Americans spend 10 percent of their disposable income on food, including restaurant meals and snacks, according to U.S. Dept. of Agriculture figures.

That reliable needle may start to shift as food prices rise. Globally, food prices have jumped 75 percent since 2000, the World Bank calculates. Look at the graphic on the left for another view; the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization figures food prices spiked 23 percent in 2007. See full data here and note the surge in diary prices. The rising costs are affecting trade and subsidies polices and sparking unrest in parts of the world. (More in the Reuters special report on Agflation)

For some Americans, the rising food prices has meant a pullback on spending on clothes, jewelry or home furnishings, retail reporter Nicole Maestri details today, noting that Wal-Mart’s grocery business and its emphasis on low prices is spurring a resurgence at its U.S. stores and in its stock price.

Have rising food prices changed your shopping list? What are you pulling back on?

(Image credit: FAO)

Even though his popularity remains at record lows, U.S. President George W. Bush is not shy about dispensing campaign advice to the Republican hopefuls who want his job. 
 
To beat the Democrats next year in the race for the White House, Bush listed counterterrorism, building a democracy in Iraq and pushing for low taxes as the key issues for members of his party to emphasize.
 
 ”Look, candidates who go out and say that the United States is vulnerable to attack and we’re going to make sure our professionals have the tools necessary to protect us are going to do well,” Bush said at a White House news conference.
  
“Candidates who go out and say that helping these Iraqis realize the benefits of democracy are going to do well,” he added. “Candidates who say we’re not going to raise your taxes will do well.”
 
Bush registered a record-low approval rating in a Reuters/Zogby poll this week, with only 29 percent of Americans giving him a positive grade for his performance.
 
Poll numbers such as these and strong sentiment against the Iraq war have led analysts to predict that Republican presidential candidates will seek to put as much distance between themselves and Bush as they can.
 
Yet none of the major Republican candidates so far has made a dramatic public break with Bush over issues like Iraq.
 
Democrats view the Iraq war as a defining issue for capturing the White House.
 
Bush was pressed on whether he was an asset or liability to Republican candidates.
 
“Strong asset,” Bush replied to laughter in the press briefing room. He has repeatedly said he would avoid being “pundit in chief” during the race for the Republican nomination or if he has a favorite. 
 
Bush also said he did not take to heart recent criticisms from former officials, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who portrayed Bush’s economic policies as fiscally reckless in a new memoir.
 
“My feelings are not hurt,” Bush said but he added that he “respectfully” disagreed with Greenspan about his economic record.

– Reporting by Caren Bohan; photos by Larry Downing and Jason Reed

U.S. Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey is making it clear he would demand a U.S. Justice Department free of outside interference if confirmed to replace Alberto Gonzales, putting to rest Democrats’ fears.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who along with others accused Gonzales of politicizing the department, said Mukasey assured him he’d operate differently — and fire anyone who violated his rules.

Leahy quoted Mukasey, from a meeting with him this week, as saying if someone from the outside — including the White House or Congress — called the department to inquire about an investigation, they’d be referred to Mukasey or his deputy.

Leahy said Mukasey told him that he and his deputy may decide to provide the caller no information, and if another member of the department did, “They will be fired.”

“It’s kind of an attitude I like,” Leahy said on Thursday in relating the story to his committee, which will hold confirmation hearings. A date for hearings have not yet been set.
  

Gonzales came under fire, in part, because of charges some Republican lawmakers and possibly the White House tried to pressure resistant federal prosecutors, who were later sacked. 

In embracing Mukasey, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is offering his most effusive praise of a Bush nominee since Harriet Miers, the president’s failed 2005 Supreme Court pick.
    
“We feel that this man has the ability to renovate the Justice Department,” Reid said on Wednesday after a meeting with the retired judge and former federal prosecutor.
   
Reid said he expects him to win Senate approval unless unanticipated problems pop up at his confirmation hearing. In filling Gonzales’ job, some conservatives had favored former Solicitor General Theodore Olson. But Bush picked Mukasey after Reid vowed to block Olson as too partisan. 

The Miers’ nomination was withdrawn after conservatives complained she was not conservative enough — and after Reid offered effusive praise for Bush’s selection of his then White House counsel. 

– Reporting by Thomas Ferraro; photo by Kevin Lamarque
        

Lest anyone think Republicans secretly harbor hopes for a U.S. government shutdown when the annual budget money runs out on Sept. 30, Rep. Adam Putnam has a word of advice.

“It’s like breakdancing around nitroglycerin. You’re just not sure who it’s going to go off on,” the Florida Republican said. The usually quiet, straight-laced, red-headed conservative admitted he has tried the hip hop style of dancing, but said he’s never done it near explosives.

Congress has yet to enact any of the dozen spending bills that will keep the bureaucracy running past Sept. 30 as President George W. Bush and Democrats fight over how much to spend on domestic programs. 

