IS THIS THE END OF US THE DOLLAR?

[JAHAATWACH]

In its Saturday edition titled The Fall of the Dollar,The Rise of nthe Euro, The Independent[www.independent.co.uk]reports that US celebritries-among them rappers and models- are now insisting on being paid in Euros and not the Mighty Dollar.
"For a century, the dollar has been the symbol of US economic supremacy.Now,the strength of the world's newest currency highlights a remarkable power shift" The Independent asserts in its front page article.

Worrying indeed!

*America's economy
Getting worried downtown
Nov 15th 2007 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

Whether or not it's an official recession, America's economy will feel grim

Robin Chavalier
IN RECENT years, it has rarely paid to be pessimistic about America's economy. Time and again, worried analysts (including The Economist) have given warning of trouble as debt-laden and spendthrift consumers are forced to rein in their spending.

So far, that trouble has been avoided. The housing market peaked early in 2006. Since then home-building has plunged, dragging overall growth down slightly. But the economy has remained far from recession. Consumers barely blinked: their spending has risen at an annual rate of 3% in real terms since the beginning of 2006, about the same pace as at the peak of the housing boom in 2004 and 2005................
...... www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10134077&CFID=26968731&CFTOKEN=31372087

www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=10134118&CFID=26968731&CFTOKEN=31372087

*Sliding dollar plumbs new depths
A red faced dollar continues to spiral downwards
The dollar hit fresh lows against the euro in late trading on Wednesday on speculation Russia could increase its reserves of the single currency.
The US currency's new fall follows recent sharp declines on worries about the yawning US trade gap.
What is seen as a lack of will among US policymakers to halt the decline has seen the dollar plumb new lows against many other major currencies.Against the euro the dollar hit $1.3179 in New York. ......... news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4037903.stm

*What's Ahead For The U.S. Economy?
Knowledge@Wharton 11.15.07, 3:05 PM ET
At the end of October, the Federal Reserve gave the financial markets just what they had been asking for: a 0.25% cut in the federal funds rate. But in early November, stocks plunged and the dollar hit a new low. Applause turned into hand-wringing--then back to applause as the markets rebounded in the middle of the month.
Why can't the experts make up their minds? Is the outlook good or bad? It's always difficult to see the future. But .....
www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2007/11/15/federal-reserve-oil-ent-fin-cx_kw_1115whartoneconomy.html


*Will there be a US recession in 2007?
President Bush launched a concerted PR offensive last weekend to talk up the US economy, said Edmund Andrews in The New York Times. In response to complaints from his own party that he has been too shy about claiming credit for America's above-trend growth, Bush sent two dozen administration officials out across America to promote the Republican record........
info.moneyweek.com/article.php?p_id=1737&jlnk=cra0010

[kingpin]

Jahatwach? Your worries are vindicated by Mulaa's piece below.What does it means for Africa and Kenya, I wonder?



Is US in its sunset days of global leadership?

By John Mulaa

Is America falling off the pedestal it has occupied for so long? A spate of commentaries and analyses by Americans examining the issue from varying ideological positions and perspectives appear to concur that their homeland is losing its number one status. And, unfortunately, most Americans are blissfully unaware of it.

On the right of the political spectrum, the latest issue of The American Conservative magazine posted an article titled The Creativity Conceit — America Will Always Be Number One, Won’t It?

By Eammon Fingletonn, which argues that the sunset days of American technology creativity are here. Other nations are "now not only catching up but in some cases drawing ahead".

Fingletonn states that America’s ebbing technological prowess is being overtaken by East Asia, where the centre of gravity for technological breakthroughs has sifted. And it is happening without much publicity in the United States, he argues.

On the left, Frank Rich of the New York Times weighed in from a governance perspective. In his last week’s column, Rich dissected the Pakistan’s Gen Pervez Musharrraf’s declaration of a state of emergency in his country. He likened the development to what he sees as a creeping coup that he claims Bush and his team have perpetrated on the America. "In the six years of compromising our (American) principles since 9/11, our democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble the supposedly aspiring democracies we’ve propped up in places like Islamabad," Rich wrote. He added: "Time has taken its toll. We have become inured to democracy-lite."

The immediate cause of the writer’s ire was the US Senate’s committee vote to proceed with Michael Mukasey confirmation as the attorney general after the resignation of Alberto Gonzales, the immediate former attorney general, in spite of the nominee’s refusal to call certain interrogation supposedly being employed by the US in its war on terror, as torture.

That was too much for the influential columnist. "We (Americans) are a people in clinical depression. Americans know that the ideals that once set our nation apart from the world have been vandalised, and no matter which party they belong to, they do not see a restoration anytime soon."

Another columnist, Roger Cohen, also of the New York Times, added his voice to the discounting of America with observations that American society should open up a little and "bring the real world home".

He was referring to the near absence of Al Jazeera’s English news channel from America’s television screens. Only a few cable providers with a limited reach carry the channel that is viewed by close to 100 million worldwide.

Wrote Cohen. "The first change that must be grasped is America’s diminished ability to influence people… To hundreds of millions of people accessing information for the first time, from central China to Kenya’s Rift Valley, the United States can easily look exclusive and less relevant to their future."

What is worse, some have observed, is that the United States is no longer considered the most hospitable environment for the Press.

According to this year’s Press Freedom Index, United States ranks 48 way behind Trinidad and Tobago (19) or Mauritius (25), and only just ahead of Togo (49). At this rate, Kenya, which ranked 78, or Tanzania (55), Uganda (96) or even Rwanda (147) will catch up with the United States — at least on that score.

The negatives against the United States seem to keep piling up even on the economic front. The weak US dollar is causing rankles all round. Decrying the weak dollar, this is now derisively called Bernanke in some publications, after the Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke.

Sebastian Mallaby, a columnist with the Washington Post, declared that the world’s money system faced a potential defining moment. French President Nicolas Sarkozy pointed to it in his address to Congress last week when he mentioned the pitfalls of the weakening dollar.

The American monetary authorities appear happy with the condition of the dollar, particularly as it has led to a surge in US exports, but to the rest of the world who have long considered the US dollar a store of value, the currency’s deprecation may lead them to dump it in favour of other currencies.

China, which holds a vast amount of reserves in dollars, is getting jittery, and so are Arab Gulf states. If the dollars’ slide continues, argues Mallaby, an alternative global currency may be sought.

America, these reports and opinions suggest, should be feeling and singing the blues. That, however, is not noticeable and the good times appear to be rolling on, at least on the surface.

www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143977594