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Time and possibilities are a jumble in the 2008 investment world, but looking ahead rather than behind is what investing is all about.

Experts agree that fundamental changes under way in our financial system will provide a different scenario for tending to our money in the year 2020.

The united resolve of International Monetary Fund nations to "use all available tools" to prevent major financial institution failures indicates the global nature of that scenario.

A lot will depend on financial institutions, on government and on us. Either we learn from what went wrong and revise our credit and saving habits, or we’re doomed to repeat mistakes.
Some believe the current shakedown bodes well for the future.

"Investing will have changed significantly for the better by 2020," said Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist for Milwaukee-based Robert W. Baird Inc. "We’re in the position we are today because the country over several decades had become a nation of consumers, not savers, who had been borrowing to buy foreign goods."

A dozen years from now, U.S. consumers will have returned to a more traditional savings ethic and will save 8 percent of their income, which was the savings rate until it began eroding in the 1990s, Bittles said. And don’t worry too much about a slow economy, he added.

"A protracted slow economy doesn’t mean the stock market can’t do well, because the market typically does well in a slow-growth economy," Bittles said. "It will be very bullish long-term if we move back into a savings ethic in which we fund our own liabilities and loans."

The investor mind-set must be patience because it will take a while to get through current woes, said Chris Brown, chief investment strategist for Pax World Management Corp. in Portsmouth, N.H. Companies that survive as winners will be stronger and face less competition.

He noted that Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway is obviously excited about possibilities because he invested in Goldman Sachs and General Electric Co. as seemingly once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

"We’re going to see people saving more for retirement, but they’ll also be working longer because they hadn’t saved enough early on," Brown said. "By 2020, there will be a huge shift in spending habits in which saving, not spending, is rewarded and you’ll no longer be punished for saving by low interest rates."

We must remember not to have short memories.

"I would assume that people and investment firms in 2020 will remember the dangers of leverage," said E. William Stone, chief investment strategist with PNC Wealth Management in Philadelphia electronic check payday advance. "We may have a better appreciation for seemingly hidden risk or the risk of chasing excess returns."

Because investment returns will revive at various times throughout the 2010 decade, there’s a chance this could energize investors to chase returns once again, Stone said. The lessons of today may have been forgotten and greed will take over again.

The undeniable staying power of greed has other experts worried.

"By 2020, peoples’ tolerance for risk will return," said Lawrence Harris, professor of finance and business economics at USC’s Marshall School of Business.

Yet in 2020 you’ll find positive differences, such as the greater importance of alternative energy. That means plenty of windmills in the Midwest and in the oceans, but oil prices "going through the roof," Harris predicted. There will be long-term upward pressure on commodities due to growth in the world population and rising education levels that make people more prosperous, he said.

Experts hope it will become easier to invest in understandable instruments in 2020. Many of today’s problems were masked in complex financial vehicles with obscure descriptions. Subprime was only widely understood when it was too late.

"You may see a movement toward simplicity on the part of investors in which complex products are shunned, but that will take a while," Stone said. "A lot of complex financial products currently aren’t traded on exchanges, so we may also see a push to have more of them on exchanges where they can be monitored closely."

Global markets will loom large in 2020.

The U.S., Europe, China and India should remain locked in "very, very slow" economic growth for a long period of time, predicted Bittles. Yet even though China, India and Latin America may falter the next couple of years, Harris considers it inevitable their economies will grow.

There likely will be one global system with united goals, as foreshadowed recently by the IMF, rather than 200 independent economies, Brown said. The U.S. will be the biggest driver, but by 2020 a number of emerging economies also will have clout.

For now, expect the rising U.S. dollar and falling foreign securities to continue to give American investors a double dose of financial pain, Bittles said.

andrewinv@aol.com

2008, TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES INC.

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The Federal Reserve led a global round of emergency interest rate cuts Wednesday in an effort to contain the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

The Fed said it was cutting its key federal funds rate by 50 basis points to 1.5 percent. China, the European Central Bank (ECB) and central banks in Britain, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland also cut rates in the coordinated response which analysts had been demanding.

“Incoming economic data suggests that the pace of economic activity has slowed markedly in recent months,” the Fed said in a statement.

“Moreover, the intensification of financial market turmoil is likely to exert additional restraint on spending, partly by further reducing the ability of households and businesses to obtain credit (pay day loans).”