Putnam suggested an all out showdown that forces a government shutdown is not likely to play well with the public already disgusted with its political leaders.

“Eleven percent versus 29 percent is not exactly clash of the titans,” he said, referring to the Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday showing that Congress is even more disliked than the president.

Democrats also are loathe to force a government shutdown. House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat, said it’s not good politics.

Harking back to the 1980s, Spratt said, “Reagan used to say, ‘What if we shut down government and find out nobody misses it.?’ Republicans would titter-tatter and laugh. Then, by golly, they shut down government and nobody was laughing.”

–Reporting by Donna Smith and Richard Cowan

–Photo credit: Max Morse; Actor Jamie Kennedy breakdances at a Los Angeles party.

Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan has been called downbeat on the housing market in many of his numerous media appearances since Friday to promote his memoir. He told NBC’s “Today Show” that he expects more mortgage delinquencies and home foreclosures in U.S. and global housing markets.

What’s the housing market like in your region? Nationally, the average house price saw its slowest appreciation in a decade with a 3.2 percent rise.

Everything seemed to be going swimmingly at a forum hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation about Iraq on Thursday as the host finished introducing the day’s panel of experts who would debate progress in the unpopular, four-year war.

Then a middle-aged woman, dressed to match the think tank’s tony style, popped up onto the dais and announced a change in the program: the scheduled discussion would be delayed for a brief peace memorial honoring dead American soldiers.

A second woman rose to the dais with the bereaved father of a fallen U.S. soldier, who clutched his son’s uniform, boots and an American flag folded in funerary fashion into a blue triangle of stars.

A third held a pink banner that read: “Bring the Troops Home Now.”

CODEPINK, the feminist antiwar group that has been a constant presence at numerous congressional hearings dressed in pink, had penetrated an august center of conservative American political discourse and chaos soon erupted.

The organizers briefly tried to escort the activists from the stage, while a smattering of audience members attempted to shout them down. “This is un-American!” grumbled one aggrieved man in a business suit. 

In the end, with a C-SPAN camera filming, the Heritage Foundation gave the protesters about five minutes to make their presentation. It included a reading from a New York Times op-ed article criticizing the Pentagon that had been written by seven soldiers, including two who died in Baghdad on Monday.

CODEPINK activists also videotaped the spectacle and later posted it to YouTube.com.

The drama wasn’t over yet, however. With another half-dozen CODEPINK women in the audience, they managed to jar the atmosphere at least two more times.

The most boisterous was a woman in a dark pant suit who jumped onto the dais as the experts were speaking and loudly denounced both panel and audience.

“The country is falling apart! One million Iraqis have died since we invaded. One in every third child has died of starvation!” she shouted as U.S. Capitol Police (the first to respond to the request for police presence) removed her from the auditorium. “You are all complicit and so is the press!”

Police reported no arrests. A Heritage Foundation spokesman said he was not aware of any other protest being staged at one of the foundation’s events.  — David Morgan

Arriving slightly late to his 8:15 a.m. speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell strode directly to the podium, unable to take advantage of the eggs and bacon breakfast that would be off-limits to lawmakers under ethics legislation awaiting Bush’s signature.
Also off-limits, it turned out, were reporters.
A few minutes into McConnell’s presentation, Chamber of Commerce officials sheepishly told two journalists covering the event that the senator’s aides were demanding that reporters be escorted out.
By then, McConnell had finished prepared remarks to the nation’s biggest business group, accusing Democrats controlling Congress of suffering from a twin obsession: the Iraq war and conducting investigations, instead of getting down to the real work of Congress.
Just as McConnell began a question-and-answer period that started with the topic of energy legislation, Chamber officials shut down coverage, saying the event actually was closed to reporters, despite its billing as a public event on Washington calendars.
Later in the day, Don Stewart, McConnell’s spokesman, said there had been an agreement with the Chamber that the senator’s appearance was to be a “closed briefing,” like many he has done for other groups.
An annoyed Eric Wohlschlegel, executive director of communications at the Chamber, also insisted, “This was a closed event from the very beginning.”
McConnell received the support of the Chamber this year for requiring that business tax breaks be added to the first increase in the U.S. minimum wage in a decade. He also helped defeat a top priority of organized labor, a measure that would have made it easier for workers to unionize.
Maybe McConnell’s best gems came in the Q&A. But during the prepared speech, the four-term Kentucky senator wasn’t giving the business group anything he hasn’t freely told reporters repeatedly on Capitol Hill:
*He’s “deeply disappointed” the new Democratic-controlled Congress has not tackled the “tough issues,” like Social Security;
*Immigration reform turned out to be “too complicated” to work out this year. (Translation: conservative Republicans nuked it);
*Besides their “preoccupation” with the Iraq war, Democrats spend their time dreaming of “taxation, regulation and litigation. It’s in their DNA.”  — Richard Cowan

(Reuters file photo of McConnell)

Carmakers at the Frankfurt International Motorshow resort to many things to bolster their corporate image with nice stands full of young attractive people.

