sending the economy into a tailspin.

For all of 2007, the economy grew by just 2.2%. That was the weakest performance since 2002, when the country was struggling to recover from the last recession. The housing collapse was the biggest culprit in 2007. Thanks alot, housing problem!!

The total of bids received from banks at the latest auction was $58.4-billion for the $30-billion that was being provided in short-term 28-day loans.

The Federal Reserve, seeking to combat the effects of a serious credit crisis, said Tuesday it had auctioned $30-billion (U.S.) in funds to commercial banks at an interest rate of 3.010 per cent.

It marked the fifth in a series of auctions that so far have pumped $130-billion in money into the U.S. banking system in an effort to provide cash-strapped banks with extra reserves. The Fed’s hope is that the increased resources will keep banks lending and prevent a severe credit squeeze from making the current economic slowdown worse.

The latest auction results showed that the Fed’s effort is having success. The 3.010 per cent interest rate is the lowest rate for any of the five auctions held so far. It was slightly below the previous auction, when the interest rate had been 3.123 per cent.

The first two auctions in December had seen rates for the funds provided at 4.65% and 4.67% while the first auction in January had seen a rate of 3.95%.

  Assets under management, in billions, as of Dec. 31.

1. Bridgewater Associates
2. Farallon Capital Mgmt.
3. Och-Ziff Capital Mgmt. Group
4. D.E. Shaw Group
5. Goldman Sachs Asset Mgmt.
6. Renaissance Technologies
7. Paulson & Co.
8. Highbridge Capital Mgmt.
9. Barclays Global Investors
10. Citadel Investment Group

Boiler Room: An unflattering term used to describe a fraud scheme in which salespeople are hired to call unsuspecting individuals and push investment opportunities.

“Boiler rooms” that use high-pressure tactics to lure investors to buy stocks have become a worldwide problem, with operations identified in areas as far-flung as southeast Asia and Africa. Trying to close these operations, which commonly cold call potential investors and use fraudulent methods to push overpriced stocks, is a challenge because they can set up shop virtually anywhere and are hard to track.

Boiler rooms, a term that refers to the kind of makeshift offices these operations often use as their base, have been a focus of U.S. authorities for years. They involve brokers who refuse to say anything negative about the stocks they push and make baseless predictions about how much the shares are likely to jump.

One problem in monitoring the schemes is that the deceptive brokerages may hold themselves out as legitimate firms that are set up in one place but in fact are operating out of another locale. Southeast Asia and Africa are two regions where such activities have been identified, as well as in parts of Europe such as the UK and Spain.

International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), an umbrella organization for the world’s securities regulators, whose group promotes international cooperation among securities regulators, is pressing roughly half of its more than 100 member countries that have not yet signed a 2002 memorandum of understanding on sharing information. Most countries in the larger financial markets, including the United States, the UK, France, Germany, Japan and Australia, have signed the memorandum.

Bosses who never need to work any more, but go to the office anyway

While many billionaires do enjoy a blessedly unhurried existence, some embrace a very different approach: They hit the office every day. The most prominent working rich? The world’s wealthiest chief executives. These are people who don’t have to work another day in their lives. And yet they choose to devote untold amounts of time and energy to the arduous task of running a company and answering to shareholders.

Who are they? By perusing the ranks of the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans from September and our annual billionaires’ list from last March, Forbes found the 10 richest CEOs around, some of whom founded their own companies, others who benefited from large inheritances and still others who built their fortunes through other means.

