Gas Hasn't Been This Cheap In Nearly Four Years

Gas prices always go down in the fall, but usually not this much.

At 56 percent of the nation’s gas stations, the price of gas is now under $3 per gallon, according to Michael Green, a spokesman for AAA, an auto club federation. AAA collects information on gas prices from consumers who use between 80,000 - 100,000 different U.S. gas stations every day, Green said.

This is a huge change from a year ago, Green said, when only 11 percent of stations were selling unleaded fuel for less than $3. Gas hasn't been this cheap in nearly four years, AAA said in a statement on Monday.

Gas prices always fall in the autumn, as colder temperatures mean fewer people go on road and boat trips, said Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, a website that lets people share information about gas prices.

Yet today's prices are way down even when compared with previous seasonal lows, as this graphic shows:

(Chart courtesy of AAA)

The low cost of gas could be a boon for the U.S. economy: spending less to fill up their tanks means Americans have more disposable income going into the holiday season. U.S. households save $120 for every 10 cent drop in the price of gas, the New York Times reported earlier this month, citing GasBuddy's Tom Kloza.

There are a few reasons why gas is cheaper this fall than in previous years. For one thing, crude-oil prices have tumbled recently as investors fear that a global economic slowdown could weaken demand.

When the price of oil falls, the price of gasoline falls, too. Experts say the price of oil makes up about two-thirds of the price of gas. Other factors, such as taxes and refining and distribution costs, also play a role in determining the cost of a gallon of gas.

In many places in America, gas is even cheaper than $3 a gallon:

(U.S. gas price heat map courtesy of GasBuddy)

Oil prices are also falling because major OPEC oil producers Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran chose to slash prices earlier this fall, DeHaan told The Huffington Post.

Analysts have speculated that Saudi Arabia, which produces more oil than any other OPEC member, wants to increase its share of the market.

“If there’s a landlord who sells all his houses for greatly under value, it causes the whole market to tank,” DeHaan said. “That’s what’s happening with oil. The Saudis are basically flooding the market with cheaper oil, and that’s putting a huge amount of downward pressure on oil prices.”

One more reason gas is so cheap, according to DeHaan: The U.S. is sucking more and more oil out of the ground than at any time since the 1980s. “So we have all these sources of new crude oil in the U.S., and that’s adding to the global oil supply, which naturally pushes prices down,” he said.

Shares Of Hazmat-Suit Maker Spike On NYC Ebola News

Shares in a company that makes hazmat suits soared 16 percent on Thursday after the first case of Ebola was diagnosed in New York City.

The stock price of Long Island-based Lakeland Industries, which makes various types of protective garb, has more than doubled in the past month amid feverish news coverage of the deadly virus. The stock jumped from less than $7 a share in late September to as high as $29 on October 13, when Ebola panic in the U.S. was particularly high.

Shares have drifted lower since then, but got another boost on Thursday afternoon after the news that Dr. Craig Spencer, a physician who recently returned to New York from treating patients in Guinea, had been hospitalized with Ebola symptoms. Later on Thursday he became the fourth person in the United States to be diagnosed with the virus.

The spike in stock price came after the first case of Ebola was confirmed in New York.

“We’ve been getting a lot of calls in the last 24 hours,” Jordan Darrow, a spokesman for Lakeland, told The Huffington Post on Friday morning. “We’ve been getting a lot of calls for the last three months.”

He declined to comment on sales of hazmat suits.

Last month, Lakeland said it was increasing production to meet heightened demand for the suits, which cover the whole body. Ebola is spread only through direct contact with bodily fluids -- such as blood, vomit or feces -- of an infected person.

“We hope our added capacity will help alleviate that problem,” Christopher J. Ryan, the president and chief executive of Lakeland, said in a statement last month. “With the U.S. State Department alone putting out a bid for 160,000 suits, we encourage all protective apparel companies to increase their manufacturing capacity for sealed seam garments so that our industry can do its part in addressing this threat to global health.”

Lakeland’s stock fell about 4 percent in early trading Friday morning, to about $14.

Company Finds Out The Hard Way It's Illegal To Pay $1.21 An Hour In America

This takes egregiously low wages to a whole new level.

A Silicon Valley company that digitizes images said Thursday that an "administrative error" led to it paying eight workers flown in from Bangalore, India just $1.21 an hour to work 120-hour weeks installing computers in the company's headquarters.

