Economics Update

In case you are wondering about inflation, retail gasoline just hit a new high, breaking $4.10/gallon, even thoughoil prices backed off a little bit.

FWIW, it's not just oil. BHP Billiton and China's Baosteel just negotiated a 96.5%rate hike.

The currency markets are predicting that the ECB won't raise rates again, so the dollar strengthened a bit.

Finally, in real estate, we are seeing soaring home equity line of credit delinquencies.