Archives: 2009 September

If you live right in front of the river’s edge you may very well already have flood insurance. It is just common sense when you live right next to a body of water to invest in flood insurance to ensure that if a strong storm or even just the tidal events from an offshore storm lands at your doorstep, you will be covered. Without flood insurance, you are putting your entire property at risk.

Flood insurance is there to protect you against the water damage that can destroy your home from the ground up. Even just a few inches of water inside your home can leave damage in every room, as well as damage to the personal belongings that are in the path of the water.

First, think about what would happen to your home even if just two or three inches of water covered your floors. How much of your personal belongings touch the floor and how many electrical junctions do you have throughout your home just an inch or two off the floor? How many of these things will put your entire home at risk if there was even just a small flood in your home?

Ground water can start to meet the rain water when the ground is saturated. It doesn’t take much to start noticing a significant rise in innocuous bodies of waters such as streams and ponds. It doesn’t take much for the overly saturated ground to start siphoning off rain water, which in turn creates flooding.

Since you don’t have to be living right next to the river in order to experience a flood, flood insurance doesn’t just become a necessity for those who are in the coastal region. Everyone, from those who live in the plains to those who live in the Piedmonts, can be at risk for a flood.

Overall, the incidents of flooding have increased significantly over the past ten years. There are some areas that have never seen flood waters before that are now seeing water damage that is caused by rising waters produced by new monster storms.

When it comes to U.S. energy prices, everything seems to be affected by demand. For instance, if there is a higher demand for oil, then the gas prices go up. Oddly enough the economic climate should have lowered the standard cost, but due to the demand in other countries, it’s a lot higher then we would expect.

In between the late seventies up to 2004, the oil consumption rose by 28.6%. This year’s increase in China was 25.8%. The demand in South Korea skyrocketed over this time by 344%. It’s hard to believe that before the turn of the 21st century, the cost for a barrel of oil was $12. Today it has risen to around $70.

It’s also important to understand that the price of crude oil directly influences the cost of other fuels. The biggest three are electricity, gasoline, and petroleum. Even though the recession was a stressful time, now that things are turning around it’s safe to say it will rise again in 2010. During the downtime, we still used 1.25 million barrels a day.

The good news is we can expect it to drop again around the fourth quarter of 2009. Unfortunately, when the prices do go back up, we can easily expect a 40c per gallon increase in between those times. While this may true on the gas side of the things, the electricity prices are supposed to decline by 2% thanks to cheaper fossil fuel prices.

Even though the economy is unstable, the U.S energy costs will be even more uncertain. If small businesses and other companies can no long afford their production, then the demand will become lower. This usually occurs when fuel prices reach a threshold that is considered to be too high. Even though this can seem like a downfall, the industry will be able to pick back up again. It’s basically a balance between crude oil sales and the industry having to rely on one another. Once the crude oil prices pick up though, it’s only a matter of time before the fuel prices do as well.

Republicans cry that the Federal Reserve threatened to drive out Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis if they did not follow through with the plans to overtake Merrill Lynch & Co. This came after they reviewed investigation documents. They also said that there was confirmation that the government withheld information related to the amalgamation from the public, exactly violating the Freedom of Information Act. Thankfully, there was no proof that the government tried to get Bank of America to hide Merrill?s losses from shareholders.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is currently looking into preliminary claims that several top government officials, including then Treasure Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, tried to get Kenneth Lewis to go through with the Merrill purchase and not unveil to shareholders how badly Merrill Lynch was doing fiscally. Lewis is thought to be testifying in front of the board today.

Bank of America has received $45 billion in bailout money, but as said here a week or so in the past, they have been working on raising capital to become independent of the government assistance. So far, they have sold $17 billion or more in extra stocks and raised at least that in liquidation funds. Some of the federal support was apparently going to put back the losses they would incur by buying Merrill Lynch.

Republicans said in a communication that Paulson and Bernanke ?put a pistol to the skull? of Lewis and the board of directors at Bank of America to force the union between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch even though CEO Lewis allegedly ?felt it was hi duty to his shareholders to try his luck in the legal system and back out of the deal.? Republicans refer to several documents including an e-mail by an employee at the Richmond Federal Reserve who said that Bernanke made it clear that if he backed out of the deal, ?management is gone,? as evidence of the intimidation.