The risk of owning Brazilian government bonds fell to its lowest level since May 9, as ratings agency Fitch raised the emerging market’s credit rating to investment grade. This from Bloomberg:

Fitch raised Brazil’s foreign-currency debt rating to BBB-, the lowest investment-grade level, from BB+, matching a move made by S&P on April 30. The increase will give the South American country better access to capital markets because some institutional investors can only buy securities issued by countries with at least two investment-grade ratings.

A month ago, I wrote an article here in the A-Letter detailing the global food crisis. According to data from the World Bank, global food prices have soared 83% in the past three years alone.

It may not seem likely now, but GOP strategists believe 71-year-old Republican presidential candidate John McCain could beat Barack Obama in the presidential race — and by a margin exceeding President Bush’s Electoral College victory in 2004. This from Politico.com:

At first blush, McCain’s recent rough patch and the considerable financial disadvantage confronting him make such predictions seem absurd. Indeed, as Republicans experience their worst days since Watergate, those same GOP strategists are reticent to publicly tout the prospect of a sizable McCain victory for fear of looking foolish.

In last week’s article, I talked about how becoming ‘green’ was turning into this great big fad. Yet, popularity aside, the economics of becoming green don’t really make sense.

An Open Letter to Congress: First there was the trillion-dollar pork fest for energy. Then there was the decision to go with corn-based ethanol.

Everyone is perfectly happy to let capitalism do its stuff – as long as they like the results. But cometh a correction and all of a sudden the press is full of whining pundits and meddling politicians.

It’s all to do with the Government being able to tell the public that they’re weaning them off oil produced by those nasty terrorists. It’s a fallacy… and the biggest food producer in the world is choosing to burn its crops for the sake of subsidies.

The US is finally doing something about its addiction to foreign oil, according to a report from the Department of Energy.

The report says America’s foreign oil dependency is expected to fall from 60%, to 50% in 2015. The projected reduction is due to high crude oil prices, more efficient cars, and the use of ethanol, which have cut imports of oil to the US for the first time since 1977.

The trend is likely to have significant implications for US national and foreign policies, reports the Financial Times

As high prices at the pumps and the rise of biofuels cut into demand for gasoline, US oil refiners are switching their attention to diesel.

“The trend that is important behind the story of the future expansions is the downtrend in gasoline,” said Joanne Shore, analyst for the U.S. Energy Information Administration, speaking to Thomson Reuters.

“We feel that demand for distillates is going to be higher than gasoline for the next several years.

When ethanol comes out of the plant, the first thing they do is add a few drops of gasoline. This has nothing to do with performance or transport… It’s simply to poison the ethanol so people won’t drink it.