Recent hurricane activity caused oil prices to rise recently, but the price for a barrel of light sweet crude briefly fell below the $100 dollar mark on Thursday, while the average price of gas in the US went up one cent to $3.63 that day.

Today, the Bush administration announced that the government will step in and take over control of Mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Of the $12 trillion dollar housing deficit, the two companies own or guarentee almost half of it. Shares of the two companies have dropped about 90% in the past [...]