NEW$ TO U(SE)

Noonan: Road to the Nut House You have to be crazy to run for president. Seriously, you do. (WSJ)

Alberta cuts royalties to lure investors Stelmach reverses course on royalty hike in bid to boost oil and gas investment in province (G&M)

The jobless rate fell to a 10-month low of 8.2 per cent in February from 8.3 per cent, Statistics Canada said Friday.

Employment has been climbing since July, with 159,000 new jobs created in the past seven months.

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World crude consumption is expected to grow 1.8% in 2010, or 1.6 million barrels a day, with all of that increase coming from emerging markets like China.

The forecast is a slight upward revision from January of 70,000 barrels a day.

The IEA said world oil demand started growing again in the fourth quarter after dropping five straight quarters.

Global demand in 2009 was revised up to 85.0m b/d, a fall of 1.4 per cent, or 1.2m b/d, compared with the previous year.

As long as Chinese keep buying cars at a high rate, Chinese oil consumption will keep growing rapidly. See CHINA’S JAN-FEB AUTO SALES ALMOST DOUBLE.

Industrial output in the Euro-16 rose 1.7% in January from December. December’s figures were also revised up to +0.6% from a previously reported drop of 1.7%.

YoY industrial production rose 1.4%, the first yearly increase since April 2008. December was down 4.1% YoY.

Energy production rose 2.6% on the month in January following a 2.7% gain in December, reflecting the harsh winter conditions.

Production of intermediate goods increased 1.4% in January from December, while output of durable consumer goods rose 2.0%. Production of both non-durable consumer goods and capital goods both fell 0.3%.

Via FT Alphaville

Vice-premier Wang Qishan and that flunky Geithner.  H/T John Kemp

“Bye now Tim!”

Mohamed El-Erian: How to handle the sovereign debt explosion (FT)

David Pilling: Mismanaging China’s rural exodus (FT)

All for one: Eurocrats offer up half-baked ideas to prevent a future sovereign-debt scare (Economist)

China’s real estate prices in February rose at the fastest pace in almost two years. Prices in 70 major cities rose 10.7 percent year-on-year in February, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

To cool speculation, the government in January re-imposed a tax on homes sold within five years of their purchase, after having cut the taxable period to two years in January 2009 to bolster a then-flagging market.

But run-away prices appear to be gradually losing momentum. Though the year-on-year growth rate in February is 1.2 percentage points higher than January, the month-on-month increase is down 0.4 percentage points, according to the NBS.

But, as the WSJ reports:

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Many important stats from China today. The inflation data are particularly worrisome as they could force China to raise interest rates. Unlikely in the short term since most of the inflation pressures stem from higher food prices.

Fixed-asset investment in urban areas rose 26.6% in the January-February period from a year earlier. That’s the slowest growth rate in a year, and down from the 30.5% expansion for all of 2009.

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Andy Kessler: Lessons of a Dow Decade – WSJ.com.

Still tepid buying, active selling.

Click on the link below to see the table.

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