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Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens has launched a new campaign to substitute at least a portion of the U.S. imported oil with domestic natural gas.

Pickens would like renewable energy sources, wind power chief among them, to run electric power generation plants currently run by natural gas/coal, and use that natural gas to fuel natural gas vehicles.

Economist Glen Langan told BloggingStocks Thursday the PickensPlan is commendable for a number of reasons (it would lower the trade deficit, create domestic jobs, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions), but investors and readers should not view it as a panacea for the nation's transportation energy bill. "It could be a part of the solution, but it won't address the entire imported oil problem," Langan said.

Another oil saver: better engines

What's another key to reducing both imported oil and U.S.-produced oil consumption? Something that the U.S. auto sector has under-emphasized for more than a decade: technology-driven increases in car/vehicle efficiency, Langan said.

Langan said vehicle weight reduction, transmission/drive train improvements, enhanced aerodynamics, and the biggest factor -- increased engine efficiency -- "have the potential to reduce oil imports by almost as much as the Pickens Plan, and the changes won't take 10 years to see the results."

Further, many of the mpg-enchancing technologies already exist, Langan notes; he suggested an additional federal tax credit for automakers to help them incorporate the changes sooner.

"The fleet [all vehicles driven in the U.S.] should average 25-27 miles per gallon right now. Currently we're at about 20 miles per gallon. With appropriate federal tax credits we could be at 30-32 miles per gallon in five or seven years," Langan said.

Despite high commodity prices and challenging market conditions that put pressure on consumer spending, McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD) was able to surprise Wall Street by reporting a stronger-than-expected second quarter profit. However, investors' positive reaction didn't last too long as the company announced it anticipates further high beef costs, which could lead to an increase in prices on its popular dollar menu.

Back in May, McDonald's executives announced they had no plans to make changes to its "everyday affordability" concept, but the company's chief operating officer, Ralph Alvarez, recently noticed that the dollar menu is coming under pressure from rising ingredient costs. "The cost implications of having that value menu have changed when you see what's going on in beef and chicken," Alvarez stated to the Chicago Tribune.

Alvarez didn't offer too many details on how the dollar menu might change. However, the news is not great for all you lovers of the famous double cheeseburger. A spokesman for the hamburger giant said one of the company's strategies that is already tested in some markets was to lift prices for this best-selling U.S. sandwich.

Looking ahead, McDonald's said it expects cheese cost to jump by 21% this year in the U.S., while the price it pays for chicken may see a growth in a range between 5% and 6%. For 2008 U.S. beef costs, the company also anticipates an increase between 8% and 9%.

Rising commodity prices was one of the main reasons why the research firm Deutsche Bank to lower its rating on the company to a hold earlier this morning.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.

WHDH, the Boston NBC affiliate, reports that a woman committed suicide because she thought that her mortgage lender was on the verge of foreclosing on her house. There are questions about whether she knew the mortgage company had granted her an extension. But those questions were not resolved before she took her life.

The Patriot Ledger reported that she faxed a suicide note to her mortgage lender. It excerpted her fax: "By the time you foreclose on my house I'll be dead." It also indicated that a suicide note found next to the body urged the woman's husband and son to "take the insurance money and pay for the house."

The woman and the mortgage company did not communicate clearly. The Patriot Ledger noted that the woman had asked the mortgage company for an extension and been granted one. Yet interested buyers showed up at the property expecting an auction while her body was still inside. It also interviewed a neighbor who said that her husband, a plumber, had replaced the backyard deck on the couple's home so he must have had some money.

Oil prices have been falling today, helped by the release of the weekly inventory report which showed larger than expected reserves in the precious crude.

Going into today's report, analysts were expecting to see the Department of Energy announce that oil inventories fell by 1.9 million barrels last week, but in fact we only saw a decline of 1.6 million barrels.

Gasoline is probably more on the minds of most consumers, and what we saw in gasoline demand was even more extreme. Analysts had expected to see a rise of about 500,000 barrels of gasoline supplies last week, but the actual increase came in at 2.9 million barrels, a clear sign that high gasoline prices have forced many of us to cut back on our usage.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has to deal with improving sales for the Sony (NYSE: SNE) PS3. Sony has been able to get a greater number of attractive games for its console. It has also added better features to play live over the internet with friends connected by broadband.

Now the Xbox 360 will add a feature that Sony cannot match, at least for now.

According to the FT, Microsoft "has struck deals with five horror movie directors for a series of short films in a move aimed at boosting the original entertainment content available on its Xbox console." If the first part of the experiment works, Microsoft will probably go forward with more short content which cannot be seen by owners of rival consoles.

