Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Quick Notes & Articles for the Day - September 9

The Fed Will Fight Inflation - The Federal Reserve will do the right thing and prevent an increase in inflation above its target, Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans promised Wednesday. In a lengthy speech, Evans explored the current debate about whether the economy faces a risk of higher prices, or a sustained period of falling prices known as deflation. Evans said he was convinced that the threat of deflation has ended as a result of the Fed's aggressive actions over the past two years. He said markets should be confident that the Fed would not bow to political pressure and would act to tighten monetary policy when needed to defuse any inflation threat.

FDIC To Phase Out Debt Guarantee Plan - The FDIC's board approved a plan to phase out the debt guarantee part of its Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program Oct. 31. It is also questioning whether or not it should have the program remain open though for an additional six months. "The TLGP has been very effective at helping financial institutions bridge the uncertainty and dysfunction that plagued our credit markets last fall," said FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair in a statement. "As domestic credit and liquidity markets appear to be normalizing and the number of entities utilizing the Debt Guarantee Program has decreased, now is an important time to make clear our intent to end the program. It is also important to note that the FDIC has collected over $9 billion in fees associated with this program. The FDIC will be using some of this money to off set resolution costs associated with bank failures."

Jet Fuel Drops to 5 Year Low - Jet fuel prices are currently at a five year low according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The cost for a gallon of jet fuel in July fell 50% to $1.90 a gallon from a record-high $3.82 last year, and is down about 10% from 2007, the agency said on its website. Jet fuel prices in the summer months are typically higher than the rest of the year as travel demand peaks before Labor Day.

Apple Lowers iPod Prices - In a move that has some believing that Apple will announce a new iPod version, Apple decided to lower prices on its line of iPod digital media players ahead of a company event in San Francisco. Apple lowered the price of its 16-gigabyte iPod touch to $249 from $299 and cut the price of the 8GB version to $189 from $229. Apple also took down the prices of it iPod nano players to $149 from $199 for a 16GB model, and lowered the 8GB version to $129 from $149.

Articles

The following article just struck me as odd (but climate control is a topic we have discussed in the blog), so I had to pass it along...

Birth Control Could Head Off Climate Crunch - By Gerard Wynn and Nina Chestney - Reuters - "Birth control and new technologies -- not lifestyle change alone -- may be needed to head off a combined climate, food and energy crunch later this century, said the head of Britain's science academy Martin Rees."

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