Electronics For Imaging paid the workers $40,000 in back wages and overtime and a $3,500 fine after the U.S. Department of Labor investigated the payroll violation based on an anonymous tip, a department official told The Huffington Post.

"These folks were not only not getting time-and-a-half when working extremely long hours, they weren't making the basic minimum wage," Michael Eastwood, assistant district director for the Labor Department's San Francisco division said.

In a statement, the company said it didn't realize it was illegal to pay workers temporarily in the United States the same wages they earn in their home countries. The $1.21 was equivalent to what the employees made in Indian rupees.

“We unintentionally overlooked laws that require even foreign employees to be paid based on local U.S. standards,” the company said in a statement.

Eastwood said the company also failed to keep documentation of the hours worked by the Indian employees. Though the workers were only owed $20,000 in back pay and overtime, regulators doubled that amount to $40,000 in the settlement to compensate for damages.

The company blamed an “administrative error” and said it took steps to ensure it would not occur again.

David Lindsay, a spokesman for the company, told HuffPost the labor violation occurred last year, and that the back wages, overtime and fine had already been paid. Eastwood confirmed that all dues were paid in August.

Electronics For Imaging earned a total net income of $109.11 million last year, up from $83.27 million in 2012. The stock price has climbed steadily over the last five years:

Wage theft is nothing new in the Silicon Valley region. Last year, Bloom Energy Corporation was forced to pay out nearly $64,000 in back pay and damages to 14 workers from Mexico who were paid just $2.66 an hour.

"Unfortunately, we do see a high level of wage theft violations," Eastwood said. "But we want to send a clear message that the Department of Labor is here and we are vigorously enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act."

This story has been updated with a quotes from the U.S. Department of Labor

Shares Of Hazmat-Suit Maker Spike On NYC Ebola News

Shares in a company that makes hazmat suits soared 16 percent on Thursday after the first case of Ebola was diagnosed in New York City.

The stock price of Long Island-based Lakeland Industries, which makes various types of protective garb, has more than doubled in the past month amid feverish news coverage of the deadly virus. The stock jumped from less than $7 a share in late September to as high as $29 on October 13, when Ebola panic in the U.S. was particularly high.

Shares have drifted lower since then, but got another boost on Thursday afternoon after the news that Dr. Craig Spencer, a physician who recently returned to New York from treating patients in Guinea, had been hospitalized with Ebola symptoms. Later on Thursday he became the fourth person in the United States to be diagnosed with the virus.

The spike in stock price came after the first case of Ebola was confirmed in New York.

“We’ve been getting a lot of calls in the last 24 hours,” Jordan Darrow, a spokesman for Lakeland, told The Huffington Post on Friday morning. “We’ve been getting a lot of calls for the last three months.”

He declined to comment on sales of hazmat suits.

Last month, Lakeland said it was increasing production to meet heightened demand for the suits, which cover the whole body. Ebola is spread only through direct contact with bodily fluids -- such as blood, vomit or feces -- of an infected person.

“We hope our added capacity will help alleviate that problem,” Christopher J. Ryan, the president and chief executive of Lakeland, said in a statement last month. “With the U.S. State Department alone putting out a bid for 160,000 suits, we encourage all protective apparel companies to increase their manufacturing capacity for sealed seam garments so that our industry can do its part in addressing this threat to global health.”

Lakeland’s stock fell about 4 percent in early trading Friday morning, to about $14.

Paul Krugman: 'Soak The Rich'

Paul Krugman is on board with some other top economists who say that the U.S. should tax top earners up to 90 percent.

"What you really should want to do is to soak the rich as much as possible," Krugman said in an appearance on HuffPost Live Wednesday afternoon. "So the top tax rates should be whatever it is that collects the most revenue, and now the question is, how high is that?"

The Nobel Prize-winning economist was asked about a new working paper by economists Fabian Kindermann and Dirk Krueger, which found that a top marginal income tax rate of 85 to 90 percent would improve all Americans' wellbeing, reduce inequality and bring in more revenue for the government.

Krugman conceded that "soaking" the rich -- using a nickname for the Revenue Act of 1935, which established a post-Depression wealth tax on top earners of up to 75 percent -- is "not going to happen" due to today's political climate.

