Today's Teamster News 02.11.13

Trains Restart as U.S. Northeast Fights Back From Storm  Bloomberg   ...Transit officials across Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island were forecasting a return to almost full service after crews dug out tracks and bus routes blanketed by as much as three feet of snow that began falling Feb. 8...
China Eclipses U.S. as Biggest Trading Nation Measured in Goods  Bloomberg   ...U.S. exports and imports of goods last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S. Commerce Department said last week. China’s customs administration reported last month that the country’s trade in goods in 2012 amounted to $3.87 trillion...
US Air, AMR near $11 billion merger, deal seen within week : sources  Reuters   ...US Airways Group Inc (LCC.N) and AMR Corp (AAMRQ.PK) are nearing an $11 billion merger that would create the world's largest airline and could announce a deal within a week, after resolving key differences on valuation and management structure, people familiar with the matter said...
Have coal companies been ripping Americans off even more than we already knew?  Grist   ...companies pay 25 cents a ton for coal from public lands and then can turn around and sell it for $35 a ton....
Complex Investments Prove Risky as Savers Chase Bigger Payoff  New York Times   ...Regulators across the country are confronting a wave of investor fraud that is saddling retirement savers with steep losses on complex products that until a few years ago were pitched only to the most sophisticated investors...
Ethanol Plants Idled Since Drought Began  Associated Press   ...Many U.S. ethanol plants have halted production over the past year, mostly because the drought has made it difficult to get locally produced corn...
Dude, where's my cheap gas?  Econbrowser   ...a 5.3% increase in petroleum production over the last two years would have been necessary to keep the price of oil from rising. Ongoing conservation, for example, in the form of continued improvement in fuel economy, has been a key factor keeping the oil price from rising more in the face of world income growing much faster than world oil production...

Today's Teamster News 12.06.11

Fed may give loans to IMF to help euro zone: paper  Reuters   ...The Federal Reserve, along with the 17 euro zone national central banks, may help provide the International Monetary Fund with funds that could be used to aid debt-ridden states, a German newspaper said...
Gas exports soar, keeping U.S. price at pump high  San Francisco Chronicle   ...Faced with sluggish sales at home, American refineries are shipping gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products abroad in record amounts, turning the country into a net exporter of fuel...
Wealth gap widening in U.S., globally, report says  Politico   ...The U.S. — where the Occupy Wall Street movement exploded to protest the disparity between the richest 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent — ranks in with the fourth-highest inequality level, coming after Chile, Mexico and Turkey...
Guest column: Do the right thing, Mitch, oppose right-to-work legislation  (By Brian B. Buhle)  Lafayette Journal and Courier   ...You stated that you were not in favor of right-to-work legislation. You stated you did not want to tip the balance of power between labor and business. You were comfortable with the labor laws currently on the books and that tipping the balance would be unfair to the hardworking men and women of the labor movement...
Opposition to state takeover law grows as more cities fall into financial distress  Flint Journal   ...The city’s new governing leader wasn’t picked by voters and isn’t accountable to them...
Walker should denounce violence, threats by his most misguided backers  The Cap Times   ...The list of instances where individuals who imagine themselves to be aiding Gov. Scott Walker have assaulted and threatened supporters of the drive to recall the governor, and destroyed signs supporting the recall, is growing too long...

Libya isn't why gas is $3.49 a gallon

No, the reason why gasoline costs an average of $3.49 at the pump (more in Illinois, New York, Nebraska and the western states) is that hedge funds are driving up prices.

Our friends at The Economic Populist make the case that Libya sells us 2 percent of our crude oil. So civil war in Libya can't possibly explain why gas prices are soaring. Writes the EP

The general explanation points to the crisis in Libya as the proximate cause.

The anti Gaddafi regime revolution began in earnest on February 17. But if the Libyan revolution were the cause, we'd have to attribute a 50% drop in a 2% share of the world's oil supply as the cause of the panic. We would also have to attribute the increase in US gas prices to a nation that doesn't impact the US crude oil supply and, as a result, should not impact the price of gas here.

CBS, to its credit, doesn't buy the argument that Libya is causing high gasoline prices. Yesterday the CBS Evening News quoted Sean Cota of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, who said

...it's unbridled investment money that is dominating the market, to the point where supply and demand doesn't matter anymore.

Cota said pension and hedge funds have been bidding up the price of oil. Last week, two-thirds of all oil traded was sold by investors, not oil companies. Cota said

The total world energy supply is bought and sold everyday about eight times.

And what our elected officials doing about this problem? They're talking about tapping the strategic oil reserve.

Thank you.

Economic Populist remembers when a president stood up to big corporations. It was a long time ago. Read the whole thing here.