Stocks head for flat opening
NEW YORK – Wall Street headed toward a flat opening Monday as investors smarting from a pummeling last week sifted through mixed reports on how companies are handling a slumping economy and tight credit markets.

Gas prices up 9 cents from 2 weeks ago
CAMARILLO, Calif. – A survey says the national average price for gasoline rose 9 cents over the last two weeks.

New ‘super-spike’ might mean $200 a barrel oil
With $100-a-barrel here for now, Goldman Sachs says $200 a barrel could be a reality in the not-too-distant future in the case of a “major disruption”

Weak dollar compounds problem of increasing food prices (by Chris in Paris at AMERICAblog)
The next time Bernanke or anyone else says the weak dollar means nothing at home, think again. Besides contributing to the runaway gas prices, it also means that food staples are even cheaper than before for export markets. As the economies of India and China increase, they have more cash to buy cheap American corn, wheat, beef, etc and that means competition. Competition means higher prices. Add to that the inflated gas prices for corporate farming and transport and you have price increases at the grocery store not seen since the 1970s. The odds of McCain or Republicans disrupting the system they built stand somewhere between slim and nil.

Sharp Drop in Jobs Adds to Grim Economic Picture
WASHINGTON — The worst fears of consumers, investors and Washington officials were confirmed on Friday, as deepening paralysis on Wall Street collided with stark new evidence of falling employment and a likely recession. 

Banks face “systemic margin call,” $325 billion hit: JPM
Wall Street banks are facing a “systemic margin call” that may deplete banks of $325 billion of capital due to deteriorating subprime U.S. mortgages, JPMorgan Chase & Co, said in a report late on Friday.

FDIC reports second bank failure of 2008
A second bank has failed this year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday. The FDIC and the Commissioner of Missouri’s Division of Finance closed Hume Bank in Hume, Mo., on Friday, the federal banking regulator announced.

Crime pays for US prison companies
Financiers, real-estate agents and car salesmen might be suffering from America’s economic malaise, but bulging jails have triggered a profit boom for corrections companies.

Black farmers work to keep land with co-ops
An effort to help people hold on to their property and build an economy intends to teach people to pool resources in traditional farming cooperatives. Farmers would grow crops that tap the demand for organic food and alternative fuel production. 

Big Business’s Big Term (by Doug Kendall, Slate)
Thirty-seven years ago, future Justice Lewis Powell, then a lawyer in private practice, penned a now-famous memorandum alerting the Chamber of Commerce to a “neglected opportunity in the courts.” Powell explained that “the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change,” and he urged the chamber and its corporate benefactors to invest heavily in this “vast area of opportunity.” In the wake of Powell’s memo, the business community seeded a vast body of scholarship and created a nationwide network of pro-business legal organizations. This investment has quietly borne fruit for decades—and, this term in particular, landed corporate America the wins that thrilled Conrad, and more besides.
The Powell memo was the start of the right-wing takeover of America.