General Motors (NYSE: GM) has finally come up with something to save its bacon. It will team with a number of utilities including Con Edison (NYSE: ED) and Duke Power (NYSE: DUK) to create a broad market for electric cars.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "Auto makers need the cooperation of utilities since they control the new technology's primary fuel -- electricity -- and must make sure that the vehicles' recharging processes mesh with the electricity grid and don't inadvertently undermine grid reliability." In other words, no one wants the cars to cause brown outs. GM also plans to negotiate special rates to make its electric cars cheaper to recharge.

The announcement is one of GM's first intelligent moves in a long time. It has allowed its reliance on pickup trucks and SUVs to drive down its sales and cut its market share in the US. Foreign rivals that kept lines of smaller cars now have products with broad appeal to consumers. This is particularly true of their hybrids.

GM's concern remains whether being late to the market will make it too late. Its potential customers want fuel-efficient cars now, when the price of gas is high. GM will lose billions of dollars while it tries to catch up.

The competition will not be sitting still.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

The Associated Press reported Monday that popular online communications website Facebook is set for a new upgrade and redesign to allow users to add items on "Walls" more easily, while the "Wall" feature will incorporate functions previously found in "Mini-Feed's." Facebook is currently in heavy competition with News Corp. (NYSE: NWS)'s MySpace networking site as both "vie to become the central hub of online communications" by removing "clutter" and making the sites easier the navigate.

Part of the update comes as users have made less and less drastic changes to their profiles, instead adding single images or changing their statuses. Facebook is also aiming to reduce the size of profiles loaded with various applications that also appear on users "Mini-Feeds" and "Walls". Users will also be able to delete items from those functions, but no new information about online behavior previously unavailable will suddenly appear, according to Facebook developers and executives.

As a sign of how disconnected one can be, I had to ask my 12-year old about Steve & Barry's. I had not heard of it and it is receiving way too many comments on our site to be ignored. My colleague Zac Bissonnette started blogging about it a month ago Steve & Barry's on the brink of bankruptcy? and the comments are still coming in strong as the story progressed.

Steve & Barry's filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 9, 2008, and information about its status and answers to frequently asked questions can be found here.

The company has been expanding rapidly and clearly hit a brick wall with consumer budgets severely strained and the economy facing uncertainty in the short term. However, this is supposed to be a discount chain. Perhaps the discounting amounted to selling dollars for ninety cents, and it could not make it up on volume.

This is a relatively small company, but clearly it matters to a lot of people. The number of comments we have received has surpassed most of our recent stories, even those of the Bear Stearns takeover (acquired by JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM)) and the IndyMac (NYSE: IDMC) collapse.

Steve & Barry's might have had an IPO sometime in its future, but that is not likely in the current environment. What is it that makes this story so compelling to our readers? If it is because the stores are so great, what went wrong in your neighborhood?

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of any of JPM.

Oil got off to a strong start today, with prices at one point moving up as high as $130.69 a barrel as fears of supply disruptions in Iran have kept the market bullish for the time being.

Prices cool off a bit and are now sitting at $129.40, but you can be sure that as long as the tension between the West and Iran persists, you are going to continue to see prices that just refuse to come back down towards any sort of comfortable level.

Last week, we saw a pretty sizable drop in oil prices (see chart at the end of this post), which could be the main reason why this morning's rally was not able to hold above the $130 mark. Investors are probably still a bit weary of betting that we have hit support yet. What really got the market moving early on was fresh threats from the U.S. that more sanctions would be imposed on oil-rich Iran should it not cease its current nuclear program.

The New York Times reports that there's a price to pay for your staycation. As I posted, many people are skipping their summer vacations and staying at home thanks to the litany of economic problems we've become all too familiar with in the last year.

Here are some of the ways that people pay the price for not taking a vacation:

• Health risk. The Times reports that men who skipped vacations for five straight years had a 30% higher chance of suffering a heart attack than those who took an extended annual break from work each year. It notes that Brooks B. Gump, an associate professor of psychology at SUNY Oswego and a colleague, Karen A. Matthews believe that vacations help the brain build "reserve capacity" which helps it "cope with stressors that come up."
• Discouragement. The Times also quotes Hollister H. Hovey, a public relations executive who lives in Brooklyn, who postponed a trip to Scandinavia this summer because of high air fares and the weak dollar. She said: "It's a tremendous disappointment that you're sort of stuck here. It's too expensive to drive, too expensive to go overseas, because you can't afford to fly, and once you're there, you can't shop. I know that travel is a luxury. But it really plays on the heart and minds of people, because people need that escape."

Those who cannot drive are going online. Cruising to the mall, if it is 20 or 30 miles away, is no longer a cheap trip. With gas at $4 a gallon, some potential shoppers may not go to the mall at all.

Thank goodness for the internet. More and more people are getting online to buy the things they need. In an economy where many people feel poor, the average online shopper may not be spending big, but he is spending.