World stock markets cut heavy losses after the move.

The dollar fell further versus major currencies and U.S. Treasuries rose. German government bond futures wiped out gains, while European bank shares turned positive.

“At last they all woke up!” Bank of America rates strategist Riccardo Barbieri-Hermitte said.

Britain had earlier offered to pump at least 50 billion pounds ($87.2 billion) into its biggest retail banks to help them survive the crisis. 

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The government kicked off a program Wednesday that aims to prevent foreclosures by letting an estimated 400,000 troubled homeowners swap their mortgages for more affordable loans.

Lenders, rather than borrowers, will decide whether to participate in the program, which requires them to take a loss on the initial loan. The $300 billion, three-year program is designed to help borrowers who owe more on their loans than their homes are worth.

To qualify, borrowers must be spending more than 31% of their income on mortgage payments. Loans made this year are excluded, except for those completed on Jan 1. Borrowers must have made six months of payments on their loans.

"For homeowners in trouble, this may be the help that they need," Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steve Preston said Wednesday. Officials did not have an updated estimate of how many homeowners were likely to qualify, beyond the Congressional Budget Office’s projection from earlier this year that 400,000 borrowers would participate.

The program, dubbed ‘Hope for Homeowners,’ was passed by Congress this summer as part of a massive housing bill. It is one of several government efforts to stem the mortgage crisis.

Critics, however, call the government’s actions sluggish and inadequate. Earlier action to modify loans, they say, might have prevented a $700 billion financial industry bailout now being debated in Washington.

Executives from Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) told lawmakers last month they have been hiring additional workers to put the new program in place (no fax payday loans).

Still, it is unclear whether the industry will embrace the plan fully check cash advance. One concern is that investors in mortgage securities must take an immediate loss and can’t recoup their lost money if home prices turn upward again.

Investors would rather modify loans in ways that maintain the ability to "share in future appreciation," JPMorgan Chase executive Marguerite Sheehan said in written testimony submitted to House lawmakers last month.

On Monday, a group of state banking and law enforcement officials released a report that said nearly 80% of borrowers with subprime loans were not on track for assistance to avoid foreclosure as of May.

The report by the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group criticized the lending industry for making only small changes to loan terms and noted that about one in five loans that were modified over the past year became delinquent again.

"While banks and Wall Street firms continue to report record write-downs of mortgage loan portfolios and securities, the losses do not appear to be flowing down to homeowners in the form of sustainable loan modifications," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a founder of the state effort, said in a statement. 

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<<<< Nabeel Gareeb, chief executive of MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. in O’Fallon, Mo., cashed in stock options worth $77.7 million to lead all other St. Louis area executives in pay last year.

Gareeb, who has run the silicon wafer maker for nearly seven years, garnered just under $80 million in compensation, including an $850,000 salary and incentive pay of $931,600.

Gareeb’s pay was the highest found since the Post-Dispatch began examining executive pay in 1994. He was one of 13 executives whose earnings totaled more than $10 million. Gareeb’s pay was more than twice his nearest competitor.

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The Post-Dispatch uses information from regulatory filings by area companies to analyze compensation. Public stock companies are required to disclose the compensation of the top five executives who were paid at least $100,000.

The newspaper computes pay using a method developed by The Corporate Library of Portland, Maine. The company monitors corporate governance and pay nationwide. Their methodology gets closer to the compensation that the executive actually receives than the figure that companies are required to list in their proxy statements.

Total compensation includes an executive’s salary, bonus, incentive pay, the value of stock options exercised and stock awards that vested in the most recent year as well as changes in the value of pensions and other pay listed in a company’s proxy statement.

Gareeb’s salary and incentive bonus pale in comparison to his profit on stock options, the result of exercising 1.65 million stock options last year. In addition to last year’s $77.7 million gain, Gareeb exercised 1.1 million options in 2005 that netted him $18.3 million and 100,000 options in 2006 for a gain of $3.87 million.

Stock options allow executives to buy stock in the future at a price fixed when the option is issued, usually the market price of the stock when the option is given. An option has no value when it’s issued at the market price. As the stock price rises above the exercise price, the option gains value.

When Gareeb arrived at MEMC in 2001, the silicon-wafer manufacturer was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. The stock hit a low of just over $3 a share in September 2002.

