Iran Requests Direct Talks on Nuclear Program
"You know, two months ago nobody would believe that Mr. Khamenei and Mr. Ahmadinejad together would be trying to get George W. Bush to begin negotiations,"


For telecoms, a storm of lawsuits awaits
"Having been blacklisted from working in television during the McCarthy era, I know the harm of government using private corporations to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans,"

Think tank's immigration study challenged by critics

Quick Overview

• U.S. Consumer confidence hit a six-month low in the latest week, pushed down by high gasoline prices and a rise in broader inflation, ABC News and the Washington Post said on Tuesday.

• The Bank of Japan should stick to its policy of guiding key short-term rates near zero percent until inflation is sufficiently high to avoid the risk of renewed deflation, the OECD said in a semi-annual report on Tuesday.
  

• Standard & Poor's raised its outlook on Japan's long-term sovereign rating to positive from stable on Tuesday, citing improved economic and fiscal prospects.
  

• YoY Hong Kong's GDP was up 8.2% in the first quarter.
  

• Chile's economy grew at an annual pace of 5.1 percent during the first quarter.

Quick Overview

• Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher on Monday said U.S. inflation was running too high for comfort, but the central bank had until the end of June to decide how that might impact interest rates.
  

• Venezuela will recommend cutting oil production at an OPEC meeting on June 1, Venezuela's oil minister said Monday.
  

• Mainichi News reported that seven of ten prominent economists expect the Bank of Japan to raise the interest rate in July. However Vice Finance Minister Koichi Hosokawa said the Bank of Japan should keep interest rates at zero to support the economy.
  

According to Barclays IShares Silver ETF Website the trust now holds 907,291,198 ounces of silver as of 5/19/06.
This is up from 69,992,918 ounces on 5/17/06 .. a typo??

Quick Overview

• The Federal Reserve needs to consider the lags with which interest rate changes affect the economy, Kansas City Fed Bank President Thomas Hoenig said on Friday, noting inflation already looked set to slow.
  
  

• U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Friday he was confident the Federal Reserve will protect growth by keeping inflation in check, and denied the Bush administration was softening its strong-dollar policy.
  

• Japan's GDP was up 0.5% in the first quarter of 2006 and up 3.0% for fiscal year 2005-2006, stronger than expected. The Bank of Japan agreed to keep the interest rate near zero.
  
  

• YoY Producer prices in Germany were up 6.1% in April, the most in nearly 14 years.
  

• Germany's Parliament approved increasing the value-added tax from 16% to 19%.
  

• France's GDP was up 0.5% in the first quarter of 2006.
  

• U.K.’s Treasury had a 1.4 billion pound surplus in April.
  

• The USDA said there were 11.560 million head of cattle on feed on May 1st, up 8.6% YoY.
  

• The USDA said there were 67.22 million pounds of frozen pork bellies in storage, down 25% YoY.

• Frozen pork totaled 516.3 million pounds, down 8% YoY.
  

• The USDA said there were 1.08 billion pounds of frozen orange juice concentrate in storage on April 30th, down 35% YoY.
  

• The International Copper Study Group said that world production of copper exceeded consumption by 77,000 tons in the first two months of 2006.
  

Supreme Court Officially Emasculates Taxpayers
Remember - these taxpayer giveaways are accelerating and come at a huge cost in terms of higher taxes for individuals. As USA Today noted, "In 1977, nine states gave tax credits to corporations [but] by 1998, that number had grown to 36." At the same time, "individual income taxes are growing at a faster rate than corporate income taxes" because state/local governments are recovering the tax giveaways from ordinary citizens. According to the Census Bureau, "corporate income taxes collected rose 6.5% from 1994 to 2004, while individual income taxes collected went up 49.7%."

Quick Overview

• U.S. Jobless claims were up 42,000 last week to 367,000.
  

• The Conference Board's U.S. index of leading indicators was down 0.1% in April to 138.9.
  

• The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's regional index of business activity increased from 13.2 to 14.4 in May, stronger than expected.
  

• Fed Chairman Bernanke and Fed Bank of Chicago’s Moskow reiterated their concern about a slump in the housing market in speeches today. Real estate has accounted for more than half the economy's growth since 2001.
  

• YoY Canada's consumer price index was up 2.4% in April.
  

• Retail sales in the U.K. were up 0.6% in April and up 4.9% YoY.
  
  

• The DoE said that underground supplies of natural gas were up 91 billion cubic feet last week to 2.080 trillion cubic feet, up 31% YoY.

Rents a Key Driver of Inflation

The biggest component of the core consumer price run-up last month came from rent increases. Directly and indirectly, rent accounts for about 40% of the core consumer price index.

Watch out: Your mutual fund could report you
Yet you won't know your information was sent to the government, because by law, companies can't disclose this.

