AFP | Wednesday, July 16, 2008

US wholesale inflation jumped a surprisingly strong 1.8 percent in June from May amid soaring energy and food prices, the Labor Department said Tuesday.

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Louise Story / IHT | Monday, July 14, 2008

As home prices continue to decline and loan defaults mount, U.S. regulators are bracing for dozens of American banks to fail over the next year.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

Eric Burroughs / Reuters | Monday, July 14, 2008

The dollar inched up from near a record low against the euro on Monday after the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve launched emergency measures to restore investor confidence in embattled U.S. mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Treasury boosted its direct credit lines to the companies that fund half of all U.S. mortgages and said it would buy their shares if necessary, while the Fed said its direct lending window to financial firms was available to them.

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Lewa Pardomuan / Reuters | Monday, July 14, 2008

Gold extended gains on Monday, hovering near its highest level in almost four months hit last week, and record high exchange-traded fund holdings suggested flight-to-safety buying was gaining pace.

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Fred W. Frailey / Kiplinger.com | July 12, 2008

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not banks. But like most financial companies, they stand or fall on public trust — and right now, fewer and fewer people are confident that the two government-chartered mortgage-finance companies can survive on their own.

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Kathy M. Kristof and Andrea Chang / LA Times | July 12, 2008

The federal government took control of Pasadena-based IndyMac Bank on Friday in what regulators called the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

Citing a massive run on deposits, regulators shut its main branch three hours early, leaving customers stunned and upset. One woman leaned on the locked doors, pleading with an employee inside: “Please, please, I want to take out a portion.” All she could do was read a two-page notice taped to the door.

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Jan Harvey / Reuters | July 11, 2008

Gold climbed to a three-month high in Europe on Friday, supported by firmer oil, while platinum extended gains made in Asia to rise 2 percent.

Spot gold was at $949.00/950.00 an ounce at 5:23 a.m. EDT, up from $944.10/945.30 late in New York on Thursday. Earlier it touched a session high of $949.10, its strongest since April 17.

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Steve Watson / Infowars.net | Thursday, July 10, 2008

The head of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has warned that the world faces unlimited oil and gas prices should an attack on Iran take place.

Abdalla Salem El-Badri, the OPEC secretary general, told reporters that because Iran is the second-largest producing country in OPEC, providing four million barrels of oil a day, the output would be impossible to replace.

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Jerusalem Post | Thursday, July 10, 2008

The Bank of Israel will increase the rate of purchasing US currency to $100 million per day beginning Thursday, the bank announced.

The US dollar was being traded at NIS 3.22 on Thursday afternoon, a rise of one agora over the morning hours’ NIS 3.21 exchange rate.

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Think Progress | Thursday, July 10, 2008

In an interview with the Washington Times today, former senator Phil Gramm, who is Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) “econ brain,” blamed the state of the economy on “the conviction of many Americans that economic conditions are the worst in two or three decades.” “You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” said Gramm.

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