An outside investment group, Texas Pacific Group, had bought a controlling interest in the company and made drastic changes, including slashing MEMC’s debt, firing the previous chief executive and bringing in Gareeb.

Gareeb received an initial grant of 2.3 million options as an incentive to turn the company around in 2002. As that turnaround proceeded, the stock climbed to a high of more than $90 late last year. However, the shares have dipped below $30 recently as the market for silicon wafers softened. The wafers are used in computers, solar panels and a wide range of electronic products.

In addition to the initial option grant, Gareeb received additional grants totaling 3.45 million shares from 2003 until 2006. At the time this year’s proxy was filed, Gareeb held more than 2 million options he had yet to exercise.

Gareeb’s most recent option grant, awarded in 2006, was in "performance" options, which require him to stay with the company for four years and also require that the company’s common stock outperforms the Standard & Poor’s 500 index over the four-year period.

A report by MEMC’s compensation committee in the company’s proxy statement says options are a good way to reward executives because they have no value when they’re granted and only pay off when the company’s stock rises no teletrack payday loans. The use of performance options increases the incentive by requiring improvement over a longer period of time, the report said.

Many people who follow executive pay agree that an executive benefits from stock options only when a company’s stock does well. However, when a stock goes up for reasons unrelated to executive performance, an executive benefits regardless of his role in running the company.

Stock options and other stock awards were the biggest factor in the pay of the remaining top 10 executives in this year’s survey.

In second place was Richard M. Whiting, who left Peabody Energy Corp. late last year to head up Patriot Coal Corp., spun off by Peabody in November.

Whiting’s $33 million in pay from Peabody included $22 million in profit from stock options, many of them issued when Peabody went public in 2000. In addition, he got shares worth $10.1 million. Some of the stock was part of his termination package from Peabody.

Whiting also drew pay at Patriot, where his earnings of $250,477 consisted largely of salary and bonus awarded for two months of work. Whiting’s base salary at Patriot is $700,000. The last full year he worked at Peabody, his salary was $540,750.

Hugh Grant, chairman, president and chief executive of Monsanto Co., came in third with $23.5 million in pay, including $12.2 million in profit from options and $6.8 million in stock grants that vested last year.

Grant was among eight executives who earned salaries of $1 million or more: His $1.13 million salary was the fifth-highest in the area. He also got a "non-equity incentive" payment of $2.98 million. Non-equity incentives are bonuses, usually cash, that are based on performance.

Current Peabody executives accounted for four of the top 10 executives in pay, also thanks largely to option profits. Peabody’s stock price has risen dramatically in recent years in response to rising energy prices and demand for coal, and many executives had options before Peabody went public in 2000.

Peabody executives who ranked in the top 10 included:

•Gregory Boyce, chairman and chief executive, with total pay of $22.6 million, including $15.6 million in option profit, $4.3 million in stock and a $1 million bonus. Boyce ranked fourth among St. Louis executives.

•Richard A. Navarre, president, with $21 million in pay, including $17 million in option profits and $2.4 million in stock. He was fifth in pay here.

•Roger B. Walcott Jr., executive vice president, with $14.4 million in pay, including $12.4 million in option profit, ranking ninth.

•Sharon D. Fiehler, executive vice president, with $13.6 million in pay, including option profit of $11.6 million. Fiehler was in 10th place.

Other executives in the top 10 included:

•David N. Farr, chairman, president and chief executive of Emerson, who took in $19.9 million, including $14.1 million in stock that vested last year. Farr ranked sixth in the Post-Dispatch survey.

•George Paz, chairman, president and chief executive of Express Scripts Inc., whose $18.4 million in pay included $14.9 million in stock option profits and an incentive bonus of $2.1 million. Paz came in seventh.

•Steven F. Leer, chairman and chief executive of Arch Coal Inc., who was paid $16.5 million, including $9.7 million in stock option profits and $4.36 million in shares that vested last year. Leer was eighth.

Notably absent from the top 10 are executives of Anheuser-Busch Cos., which is being acquired by Belgian beer giant InBev. W. Randolph Baker, chief financial officer, ranked 21st with $7.3 million in pay last year, and August A. Busch IV, chief executive, came in 33rd with $4.95 million in pay.

However, the Busch executives stand to make millions more in the buyout from severance, bonuses, the acceleration of stock awards and retirement settlements.