According to The New York Times, retailers "are experiencing double-digit sales growth at their shopping Web sites, creating a surprising bright spot during an otherwise gloomy time for sales in brick-and-mortar stores." The paper adds that Gap (NYSE: GPS) "had an 11 percent decline in same-store sales in the first quarter, but a 21 percent increase in online sales."

While the news is a silver lining, it probably does little to save the earnings of large retailers. Internet sales are still a relatively small portion of total revenue for companies that have to support the real estate and personnel costs at significant numbers of large stores. E-commerce traffic may lift numbers a bit, but they do not bring down the expense base that represents most of the problem for retail profitability.

Until the internet sales are 15% or 20% of total sales for a company like Gap, investors should not look at online revenue as a reason to buy retail stocks.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Despite large and growing declines in both the commercial and residential real estate markets, one part of the real estate sector is having a good year. Self-storage companies, which are often structured as REITs, are posting some good numbers. Face it, American's have way too much stuff and not enough space to store it at home. Americans move, go away to college, get divorced, join the military and/or lose their homes in foreclosure with alarming regularity. All of these life events require short-term storage. According to a survey in Investment News, self-storage REITs have generated total returns of 20% or more YTD. This compares very favorably with the 5% or more drop in the S&P 500 stock index YTD.

A snapshot of the sector shows four of the largest self-storage companies on the upswing. Sovran Storage Incorporated (NYSE: SSS) at $40.88 is up 1.95% YTD. Most other self-storage REITs have more impressive returns. Extra Space Storage (NYSE: EXR) at $15.11, up 6.90% YTD. Public Storage Incorporated (NYSE: PSA) at $83.55 is one of the most expensive self-storage stocks. It is up 7.59% YTD. The bargain in the self-storage sector is U Store It Trust (NYSE: YSI). At $11.54 the stock is up a whopping 28.82% YTD. Investors should call around to self-storage companies in their areas. Chances are they will not find many vacant units.

We have heard a lot of news over the past 12 months about soaring fuel prices and the effect it is having on the major automakers. With record-high oil prices, and gasoline running about $4.10 a gallon, drivers are spending more and more money to fill up their tanks. One of the natural options for people has been to move towards less expensive, small, and simple cars.

General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) noticed that fuel-efficient vehicles will be more appealing to consumers, and announced last week plans to reduce production at its truck division (a bit late to join the party, but at least it's something for the struggling auto maker). Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) is also slashing truck production during three months at its U.S. plants.

While It is true that most less expensive cars don't offer the same luxury when compared to sedans or SUVs, they come with a lot of options that can satisfy every individual need. Among the cheapest cars available, the article points out Honda's Fit ranked No. 11 at $13,950, a small car whose standard version comes with an adjustable steering column and four-speaker audio system, and is equipped with multiple airbags in the front, rear and side. Other vehicles that follow the same logic are the Chevrolet Aveo, ranked No. 2 at $11,460; the Toyota Yaris, third at $11,550, and the Kia Spectra, fifth at $12,895.

If you are addicted to fashion, then I have good news that should brighten your shopping days. Macerich Co. (NYSE: MAC) announced Tuesday that retailer Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN) will become the anchor at Santa Monica Place after the mall reopens.

The mall itself, which is scheduled to reopen in the fall of 2009, is seeing a major renovation from an enclosed shopping center to a three-level, 550,000-square-foot open-air retail plaza linking to the Third Street Promenade.

Leading fashion specialty retailer Nordstrom has signed a letter of intent to open a three-level, 122,000-square-foot store in the fall of 2010. "The extraordinary appeal of Nordstrom is a great match for this exceptional market, and for what we believe will be a one-of-a-kind retail project two blocks from the beach in downtown Santa Monica," Randy Brant, executive vice president, real estate, for Macerich stated.

There were high hopes that Americans would run out and spend their tax rebate checks in a hurry, and that this would be just what the economy needed to get back on track. Well, it does seem that the checks were spent, but as weaker than expected June retail figures come in, it seems that it was a weak fix to a much bigger problem.

The program worked out pretty well in May, as retail sales grew 0.8% during the month, but we were sent back to reality today as June's figures showed that retails sales in the month grew at a measly 0.1%. This was lower than the 0.4% that Wall Street analysts were expecting. Since these figures typically get re-adjusted, it is not out of the question to assume that this figure could be even lower. May, for example, was originally reported to have had an increase of 1.0%, but that was lowered to 0.8%.

Once again, we have to assume that it is record high gasoline prices that are weighing on consumer's minds, as the biggest declines came in automobiles, furniture, electronics and building materials. Auto sales of course were the biggest drag on the retail numbers, and if you look at the figures while ignoring auto sales, then retail would have actually risen by 0.8%, but that is still under the 1.0% that analysts were predicting.