Another year, another tax cut, and look who's cleaning up
In each year since Bush took office, he has signed at least one significant modification to the tax code. Each has been much ballyhooed by the White House and congressional Republicans. Each has been larded with tax breaks for favored industries. And each has left significant issues unresolved - so that Congress has to repeat the process in subsequent years.

Quick Overview

• U.S. consumer price index was up 0.6% in April, a little more than expected. Excluding food and energy, prices were up 0.3% in April. YoY the CPI was up 3.5% with the core rate up 2.3%.
  

• Congress passed a measure that extends lower capital gains and dividend tax rates for two years.
  

• U.K.'s unemployment rate increased to 5.2%, up from 5.1% MoM.

• YoY Consumer prices in the Euro zone were up 2.4% in April
  

• Canada's wholesale sales were up 0.8% in March and up 8.6% YoY.
  

• Singapore's GDP increased 6.8% in the first quarter.
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that:
• Supplies of crude oil were down 100,000 barrels to 346.9 million barrels.
  Supplies of unleaded gas were up 1.3 million barrels
  Supplies of heating oil were up 300,000 barrels.
  

• OPEC said that they expect world demand for crude oil to total 84.6 million barrels per day this year, less than the DoE's 85.3 million barrel.
  

• U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow called on Wednesday for more help from overseas to unwind global imbalances, saying the best the United States could do was to keep its economy strong and reduce budget deficits. He dismissed the prospect of a sudden and catastrophic drop in the value of the U.S. dollar.

Permit glut undermines EU carbon scheme

''Iraq's Impending Fracture to Produce Political Earthquake in Turkey''

Quick Overview

• U.S. Consumer confidence dropped to a new low for the year last week, pushed down again by the high gasoline prices and a weak job market, ABC News and the Washington Post said on Tuesday.
  

• A surge in tax revenues has put the Bush administration years ahead of schedule in a bid to halve the nation's budget gap by 2009, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said.
  

• The U.S. Census Bureau said that housing starts were at an annual rate of 1.849 million units in April, down 7.4% from March's pace. YoY housing starts are down 1%.
  

• The U.S. producer price index was up 0.9% in April, slightly more than expected, and up 4.0% YoY. Excluding food and energy costs however, prices were up only 0.1% in April and up 1.5% YoY, less than expected.
  

• The Federal Reserve said that U.S. industrial production increased 0.8% in April, more than expected.
  

• Consumer prices in the U.K. were up 0.6% in April and up 2.0% YoY
  

• Investor confidence in Germany dropped from 62.7 to 50.0 in May.
  

• The Green Coffee Association said that U.S. coffee stocks were down 76,002 bags.
  

Bush & Nixon photo finish
While Bush’s approval rating is still a bit higher than Nixon’s at a comparable point, his disapproval rating now exceeds or equals that of Nixon’s in every Gallup poll except one. This sole exception is the final poll in July, 1974 just before Nixon left office, when Nixon’s disapproval rating was a single point higher at 66%.

Quick Overview

• The New York Federal Reserve's regional index of manufacturing dropped from 15.81 to 12.36 in May, weaker than expected, but still a sign of expansion.
  

• The U.S. Treasury said that foreign purchases of U.S. securities totaled $89.2 billion in March.
  

• Statistics Canada said that manufacturing gained 1.6% in March
  

• YoY Indonesia's GDP was up of 4.6% in the first quarter of 2006.
  

• YoY Mexican industrial output rose 9.7 percent in March.
  
  

• China's retail sales in April grew 13.6 percent from a year earlier.
  
  

• China's banks continued to add new loans rapidly in April, with total yuan loans growing 15.5 percent YoY.
  
  

• Dow-Jones News Wire reports that S&P and the Toronto Stock Exchange are preparing to roll out the first real-time global gold index. The Toronto Stock Exchange is home to about 60% of the world's public mining companies. The new index is expected to be up and running by the end of the year.
  
  

• The Green Coffee Association said that U.S. coffee stocks were down 76.002 bags to 5.2 million bags.
  The USDA estimated Brazil's coffee crop at 44.8 million bags.

U.S., Seeking Smaller Deficit, Signals Comfort With Dollar Drop
The Bush administration, seeking to narrow its near record trade deficit, is signaling comfort with the dollar's 6.6 percent decline this year.

Chart of the day (2)

S&P 500 divided by Vix (Volatility Index) Ratio (S&P 500 green, Ratio red, ****12 day ROC, Rate of change of the Ratio in blue**** )

Chart of the day (1)
NYSE Weekly Advancing Issues

NSA Whistleblower Says "People Are Going To Be Shocked" By His Testimony Next Week..."This Is Only The Tip Of The Iceberg"