Documents filed in August disclosed potential payouts of about $125 million for Busch IV; $75 million for Baker; $50 million for Douglas J. Muhleman, vice president of brewing and technology; and $36.5 million for Michael J. Owens, vice president of business operations.

jerristroud@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8384

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OTTAWA–The value of building permits rose 1.8 per cent to $6.4 billion in July, mainly due to multi-family dwelling permits in Central Canada and industrial construction intentions in Saskatchewan.

The value of building permits rose 2.7 per cent in the residential sector, to $3.7 billion, largely on increases in the value of multi-family dwelling permits in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba.

Statistics Canada reports the value of building permits edged up 0.6 per cent in the non-residential sector, to $2.7 billion.

An increase in industrial construction intentions more than offset declines in both commercial and institutional permits.

Municipalities issued $1.5 billion worth of permits for multi-family housing in July, up 9.6 per cent from June, after two straight monthly declines.

At the same time, single-family permits declined 1.4 per cent to $2.2 billion, with Ontario accounting for more than half the decline.

Municipalities approved 19,518 new residential dwellings in July, up 12 per cent.

Following a volatile pattern, the value of industrial permits increased 26.3 per cent to $503 million, following a 29.4 per cent decline in June.

Construction intentions for commercial buildings declined 3.7 per cent to $1.5 billion.

After three straight monthly increases, the value of institutional permits decreased 4 per cent to $759 million.

That drop was blamed mainly on declines in permits for health buildings in Ontario, Alberta and Quebec.

The value of building permits increased in six provinces in July no fax payday loans. The most significant increases were in Quebec (up 13.2 per cent to $1.3 billion).

The Canadian Press

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The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development cut its forecast for U.K. economic growth to reflect the worst market for residential property in almost two decades.

The OECD projects growth will shrink between 0.3 percent and 1.2 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, and contract 0.4 percent and 1.2 percent in the final three months of the year. The resulting 1.2 percent expansion in 2008 as a whole is lower than the 1.8 percent predicted in June.

The forecast came as the group said the world's leading central banks should leave interest rates at current levels to tame faster inflation while growth slows. The Bank of England will probably leave the key rate at 5 percent on Sept. 4, according to all 61 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.

“House prices exert crucial influences on U.K. activity,'' the OECD's acting chief economist Jorgen Elmeskov told reporters in Paris today. Growth in Britain “is going to more or less stagnate in the second half of the year, and we see that as generating enough slack in the economy eventually to bear down on inflation,'' he said in separate interview on Bloomberg Television guaranteed payday loans.

The central bank said yesterday U.K. mortgage approvals dropped to the lowest in nine years in July. A report last month from Nationwide Building Society showed house prices declined the most since 1990.

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown today suspended a homebuyer tax and proposed spending 1 billion pounds ($1.8 billion) sooner than planned to help reverse the housing slump.

Surveys of purchasing managers in the manufacturing and construction industries published this week indicated growth is contracting, suggesting the economy is edging closer to a recession. U.K. expansion stagnated in the second quarter, ending the longest stretch of expansion in more than a century.

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Time Warner Inc.’s second-quarter earnings fell 26% on declining subscriber fees at its AOL online unit and lower ad revenue at the Time publishing business, the media conglomerate said Wednesday.

Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500) affirmed its full-year financial targets after revenue rose at its film, cable and networks segments.

The company also took legal and tax steps that make it possible to split its AOL online business and sell it in parts.

The New York-based media conglomerate said net income fell to $792 million, or 22 cents per share, from $1.07 billion, or 28 cents per share, a year ago.

Excluding one-time items, profit rose to 24 cents per share from 22 cents per share last year, when gains from the sale of assets bolstered results.

That result was a penny better than analyst expectations, according to Thomson Financial.

Revenue rose 5% to $11.6 billion, surpassing Wall Street’s estimate of $11.46 billion.

AOL remained a burden on the company’s results. Subscription revenue fell 29%, pushing operating income down 36%. AOL scrapped fees for its e-mail service in favor of an ad-supported revenue model, but ad revenue rose only 2% in the quarter. The service still has 8.1 million subscribers.

The company has made no secret of its plans to sell the ailing business to focus on content production. Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes said Time Warner has "made the key decisions that will enable us to run AOL’s access and audience businesses separately beginning in 2009."

Internet service provider EarthLink Inc. (ELNK) has been named as a potential bidder for the dial-up access business. Both Yahoo Inc. (YHOO, Fortune 500) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT, Fortune 500) are considered to be interested in AOL’s Web sites, which would boost either company’s viewer traffic and ad revenue.

Time Warner previously announced it would sell the 84% of its cable operations that it still owns to shareholders later this year no teletrak payday loans. That unit delivered 7% higher revenue on increases in cable, Internet phone and video-on-demand fees. Basic cable subscribers were flat during a quarter that traditionally sees a drop-off.

Home video sales of "I Am Legend" and "The Bucket List" helped the Warner Brothers film unit post 14% higher revenue. The unit’s blockbuster Batman film, "The Dark Knight," did not hit theaters until after the quarter ended.

Higher cable subscription fees and advertising revenue pushed the Turner Broadcasting networks unit, which includes TNT and CNN, to a 9% rise in revenue.

Time Inc., the publishing unit, continued to straggle, as ad revenues fell 10%, mostly at magazines such as Time and Sports Illustrated. The magazine industry is contending with the same shift in ad spending online that has gutted the newspaper sector in recent quarters. Time Inc.’s Internet properties reported revenue growth, but online ads sell for only a small fraction of what a print ad costs.

Looking ahead, Bewkes said the company faces a "challenging economic environment," but is pleased "we’re on track to achieve our business outlook."

Time Warner still expects earnings from continuing operations between $1.07 and $1.11 per share. That forecast does not include any impact that may occur from the sale of a unit. 

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Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Monday that he feels Americans’ pain from rising energy costs and laid out his plan to break the country’s "addiction" to oil.

Much of Obama’s energy plan had been outlined before. But some of his ideas - such as tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and allowing a "limited amount" of offshore drilling - were new to his campaign.

Overall, analysts welcomed Obama’s plan, which included both short-term and long-term proposals. But they stressed that for the plan would need bipartisan support to succeed.

Obama said a short-term proposal, like selling crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, "has lowered gas prices within two weeks" in the past.

For his proposed 10-year, $150 billion overhaul of the nation’s energy system to get bipartisan support, he’s willing to compromise on his earlier stance against offshore drilling by allowing a "limited amount" of drilling.

His proposal also includes retooling the U.S. auto industry to build more fuel-efficient cars, doubling the use of renewable resources by 2012, improving the safety and environmental impact of nuclear power and reducing the use of electricity, among other ideas.

In order to quickly bring down the price of oil and provide relief for American drivers, Obama wants to sell 70 million barrels of crude from the SPR.

Currently, the U.S. strategic reserves stand at more than 700 million barrels of oil in giant salt caverns along the Gulf of Mexico. The reserve was established in the 1970s after the first oil embargo to provide a buffer against future disruptions. Since 2001, the Bush administration has poured 70,000 barrels a day into the reserve, with the intention of expanding it to its full capacity of 727 million barrels, and possibly expanding the reserve to 1.5 billion barrels.

Peter Beutel, an analyst with energy risk management firm Cameron Hanover, downplayed the impact that Obama’s SPR release would have on oil prices. Beutel said that 70 million barrels represent only about three-and-a-half days of U.S. fuel consumption and would have a limited impact on prices, driving them down by $5 to $10 a barrel.

However, Beutel also suggests that the government could have a dramatic impact on consumer prices if it sells its oil at a substantially lower price to the refineries - in a type of deal known as a "netback."

In netback deals, the price of crude is calculated by subtracting the costs of refining, marketing, and transportation, along with profits, from the market price of the end products guaranteed approval cash advance loans.

"If he sells it under a netback deal, it would fall under $100 [a barrel] very quickly, and maybe under $80," said Beutel. That kind of reduction could lead to a decline of up to 80 cents per gallon of unleaded gasoline.

Fadel Gheit, a senior energy analyst for Oppenheimer, projected a more dramatic reduction in oil prices, noting that Obama’s SPR plan could "cut prices in half."

Gheit said that prior releases from the SPR during the administrations of former Presidents Bush and Clinton during the 1990s were "knock-out punches" that caused oil prices to drop dramatically. He said that to maximize the impact, which is primarily psychological, Obama should not provide hard numbers to make it harder for speculators to project future prices.

"We should not have a limit on what we will release," said Gheit. "That is the best way to keep speculators off balance."

Analysts had a tougher time gauging the impact of Obama’s sweeping proposal to overhaul the nation’s reliance on non-U.S. fossil fuels by investing in alternative fuels. But they did praise the plan as a positive step forward.

"I think we need to implement everything [from Democrats and Republicans]," said Beutel of Cameron Hanover. "If we pick a plan and stick with it and devote ourselves to it for more than a headline cycle, then we’re going to move forward."

Analysts agreed that the best way to overhaul energy creation and consumption in America is to not abandon the long-term plan as the situation changes in America.

"We never had an energy policy," said Gheit of Oppenheimer. "We talk about [it] when energy prices are high, but we clog the highways with SUVs when energy prices are low."

Obama’s Republican rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, is set to discuss his energy plan on Tuesday. 

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Saudi King Abdullah confirmed Sunday that his country will increase daily oil production to 9.7 million barrels from 9 million to counter the sharp rise in international oil prices.

The Saudi petroleum minister, Ali I. Al-Naimi, said the country will reach the 9.7 million level by July. The announcement comes after Saudi officials had announced modest increases.

It would be Saudi Arabia’s highest production rate since 1981.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto praised the step. "Any increase in production in today’s oil market is welcome," Fratto. "It is important that we also take steps to increase domestic production and our refining capacity."

Al-Naimi also said the Saudi government will invest in oil projects that would allow Saudi Arabia to have the capacity to produce 12.5 million barrels per day by the end of next year.

King Abdullah’s announcement came at the end of the Jeddah energy summit, where he also called for OPEC to set aside $1 billion for a strategy to ease the oil price crisis. He said $500 million should be given to developing nations to help them get the energy they need.

King Abdullah said there are "many factors that made oil prices high." Along with increased demand, he also cited oil speculators and an increase in taxes in consumer nations.

The pain of escalating oil prices - crude sold for more than $134 a barrel on Friday, double year-ago levels - have cascaded throughout the U.S. economy.

Oil has become a hot-button political issue as the cost of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel have spiked in recent months. Congress has scheduled hearings this week to debate legislation that would attempt to dampen prices.

Bodman: Don’t blame speculators

On Saturday, U.S guaranteed cash advance. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, attending the Saudi summit, attributed the record-high oil prices to lagging production.

Bodman said he did not believe speculators are the cause of high oil prices.

Since 2003, he said, global demand for oil has increased because of industry in China, India and the Middle East. But from 2005 to 2007, there was very little increase in supply.

Nations need an additional supply of energy to market, whether that energy is nuclear, coal, fossil fuels, solar or wind power, Bodman said.

"We spent 30 years digging ourselves into this hole," Bodman said. "It won’t be solved soon."

World leaders address supply and demand

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping both said during speeches at the summit Sunday that their countries need to find ways to bolster production of alternative forms of energy.

"The high price in increases of oil has affected the international economy and has brought tension in the international community," Xi said.

Earlier in the week, President Bush asked Congress to permit drilling for oil in deep water off America’s coasts to combat rising oil and gas prices.

"There is no excuse for delay," the president said Wednesday.

Bush also renewed his request that Congress allow drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, clear the way for more refineries and encourage efforts to recover oil from shale in areas such as the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

–From CNN’s Wilf Dinnick 

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World energy powers embarked on a new level of dialogue to try to rein in runaway oil prices at an emergency meeting in this Red Sea city, but were unable to come up with a quick fix.

Host Saudi Arabia vowed to pump still more oil in response to consumer countries’ requests, but said that alone would not be enough to calm a market driven to a record close to $140 a barrel last week by an array of factors.

“In this critical hour, the world community should rise to its responsibility and cooperation should be the cornerstone of any efforts,” Saudi King Abdullah said on Sunday, calling for a global “energy-for-the-poor” initiative.

A barrel of oil has doubled in price over the past year, stoking inflation and triggering protests from Asia to Europe guaranteed cash advance loan.

Major producers, consumers and top oil company executives gathered in Saudi Arabia’s commercial capital to try to reverse what some see as the world’s third oil shock.

They plan to hold a follow-up meeting in London before the end of the year.

“What I’ve heard so far are basically all good ideas, but it will probably not change the price tomorrow morning,” Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer told Reuters.

The final communique, echoing previous consumer-producer statements, emphasized the importance of greater transparency in oil markets and more investment in production. 

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