Today, the top rate of 39.6 percent is paid on income above $406,750 for individuals and $457,600 for couples.

"Any increase in top tax rates is almost certainly a move in the right direction starting from here," Krugman said.

Rick Perry Lost Big With Tesla Deal

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's charms were apparently lost on electric carmaker Tesla.

Despite Perry's shoddy record on clean energy, the former Republican presidential candidate desperately wanted Tesla to build its $5 billion battery factory in the Lone Star State. Perry personally led negotiations with Tesla over its so-called Gigafactory, which is expected to create 6,500 jobs. The governor even drove a Tesla Model S through California’s state capital in June, in a public stunt that the Los Angeles Times found surmountable to “stalking.”

“Tesla’s a big project,” Perry said during an interview with “Opening Bell” on Fox Business News in March. “I think the cachet of being able to say we put that manufacturing facility in our state is hard to pass up.”

All for naught. On Thursday, Tesla settled on Nevada as the location for its $5 billion 'Gigafactory,' ending a monthslong contest with Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Tesla’s home state of California.

“It’s disappointing; he’s got to face it as a disappointment,” Peter Cowen, the managing director of technology investment banking firm Clear Capital Advisors, told The Huffington Post on Friday. “This one was a high-stakes battle and he lost.”

Part of the problem for Perry was a Texas law that bans car manufacturers from selling directly to customers. Because Tesla doesn't franchise its dealerships, it can't sell cars in the state. Though Perry said in March he wanted to lift the ban, it still proved to be a turn-off for the carmaker.

The ban “doesn’t make us feel good as we look to build a plant" in Texas, Diarmuid O’Connell, vice president of business development for Tesla, told The Huffington Post in June. O’Connell said economics would ultimately sway the company's decision.

A Tesla spokeswoman did not respond to a question about whether the continued sales ban factored into its decision, instead forwarding along quotes from CEO Elon Musk's press conference in Carson City, Nevada, on Thursday.

Perry had cause for hope. Earlier this year, he convinced Toyota to move its headquarters from California to suburban Dallas. Texas has a state Enterprise Fund, established by Perry in 2003, to serve as a “deal-closing” coffer from which officials can draw to bolster Texas’s business bids in interstate competitions. To boot, Texas has no corporate income tax.

Texas residents may have lucked out, as added incentives from the state could have ended up costing taxpayers. As it was, Texas was offering a tax package worth between $800 million and $900 million, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Nevada is coughing up $1.3 billion to seal its deal with the carmaker.

A spokesman for Perry’s office did not immediately respond to a call requesting comment.

Why Tesla picked Nevada is not totally clear. Musk said the reasons went beyond money.

“This was not the biggest incentive package, it wasn’t just about the incentives,” Musk said at the press conference. “What the people of Nevada have created is a state where you can be very agile, where you can move quickly and get things done.”

That may mean geography worked in Nevada’s favor. The ideal location for the company was probably California: It's Tesla's biggest market and fairly close to western Canada, where Tesla may soon begin getting some of its raw materials, according to Carter Driscoll, a senior analyst at the investment bank MLV & Co who covers Tesla.

The Golden State wasn't able to come up with an incentives packages on deadline, however. So neighboring Nevada may have proved the next best thing. Plus, there were those massive tax breaks. Perry can't win 'em all.

Kraft Recalls 7,691 Cases Of American Cheese Singles

NEW YORK - Kraft Foods Group Inc said on Friday it is voluntarily recalling 7,691 cases of some varieties of its Kraft American Singles as a precautionary measure after a supplier failed to store an ingredient correctly.

The Northfield, Illinois-based company said the recall affects four varieties of Kraft American Singles Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product. The recall is for products with "Best When Used By" dates of Feb. 20, 2015, and Feb. 21, 2015.

A supplier did not store an ingredient in accordance with Kraft's temperature standards. While unlikely, this could create conditions that could lead to premature spoilage and food-borne illness, the company said.

Kraft said that any of the product in question should not be consumed and should be returned to the store where purchased for an exchange or full refund.

Kraft said it has had no consumer illness complaints for the product associated with the recall.

The cheese was produced at Kraft's Springfield, Missouri, facility. (Reporting by Anjali Athavaley; Editing by Leslie Adler)