A US government home-price index has posted the sharpest decline in its 17-year history – and analysts say things won’t get better until at least 2009.

Home prices fell 3.1% in the first quarter compared with last year, according to The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. This from AP:

Declines in the government index, which focuses on less expensive properties and includes fewer houses bought with risky home loans that have gone sour over the past year, show the depth of the housing market’s troubles.

Look at a nationwide map of foreclosures, and you just might be looking at a hollowed-out future of exurban America. I alluded to this phenomenon a couple of days ago in musing over Sen. Obama’s ill-considered remarks that implied giving the developing world effective veto power over American driving and dietary habits.

Inflation, if you believe what the government tells you, ran at 3.9% in the 12 months ending this April, but was it more like 5% or even 10%?

According to CNN “part of the disconnect may be due to the fact that nondurable goods, such as food and gasoline, makes up only 12% of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the main measure of inflation.

It’s no surprise that the U.S. dollar is finally mustering a bear market rally (in truth, our currency experts have been predicting a dollar bounce for quite some time).

In the currency market, the dollar gave up last week’s gains against the euro. Late Monday, the euro was trading at $1.5913 vs. $1.5804 on Friday.

I don’t think the ECB is going to go forward with a rate cut in May, or anytime soon for that matter! Recall, that a couple of weeks ago, I pulled the May rate cut forecast because of this nagging inflation, and now it’s gone higher!

This weekend the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, asked for $500 million in emergency aid for the UN World Food Program. “It is critical that governments confirm their commitments as soon as possible and others begin to commit,” Zoellick said. Prices have only risen further since the WFP issued that appeal, so it is urgent that governments step up.”

The Mogambo Guru recently weighed in on the situation:

In the beginning of the resource bull market, all commodities were created equal. They all rose together, with the exception of a few products like aluminium and rubber, which lagged the rest of the group. Now, things are different. Call it the great energy sorting.

It seems like just another Monday. But the world always changes a little over the weekend. And this weekend, we reckon it changed a lot. The Opes story dominates the headlines. But the collapse of margin lending and leverage probably isn’t the biggest story this week. It’s the increase in food and energy prices we have our eye on this week.