Taipan Investor Financial

America Ill Prepared For High Energy Prices

Energy prices are continuing to increase as the global demand for fossil fuels increases and our limited refining capacity is regularly disrupted by hurricanes and flooding. A major part of America’s current predicament is that America has not taken energy conservation seriously and has not planned ahead well. For example, part of the problem with high gasoline prices in the US is the lack of refining capacity. It has been over 30 years since a new refinery facility has opened in America.

Alternative fuels will only give a partial answer to our use of energy and to high energy prices. Energy prices are rising fast all over the world and likely will keep on increasing due to strong demand, especially from Asia. Even with such a strong incentive to move towards alternative energy there are important uses for oil that are difficult if not impossible to substitute.

Bernanke Rings the Forex Market Bell

The Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank, Ben Bernanke, rings the forex market bell at a speech he made yesterday by satellite TV to an economic conference in Barcelona Spain. Helicopter Ben finally spoke out about the sad condition of the US Dollar and said the following:

“In collaboration with our colleagues at the Treasury, we continue to carefully monitor developments in foreign exchange markets. The challenges that our economy has faced over the past year or so have generated some downward pressures on the foreign exchange value of the dollar, which have contributed to the unwelcome rise in import prices and consumer price inflation. We are attentive to the implications of changes in the value of the dollar for inflation and inflation expectations and will continue to formulate policy to guard against risks to both parts of our dual mandate, including the risk of erosion in longer-term inflation expectations.

Mortgage Housing Economic Crisis to Get Worse

Those investors who think that the worse of the mortgage, housing, and economic crisis are already behind us should consider the following report.

According to a new report from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight the prices of homes sold in the first quarter of 2008 posted a record decline.

Home prices fell 3.1% from the first quarter of 2007, the largest decline in the purchase-only index, which excludes refinancings, since the federal agency began keeping records 17 years ago.

First-quarter prices dropped 1.7% from the fourth quarter, the largest quarterly dip ever.

“It’s not going to be the largest decline on record for long,” said Peter Schiff, president and chief global strategist at Euro Pacific Capital.”Prices are going to keep falling until we get to the equilibrium, which is much, much lower. This is only the beginning.”