Portugal has taken on bail out loans from the International Monetary Fund and European Union. The loans total $115 billion.
This makes Portugal the third European economy to become a lame duck, after Greece and Ireland. Portugal still has to pay back old loans, $5 billion worth, by June 15, or risk default.
Ever since the supposed raid to kill bin Laden was announced, oil prices have been falling. In fact, May 5, oil is about $99.00 per barrel for WTI.
Guess what, now there’s a huge leak in a big oil pipeline in Alberta, Canada. How convenient. Not only that, but officials who control the Plains Midstream pipeline claim the leak started on April 29! So far, 4.5 million liters (1.2 million gallons) of oil has leaked out.
Glencore is a private company in Switzerland. The company is valued at $60 billion. What do they do? Buy and sell commodities.
Glencore is the world’s biggest commodities trader, buying and selling much of the world’s wheat, corn, rice, sugar and edible oils. They also buy and sell minerals; metals, oil, coal. In fact they control 3% of the world’s daily oil supply.
Because Glencore is a privately held company, no one has heard of them. Why are they in the news now? Glencore wants to become even more powerful, so they are going public, offering public stocks in their company for the first time. For those of you who think ,”If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”, the public stocks offering will take place at the end of May, in the London and Hong Kong stock markets.
Glencore has on it’s board some controversial people, including people with their hands in the pockets of U.S. politicians, so do your research.
The U.S. doesn’t need to lose anymore jobs, but Kraft just announced they will build a new plant in Brazil.
“Brazil is one of 10 priority developing markets where we’re making big bets. Today, we’re among the fastest growing consumer goods companies in markets like Brazil, India and China. We’re excited to build on what’s working by making our biggest investment in Brazil in more than 10 years!”-Sanjay Khosla, Kraft Foods
Kraft will build an $80 million chocolate factory in Pernambuco, Brazil. They hope to have it up and running by 2012.
Despite the bloody Drugs War, German companies are about to invest more money into Mexico.
German President Christian Wulff wants to increase business relations with Mexico. Already there are 1,200 German operations in Mexico, employing 130,000 people. Wulff also implied that Germany will help the Mexican government in their Drugs War.
Germany has historically been interested in relations with Mexico, this could be a sign of the declining influence of the United States.
“Our expansion plan will continue to support the socioeconomic development of the Brazilian population. The focus in formats aimed at the emerging middle class will be even stronger in 2011.”-Marcos Samaha, president of WalMart Brazil
Recently WalMart officials expressed their concerns for the poor U.S. retail market. They blame inflation and lack of jobs. But, WalMart is spending big money in Brazil, ’cause the economy is boomin’ there.
Brazil is one of the money making members of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa).
WalMart is going to open 80 new stores in Brazil, and spend R$ 1.2 billion in the next year (R$ = Real, the Brazilian money). In the past five years, WalMart has already invested R$ 6 billion, constructing 177 stores and creating 25,000 jobs in Brazil.
Many media outlets are claiming that Americans loved the royal wedding because millions watched it. This is a clear case of the main stream media manipulating data to mislead. Yes millions did watch, but not anywhere near the majority of the people in the U.S., in fact it was a small minority.
Television ratings company, Nielsen, said only 23 million people (Nielsen used the term “viewers”, not to be confused with “households”) in the United States watched the royal wedding on TV. That’s only 7.4% of the population, the official U.S. population is about 310 million. To put it another way; at least 90% did NOT watch.
In fact when you look at “viewer” ratings for television in the U.S., you’ll realize that, when compared to the total population of the country, not that many people actually watch TV.
“We are one of the largest taxpayers in the United States.”- Alan Jeffers, Exxon Mobil spokesman
Exxon announced they paid $3.1 billion in taxes in the United States, but that’s more than the $2.6 billion in profit they made. How can they pay more in taxes than what they make? They lie. Exxon includes the taxes paid at the pump by YOU, and the taxes paid by their own employees.
The Exxon announcement came after criticism about how little taxes they actually pay. So to pump up their claim of paying taxes they included the taxes that consumers pay when they fill up their vehicles at Exxon/Mobil gas stations. Does the oil industry think people are that dumb?
On top of that Exxon Mobil used their own employee’s payroll taxes!
So Exxon claims to be one of the largest taxpayers in the country, but Bob McIntyre, at Citizens for Tax Justice, points out “They are counting taxes they don’t pay. Payroll taxes are on the workers, sales taxes are on the consumers.”
Read my November 20, and November 5, 2011, postings about current diesel prices. It’s bad news, it explains why prices are only going up, and how fracking of natural gas is really for fuel production.
May 3, Diesel fuel prices are higher than gas, at the pump.
In Idaho, as of May 3, most gas stations are selling Diesel for about $4.15 per gallon. The highest is $4.50 near Mountain Home. That’s way higher than gas. Most gas stations are selling gasoline around $3.65 per gallon, with the highest at $4.00 near Hailey, Idaho.
Yet Diesel futures are selling for less than gas futures on the commodities market. As of May 2, gas futures, for June delivery, were at $3.34 per gallon. Compare that to Diesel NY at $3.29, and Diesel Gulf at $3.31 per gallon.
So why is Diesel so much higher at the pump?
Many websites say it’s because Diesel must be refined to low sulfur standards. That doesn’t explain the higher price at the pump! The commodity prices paid are for already refined Diesel, so the claim that low sulfur refining is the cause doesn’t work.
Some people say it’s because Diesel is actually in higher demand than gasoline, due to industry (like trucking & airlines, “jet” fuel is actually a form of Diesel/Kerosene) and the military (possibly the biggest user of Diesel, thank the War on Terror). That might be, but normally the commodity price reflects anticipated demand.
Some journalists have asked oil executives about fuel costs, but oil executives can only talk about the price of refined fuels sold on the commodities market, not at the pump.
What about taxes? It turns out that taxes for Diesel are more than taxes for gasoline. In Idaho the average (January 2011) pump tax (combined state/federal) for Diesel is 49.4 cents per gallon. For gas, in Idaho, it’s 43.4 cents. That’s only a 6 cents per gallon difference, so that doesn’t explain the 50 cent per gallon difference in the pump price of Diesel vs gasoline ($4.15 for Diesel minus $3.65 for gas).
By the way, California has the highest tax rates in the country for Diesel at 76 cents per gallon, and gas at 66.1 cents. That’s because California has higher local and state taxes on top of the federal taxes.
So, the only conclusion I can come up with is that Diesel fuel prices, at the pump, are higher than gasoline due to higher taxes for Diesel, and maybe higher demand for Diesel (again that’s usually what drives commodity prices, before it gets to the pump). Maybe gas stations are trying to make up for their extremely slim profit margins on gas prices by jacking up the more stable Diesel prices?
The price of May reformulated unleaded blendstock gasoline futures prices hit $3.37 per gallon, on April 29. That means the average price of gas at the pump could be $4.50 by the end of May.
For some parts of the country, like California, prices could hit $5.50 or more, per gallon. For a little explainer on gasoline futures see my post “Think gas is high now…”