But at Renault  they take matters a step further — even the tie of the chief executive plays a role.

Carlos Ghosn, a corporate icon since he turned around Japanese car group Nissan, does not sport neckwear by chance. His ties are being selected by Nathalie Dugauquier of Renault’s design department and are in the colour ‘marron glace’ - iced chestnut — said to reflect the three new brand values of Renault — “Close, reliable and enthusiastic”.

Rival Christian Streiff, chief executive of PSA Peugeot Citroen, wearing a bright red tie with a blue suit on the first day of the show, said he took a hands-on approach. “I select them myself, that is one of the few liberties left to me,” he said. (Marcel Michelson at the Frankfurt Auto Show)

More Reuters coverage from the Auto Show…

• GM CEO says consumers “tense” over housing
• Volkswagen sees acceptable US earning by 2010
• Porsche 2006/07 revenue up slightly, keeps target
• Alfa Romeo head says will meet 2007 sales target
• Fiat says to reach 2007 Bravo sales target
• BMW CEO Reithofer confident about 2007 profits
• Mazda says to meet profit f’casts despite yen rise

U.S. retailers had better-than-expected sales in August.

But with the U.S. housing meltdown, higher gas prices and rising costs for things like food, were the August sales just a one-month blip?

“Shoppers were not spooked like stock market investors by fears of a credit crunch. But that only means that the fallout for households will hit home more gradually in the coming months,” said Frank Badillo, Senior Economist for TNS Retail Forward.

Ken Perkins of Retail Metrics said that 64 percent of retailers beat expectations for the month, but also said that does not signal a trend.

As you ponder the pace of sales in the upcoming holiday season, here are retailers’ August sales results, compared with expectations.

---

The following table lists select U.S. retail companies that have reported August sales at stores open at least a year, a key retail measure also known as same-store sales.The table has the range of analysts’ estimates* and the actual change in same-store sales reported by the companies^. The consensus estimate# is the average of analysts’ mean estimate.Data is compiled by Reuters Estimates.All figures expressed in percentage change over the same period last year except number of estimates.

		AUGUST-07		AUGUST-07
		Analysts’	Same-store	No. of	Same-store
Company	Symbol	estimates*	sales(est)#	Estimates	sales (act)^
Wal-Mart##	<WMT.N>	0.0 to 2.0	1.6	9	3.1
Target	<TGT.N>	4.0 to 6.0	4.9	11	6.1
Costco^^	<COST.O>	4.0 to 8.0	5.6	13	2.0
BJ’s Wholesale^^	<BJ.N>	-0.5 to 4.0	1.4	11	1.4
TJX Cos.	<TJX.N>	2.0 to 5.0	3.8	9	4.0
Family Dollar	<FDO.N>	0.0 to 2.0	1.3	9	1.0
Ross Stores	<ROST.O>	2.0 to 4.0	2.9	8	4.0
Kohl’s	<KSS.N>	0.0 to 6.0	3.0	14	-0.6
JC Penney^^	<JCP.N>	-8.0 to -2.0	-5.2	13	-4.0
Macy’s	<M.N>	-3.0 to 3.0	0.0	12	2.4
Nordstrom	<JWN.N>	4.0 to 8.0	6.3	16	6.6
Saks	<SKS.N>	5.0 to 14.0	9.1	9	18.2
Dillard’s	<DDS.N>	-6.0 to 1.0	-3.0	7	-5.0
Bon-Ton Stores^	<BONT.O>	-1.0 to 2.0	0.0	3	1.3
Gap	<GPS.N>	-6.0 to 1.0	2.3	17	-1.0
Limited	<LTD.N>	-2.0 to 3.0	1.2	14	1.0
Abercrombie	<ANF.N>	-1.0 to 5.0	2.2	18	6.0
Hot Topic^^	<HOTT.O>	-6.0 to -1.0	2.5	10	-1.1
Chico’s FAS^^	<CHS.N>	-9.0 to -1.0	7.3	15	-9.3
American Eagle^^	<AEO.N>	3.0 to 9.0	6.1	20	9.0
Aeropostale	<ARO.N>	-1.0 to 5.0	2.5	10	1.7
Pacific Sunwear	<PSUN.O>	0.0 to 4.0	1.8	14	9.6
Ann Taylor	<ANN.N>	-3.2 to 1.0	1.6	12	2.9
Children’s Place	<PLCE.O>	-3.0 to 4.0	0.5	6	5.0
Sharper Image	<SHRP.O>	-15.0 to -10.0	-12.5	2	16.0

##For U.S. stores, excluding fuel

^Bon-Ton Stores estimate is for Bon-Ton and Carson’s combined

^^Reported on Wednesday