Feb 5, 2011

Market Rallies as poor hit by New Record, Food, Shelter, Energy and Clothing Prices

As the market rallies making historic gains on energy, food, shelter and clothing commodities
Food Prices Hit New World Record...
Global food prices have hit a new record high, amid fears that the escalating cost of bread and meat ...The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) gave warning that the high prices, already above levels in 2008 which sparked riots, were likely to rise further. Telegraph

Cotton: Highest in 150 Years
U.S. cotton futures jumped for the third straight day on Wednesday, settling up the daily limit...Cotton futures have rallied almost 25 percent since the middle of January, the latest wave of a historic run that sent cotton prices to their loftiest levels in almost 150 years. Reuters

Energy Prices Are Moving Higher Across Globe
Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest company, posted its fourth consecutive quarterly profit increase as burgeoning energy demand boosted oil and fuel prices. (Bloomberg) ... Oil, natural gas,uranium and coal are all going higher. Accessing a sustainable, and secure, supply of raw materials is going to become the number one priority for all countries.
War on the poor News Headlines this week:
Really begs the question?
Is this a real recovery or are banks and investors making a last ditch run on the middle class and poor... before the next crash?


While Wall Street’s bull market is making America’s rich even richer, most Americans continue to be mired in the housing crisis.

Put your ear to the ground and you can almost hear the bulls stampeding. The Dow closed above 12,000 Tuesday for the first time since June 2008. The Dow is up 4 percent this year after increasing 11 percent in 2010. The Standard & Poor 500 is also up 4 percent this year, and the Nasdaq index, up 3.7 percent. 

“The U.S. economy is back!” says a prominent Wall Streeter.
Ummm. Not quite.
 

 
While Wall Street’s bull market is making America’s rich even richer, most Americans continue to be mired in a worsening housing crisis that the Administration is incapable of stemming, and of which Wall Street has now seemingly washed its hands.  
http://soldonroswell.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/money_toilet_paper_cover.jpg
It’s simply wonderful, especially if you’re among the richest 1 percent of Americans who own more than half of all the shares of stock traded on Wall Street. Hey, you might feel chipper even if you’re among the next richest 9 percent, who own 40 percent.

But most Americans own a tiny sliver of the stock market, even including stocks in their 401(k) plans.
What do most Americans own? To the extent they have any significant assets at all, it’s their homes.  
According to the Wall Street Journal’s latest quarterly survey of housing-market conditions, home prices continue to drop...In fact, the size of the year-to-year price declines is larger than the previous quarter’s in all but three of the markets surveyed.

Things could easily get worse on the housing front because millions of owners are in various stages of foreclosure or seriously delinquent on their mortgages. Millions more owe more than their homes are worth, and, given the downward direction of the housing market, are going to be sorely tempted to just walk away. This means even more foreclosure sales, pushing housing prices down even further.