Grave business - my financial world

The question nags at Americans every time they fill up their gas tanks: Why is it costing $4 a gallon?
A poll released Wednesday finds that 62% of Americans blame "unethical behavior" by industry players, while 32% attribute the price increases to supply and demand.
The CNN/Opinion Research Poll highlights a growing debate among American consumers, […]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said policy makers will “strongly resist'' any surge in inflation expectations, delivering his clearest message yet the central bank is done lowering interest rates.
Bernanke played down the biggest jump in the unemployment rate in 22 years in May and said the risk of a “substantial downturn'' receded […]

A former Siemens (SIEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) manager who built a system of slush funds and fake contracts for the engineering giant told a court he later tried to stop the systematic bribery but top managers failed to act.
Defending himself against 58 charges of breach of trust, Reinhardt Siekaczek said on Monday he had […]

U.K. retail sales fell for a second month in April as slumping house prices, faster inflation and the dearth of credit discouraged spending.
Sales declined 0.2 percent from March, when they dropped by the same amount, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. Economists forecast a 0.5 percent drop, the median of […]

Investor confidence in Germany unexpectedly fell for a second month in May on concern faster inflation, the stronger euro and fallout from the U.S. housing slump will hurt economic growth.
The ZEW Center for European Economic Research said its index of investor and analyst expectations declined to minus 41.4 from minus 40.7 in April. […]

The Rockefeller family and shareholders pushing Exxon Mobil to focus more on renewable energy now have the backing of a powerful advisory group for institutional investors.
The RiskMetrics Group also came out in support of another proxy supported by the Rockefellers, who want the position of chief executive and chairman, currently held by Rex Tillerson, […]

There is little sign organized crime is helping drive up energy prices, a senior Justice Department official said on Friday, despite assertions that such groups were strongly present in world oil markets.
“I don’t think that you can directly link the two,” Alice Fisher, head of the department’s criminal division, said in an interview.
[…]

South Korea's economy expanded at the slowest pace in more than three years in the first quarter as consumers and companies curtailed spending.
The economy grew 0.7 percent from the previous quarter, when it advanced 1.6 percent, the central bank said in Seoul today. That compares with the 0.9 percent median estimate of 13 […]

Russia has one of the fastest-growing pharmaceutical markets in the world, but for foreign companies it’s frustrating and filled with risks.
American drugmakers like Pfizer (PFE, Fortune 500) and European companies like Sanofi-Aventis (SNY), Roche and Novartis (NVS) are finding a hot market where rich Muscovites and their private insurers pay some of the highest […]

U.K. factories raised prices at the fastest annual pace since 1991 in January as gains in raw material costs reached a record, limiting the Bank of England's scope to reduce borrowing costs.
Producer prices for goods including chemicals, textiles and food rose 5.7 percent from a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics […]