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Pakistan's central bank may increase its benchmark interest rate for an eighth time since 2005 after inflation accelerated to a 30-year high.

State Bank of Pakistan will raise its discount rate by 1 percentage point to 13 percent, according to six out of seven analysts in a Bloomberg News survey. One expects an increase to 13.5 percent. The policy statement is due today at about 4 p.m. local time in Karachi.

“Inflation seems to be heading toward an all-time high,'' said Suleman Akhtar, an economist at Foundation Securities Ltd. in Karachi. “The central bank and the government will do everything to reduce inflation. The impact of current oil prices and high commodity prices pose a challenge.''

Central banks across Asia are raising borrowing costs as soaring food and energy prices stoke inflation and spark protests from the region's poor. Higher rates in Pakistan may further weaken South Asia's second-largest economy, where last year's growth of 5.8 percent was the slowest since 2003.

Consumer prices in Pakistan jumped 21.53 percent in June from a year earlier, after gaining 19.27 percent in May. The central bank aims to keep average inflation at 12 percent this fiscal year, the same as the previous 12-month period.

Inflation may accelerate further after the government raised domestic fuel prices by as much as 15.2 percent on July 21, the sixth increase in five months, in line with global oil costs payday loans. Crude reached a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11.

Unexpected Move

Governor Shamshad Akhtar unexpectedly increased the benchmark rate by 1.5 percentage points to 12 percent on May 23, also raising the cash reserve requirement for commercial lenders to 9 percent of deposits from 8 percent.

Central banks in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines have all increased interest rates in the past month. Neighboring India is today expected to raised its benchmark repurchase rate for a third time in less than two months to 8.75 percent, according to 16 of 22 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.

Pakistan's central bank in June said government borrowing from the State Bank, estimated at 9 percent of gross domestic product last fiscal year, “cannot be sustained'' without further stoking inflation.

The budget deficit reached a 10-year high of about 7 percent of GDP in the 12 months to June 30, according to Finance Minister Naveed Qamar. Pakistan's first civilian government since a 1999 military coup says it wants to narrow the gap to 4.7 percent of GDP next fiscal year.

Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service in May cut their ratings on Pakistan's foreign-currency debt, citing rising budget and current-account deficits and political instability.

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Rising mortgage rates are driving up the cost of buying a house even as prices fall, making property more expensive across the U.S., according to a new study by Zillow.com, an online provider of home valuations.

Monthly payments on 30-year fixed mortgages are 6 percent to 10 percent higher in 41 of the top U.S. housing markets than they were two months ago. First-quarter prices have declined from a year earlier in 88 percent of those areas, Zillow said.

“We're going to need about a 30 percent decline in house prices if you are going to keep payments stable,'' said Morris Davis, a former senior economist with the Federal Reserve and now a real estate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Business.

Seven Federal Reserve benchmark cuts since September have failed to lower mortgage rates as banks have curtailed lending after taking writedowns or credit losses of more than $400 billion from investments in mortgages. Rates for 30-year fixed-rate home loans were about 6.3 percent when the Fed first reduced its target federal funds rate nine months ago. They're now just under 6.45 percent, data from Bankrate.com show.

Zillow based its calculations on almost 25,000 mortgage offers to potential homebuyers with credit ratings of at least 680 out of a possible 850. The would-be buyers sought bids through Zillow's Mortgage Marketplace, a new service that helps consumers shop for home loans. Zillow's main business provides U.S. home valuation estimates based partly on sales data.

`Unfortunate Pickle'

The average monthly mortgage payment rose $131, or $1,572 a year, since the beginning of April in the 41 areas surveyed, Zillow said. The figure is controlled for population.

“The story here is not so much how much more it will cost you over the life of the loan, but how much less house you can buy,'' said Greg Rand, managing partner of Prudential Rand Realty in Westchester County, New York. “It's an unfortunate pickle that we're in.''

Prudential Rand has more than 700 sales associates and a mortgage brokerage that arranges financing.

Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell in April by the most on record, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, and new home sales declined 40 percent in May from a year ago, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Sales of previously owned homes in the U.S. rose in May from the lowest level in at least nine years as a slide in prices lured some buyers into the market, the National Association of Realtors said yesterday.

Fed Actions

U.S. housing was less affordable in April than the previous month even as sales increased in some markets, the Realtors data show. The composite homebuyer index fell to 129.8 in April from 130.6 in March. A value of 100 means that a family with the national median income has exactly enough income to qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced home.

Fed rate reductions have historically lowered mortgage rates. From Jan. 3, 2001, to June 25, 2003, the Fed cut rates 13 times. Mortgage costs fell eight times and rose five times, according to North Palm Beach, Florida-based Bankrate.com.

Changes in mortgage rates have the biggest impact when those rates are near the historic lows they are now, Davis said. If interest rates were at 1 percent and rose to 2 percent, house prices would have to drop 50 percent to keep a buyer's house payment the same electronic check payday advance.

Mortgage payments rose the most in the California metropolitan areas of Ventura and Santa Rosa, gaining 10 percent, according to Zillow. That added $220 a month to loan payments in Ventura and $189 in Santa Rosa. Home prices in those areas fell about 20 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the company said.

Higher Payments

The annual cost for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to buyers with good credit in the Ventura area is now $2,640 more now than 60 days ago. That amounts to $79,200 more over the life of the loan, without adjusting for inflation, Zillow said.

The trend holds true in California metro areas including Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego, where mortgage payments on median priced homes range from 7 percent to 10 percent more now than in April.

California is among the states hardest hit by the biggest drop in U.S. home sales in 26 years. One in every 183 households in the state was in some stage of foreclosure in May, more than double the national average, according to Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc.

Sales Gain

Foreclosures drive down prices by contributing to the higher inventory of unsold homes, forcing prices lower and reducing home equity, said Ryan Ratcliff, an economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast in Los Angeles.

Home sales in California rose 18 percent and exceeded an annualized, seasonally adjusted rate of 400,000 last month for the first time since early 2007, the state Realtors Association said in a news release on June 25. The increase in sales volume came because of more “distressed sales,'' the Los Angeles-based group said.

In New York, New Jersey, Long Island and parts of Pennsylvania, where the median estimated home value is $418,500 and APRs have risen from 5.9 percent to 6.5 percent, today's buyers can expect to pay $1,656 more a year while home values for the region have dropped about 1.4 percent.

The price of condominiums and co-operative apartments in Manhattan are an exception, with the median increasing 13.2 percent to a record $945,000 in the first quarter, according to an April 2 report by New York-based real estate appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

Jumbo Pain

Buyers in markets including New York and coastal California, where more than half of all homes cost more than $417,000, are feeling the most pain. Jumbo loan rates have risen from about 7 percent to about 7.4 percent over the nine months the Fed has cut rates, according to Bankrate.com.

The cost for 30-year fixed-rate jumbo mortgages has increased more than 2 percentage points since June 2003, according to data from Bankrate.com. Over the past year, the average spread between jumbo and so-called conforming mortgages has been about 93 basis points, or 0.93 percentage point. That gap is now about 111 basis points.

“While it's a buyers market in terms of home prices, that is definitely being mitigated by the cost of financing,'' said Stan Humphries, Zillow's vice president for data and analytics.

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European Central Bank Vice President Lucas Papademos said accelerating wage growth is another sign that faster inflation may be feeding into the euro-area economy.

Labor costs rose 3.3 percent in the 15 countries that share the euro in the first three months of the year, the most since 2003, the European Union's statistics agency reported June 13. Economists had predicted wages to repeat the previous quarter's 2.9 percent increase.

“It doesn't necessarily imply second-round effects are materializing, but is indicative of intensifying domestic inflation pressures,'' Papademos said in an interview at a conference of European and Asian finance officials in Jeju, South Korea.

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet on June 5 said the bank may raise its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-point to 4.25 percent in July to curb inflation, which is running at the fastest pace in 16 years. ECB policy makers last week moved to damp market speculation that the bank would embark on a flurry of hikes.

“We are not talking about a series of rate increases,'' ECB Executive Board member Juergen Stark said in an interview published June 11. Still, the ECB “will do everything that is necessary to anchor inflation expectations and to deliver price stability in the medium term,'' Stark said.

Protracted Inflation

In a presentation to the conference, Papademos said that with inflation rising 3.6 percent in May it is likely to “remain above 3 percent for a protracted period of time'' before moderating payday loans online. The medium-term outlook for prices is subject to “upside risks,'' he said.

Second-round inflation occurs when consumers and companies seek compensation for higher food and fuel costs by pushing up salaries and their own prices, leading domestic inflation to spiral higher and risk becoming embedded in the economy.

Deutsche Post AG, Europe's biggest postal service, and Germany's Ver.di labor union in April agreed to a 4 percent pay increase effective Nov. 1 for 130,000 employees and another 3 percent raise starting in December 2009. Dutch wages increased more in the first quarter than in the whole of last year, the national statistics bureau said April 7.

Inflation expectations in the 15-nation euro region have started to rise. The so-called breakeven on five-year French inflation-indexed bonds was at 2.45 percent on July 13, up from 2.12 percent in March.

ECB Forecasts

The ECB, which aims to keep average annual price gains just below 2 percent, on June 5 raised its inflation forecasts to about 3.4 percent for this year and 2.4 percent for 2009.

At the same time, the ECB forecast economic growth will slow to 1.8 percent this year and 1.5 percent next year from 2.6 percent in 2007.

Investors expect the ECB to raise its key rate twice to 4.5 percent this year, according to Eonia forward contracts.

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The Dublin San Ramon Services District will measure and publicly report its greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to identify ways to diminish its carbon footprint, it said Thursday.

To help, the water-treatment plant has joined The Climate Registry, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that provides an emissions accounting infrastructure for its members.

"We are constantly looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint, and participating in The Climate Registry is another step forward that will help us leave our world in better shape for the next generation," stated district operations manager Dan Gallagher.

The District is also installing two fuel cells to generate cleaner electricity to power its wastewater and recycled water-treatment plants no fax payday loans. The fuel cells will be powered by methane gas from digesters — microbes that break down solid wastes.

Other measures the District has taken include running water pumps mostly at night, when demand is less, said community affairs specialist Sue Stephenson.

"We’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do," Stephenson said. "The people of the world who care are trying to get a handle on what’s going on."

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American Airlines' parent company is plotting major cuts including job cuts and additional fees.

At its annual meeting Wednesday, Fort Worth-based AMR Corp. officials said that high fuel costs will bring additional fees — including a $15 charge for travelers' first checked bag — thousands of layoffs, and retirement of more than 75 aircraft from its American Airlines fleet.

The new baggage fee is effective for tickets purchased on or after June 15.

The airline giant expects to shave 11 percent to 12 percent of its domestic flights in the fourth quarter. This will result in the grounding by year's end of approximately 40 to 45 American Airlines jets, 35 to 40 American Eagle regional jets, plus some number of Eagle turbo-props, says Gerard Arpey, chairman and chief executive.

AMR (NYSE: AMR) had already planned to retire some of its MD-80s, which are less fuel-efficient than others in its fleet, and replacing them with 34 new 737 aircraft next year, and an additional 36 in 2010 cheap payday loans.

The tightened flight schedule will result in job cuts at American and its subsidiary, American Eagle. Arpey said layoffs would be across the board and could number in the thousands.

The company reported that fuel prices have increased more than 10 percent since its first-quarter results five weeks ago when it lost $328 million. The company's fuel expenses were up more than $660 million in the first quarter.

"If $125-per-barrel oil is the new reality, preserving the progress we have made is going to require some significant and difficult changes," Arpey says.

American Airlines serves both Oakland International Airport and San Francisco International Airport.

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Portland General Electric Co. on Tuesday said it received approval from the Oregon Public Utility Commission to install more than 850,000 so-called "smart meters" over the next two years.

While typical mechanical meters measure electricity use and must be read manually, smart meters' technology will provide PGE (NYSE: POR) with two-way communications that allow for such things as remote activation and deactivation for customers moving their home or business.

"We're pleased the OPUC agreed that smart meters deliver long-term benefits for our customers," Peggy Fowler, CEO and president of PGE, said in a news release. "This technology is a key part of the foundation we're laying to meet Oregon's future energy needs."

PGE said the smart meters also allow for quicker and more accurate outage and restoration response, as well as lower labor costs due to the use of wireless data transfer rather than manual meter reading.

Fowler, in the news release, said eliminating the need for manual meter reading will allow PGE to take 114 cars and trucks off the road, saving about 80,000 gallons of gas per year and reducing emissions of about 1.4 million pounds of carbon dioxide http://easy-quick-payday-loans.com.

The new system is also expected to support the future development of demand response and direct load control programs that will improve energy efficiency and reduce the need for new power plants.

And eventually, the meters will allow customers to access information on their daily energy use via the Internet.

PGE expects the capital costs for the project to be between $130-135 million, with annual operating savings projected to be $18 million as of 2011, the first full year of operation of the new system.

PGE signed contracts in September to purchase and install the new meters. Installation will begin with systems testing this summer, which should be completed in late 2008. The utility will then proceed with large-scale installation of the new meters in 2009 and 2010.

Beginning June 1, the smart meter project costs will be reflected in customers' bills, resulting in an increase of less than 1 percent.

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