Peanut Butter News

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Eggs from the two Iowa farms at the heart of a salmonella scare could still make it into your shopping basket — but not in the way you’d think.

The producers responsible for a recall of some 550 million potentially tainted eggs have found another outlet for the inventory that just keeps coming: They’ll turn them into liquid eggs used in everything from cookies and cakes to egg substitutes and pet food.

Patricia El-Hinnawy, a spokeswoman for the federal Food and Drug Administration, confirmed Wednesday that Wright County Eggs and Hillandale Farms will send ongoing supplies of eggs from laying hens to so-called “breaking plants” to be processed and sold.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — With wheat futures soaring to their highest level in two years, you could soon find yourself paying more for a loaf of bread at your local grocery store.

The price of wheat has surged more than 80% from its seven-month low in June. Prices continued to rally Thursday, surging to their highest level since August 2008, after Russia said it would ban grain exports until Dec. 1 due to a drought that has destroyed more than 20% of its wheat crop.

Full Story at msnbc.com

DOVER, N.H. — In 1632, John Tuttle arrived from England to a settlement near the Maine-New Hampshire border, using a small land grant from King Charles I to start a farm.

Eleven generations and 378 years later, his field-weary descendants — arthritic from picking fruits and vegetables and battered by competition from supermarkets and pick-it-yourself farms — are selling their spread, which is among the oldest continuously operated family farms in America.

Full Story at msnbc.com

Why use our money to give bonuses. Get the banks back on their feet first. America is the only place that lets these places have a vacation with our money instead of first fixing the problem. We as citizens can’t do that. They would put us in jail for miss using the money we would get. These people just don’t care as long as their live stile does not change.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s pay czar said Friday that 17 banks receiving taxpayer money from the $700 billion financial bailout made “ill-advised” payments to their executives. But he stopped short of calling them “contrary to the public interest,” language that would have signaled a fight to get it back.

Kenneth Feinberg also said he did not try to recoup $1.6 billion in lavish compensation to top executives at the bailed-out banks because he wanted to protect the banks from possible lawsuits from shareholders trying to recapture the executives’ money.

Full Story at CNN.com

Porter Holder vividly remembers the day in 1998 when he left a U.S. Department of Agriculture loan office in Oklahoma empty-handed.

He had applied for a low-interest USDA loan to help keep a farm in family ownership. He says he expected his application to be accepted. He had kept his debt at a minimum and developed a plan for supplementing his income. He believes he was turned down because he’s Native American, a member of the Choctaw tribe.

“The day I walked out of there, I knew why he denied me,” Holder said.

Full Story at msnbc.com

CASA GRANDE, Ariz. – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress to help Americans buy homes, have become two of the nation’s largest landlords.

Bill Bridwell, a real estate agent in the desert south of Phoenix, is among the thousands of agents hired nationwide by the companies to sell those foreclosures, recouping some of the money that borrowers failed to repay.

Full Story at NYTimes.c

Boeing will buy the rights to build a midsize helicopter from AgustaWestland, a European company, according to Philip J. Dunford, vice president and general manager of Boeing Rotorcraft Systems. AgustaWestland had previously teamed with Lockheed Martin for the project, which the Pentagon canceled in June 2009, citing cost overruns.

Full Story at BloggingStocks.com

Now we might know exactly why Ronald McDonald might get axed by McDonald’s Corp.(MCD). The company could use the money to pay it’s CEO, Jim Skinner.

Dow Jones Newswires, via Chicago Breaking Business, reports that CEO Skinner received $17.6 million in compensation for 2009, representing a 30% increase over the previous year.

Full Story at msnbc.com

WASHINGTON – Social Security faces a $5.3 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years, but a new congressional report says the massive gap could be erased with only modest changes to payroll taxes and benefits.

Some of the options are politically dangerous, such as increasing payroll taxes or reducing annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients. Others, such as gradually raising the age when retirees qualify for full benefits, wouldn’t be felt for years but would affect millions.

Full Story at CNN.com

(CNN) — After 161 years of treating survivors of major catastrophes, from the sinking of the Titanic to the attacks of September 11, and leading early HIV treatments, New York’s St. Vincent’s Hospital closed Friday.

Faced with financial troubles and mounting debts, the historic hospital was forced to shutter its operations. By Friday, no patients were left, and about 3,500 employees were laid off.

Full Story at msnbc.com

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A Missouri man who won a $258 million Powerball jackpot says he hasn’t decided yet if he’ll quit his job at the convenience store where he bought the winning ticket.

Chris Shaw — a 29-year-old tattooed father of three who was raised by his grandparents in rural southern Missouri — came forward Thursday as the winner of the 10th-largest Powerball jackpot ever.

Full Story at msnbc.com

School districts around the country, forced to resort to drastic money-saving measures, are warning hundreds of thousands of teachers that their jobs may be eliminated in June.

The districts have no choice, they say, because their usual sources of revenue — state money and local property taxes — have been hit hard by the recession. In addition, federal stimulus money earmarked for education has been mostly used up this year.

As a result, the 2010-11 school term is shaping up as one of the most austere in the last half century. In addition to teacher layoffs, districts are planning to close schools, cut programs, enlarge class sizes and shorten the school day, week or year to save money.