1. Warren Buffett Net worth: $52 billion

   Chairman and chief executive, Berkshire Hathaway

2. Lakshmi Mittal Net worth: $32 billion

   Chairman and chief executive, ArcelorMittal

3. Sheldon Adelson Net worth: $28 billion

   Chairman and chief executive, Las Vegas Sands

4. Bernard Arnault Net worth: $26 billion

   Chairman and chief executive of LVMH Group

5. Lawrence Ellison Net worth: $26 billion

   Chief executive of Oracle

6. Mukesh Ambani Net worth: $20.1 billion

   Chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries

7. Anil Ambani Net worth: $18.2 billion

   Chairman of Reliance ADA

8. Michael Dell Net worth: $17.2 billion

   Chairman and chief executive, Dell

9. Azim Premji Net worth: $17.1 billion

   Chairman, Wipro

10. Charles Koch Net worth: $17 billion

    Chairman and chief executive, Koch Industries

Once a buyer falls in love with a property, they actively collude in the whole fairy-tale process, swallowing whatever the seller says without thinking to question it.  

1. “My neighbors are wonderful!”  Really? Why not check it out for yourself? Knock on the wonderful neighbor’s door. Tell them you are thinking of buying the house next door and ask them what they think of the neighborhood.
2. “The roof leaked once, but we fixed it.”  The seller may not even think they are lying here, but if the repairs have been done in some half-baked way, you need to know. Get a professional home inspection. 
3. “I’ve only seen one termite on the deck.”  If there’s any hint that there might be problems with pests, you should get an insect inspection. These creatures are not wandering hobos dropping in on a house for a look around then moving on their merry way. They come in groups.
4. “There’s no radon — ever.”  Nearly one out of every 15 homes in the U.S. is estimated to have elevated radon levels. To find out about radon gas levels in your area, contact your local Environmental Protection Agency office.

5. “I didn’t know I should have told you about the foreclosure.” Get title insurance. Judgments, tax and mechanical liens are covered by title insurance.

6. “The planes from the airport don’t fly over this house.” You can find this out for sure by contacting the FAA.

7. “There’s never been any flooding.” Most older homes do have some flooding in the basement when there is excessive rain, so it is quite possible a seller could lie to you about this.

8. “Our schools are great!” For an objective view, get a free school report from HomeFair.com or GreatSchools.net.

9. “They can’t build on that lot across the street.” Why can’t they? If the lot is too small, they might get a variance. Talk to the planning board to find out.

A List Of Important Things You Should Do:

• Get a professional home inspection. Qualified home inspectors routinely uncover problems with houses that you can’t see. The most common problems involve plumbing, cooling and heating systems, leaky roofs, kitchen appliances and cracked foundations.

• Spring for extra inspections. These include insects, radon, leaky underground tanks and bad well-water.

• Visit the property during rush hour and on Friday or Saturday night. It’s the only way to see what the next-door kids are like, how traffic is on the weekends, and how noisy it really gets around the neighbor’s pool.

• Get a signed disclosure form from the seller or the broker representing the seller.  If they don’t disclose the defect, they’re subject to suit.

Britain Bows To China 

Beijing Olympic organisers said Monday they backed a ban on political protests by athletes attending this year’s Games, amid uproar over an effort to silence British athletes. China is believed to be concerned that some of the 10,000 athletes expected here for the Games could be used by human rights activists and other groups to stage protests designed to draw attention to their causes.

The controversy erupted in Britain after a Sunday newspaper reported that the British Olympic Association (BOA) had threatened that any athlete who refused to sign the gag order would not be allowed to travel to China. Basically, any British participant who signed the order and then spoke out during the Games would be sent home, according to the initial plan.

Prince Charles has already let it be known that he will not be going to China, even if he is invited by Games organisers.  His views on the Communist dictatorship are well known, after this newspaper revealed how he described China’s leaders as “appalling old waxworks” in a journal written after he attended the handover of Hong Kong. The Prince is also a long-time supporter of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader.

The controversial clause in the contract stated that athletes “are not to comment on any politically sensitive issues.” It then refers to Section 51 of the Olympic Charter, which says, “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.” Issues considered politically sensitive in communist-ruled China range from human rights, religious freedom, Tibet, Taiwan to Beijing’s role in Sudan.

The BOA took the decision even though other countries – including the United States, Canada, Finland, and Australia – have pledged that their athletes would be free to speak about any issue concerning China. To date, only New Zealand and Belgium have banned their athletes from giving political opinions while competing at the Games.