The Crashing Dollar: Sad But True Stories

Inflation is a Function of How You Measure It - WallStCheatSheet
2.2.11 -- "Looking at inflation presently, it is high and rising around the world, and revealing itself through price spikes in certain goods precisely because over the last ten years there's been a run on paper currencies globally. The driver? The answer there is simple: the weak U.S. dollar. The end result is what it's always been: price spikes. Inflation - a decline in the value of money - is what it's always been... the U.S. economy will continue to suffer rising prices, and much worse, a continued flow of limited capital into the ground, and away from the innovators and entrepreneurs who'd be well-positioned to author our recovery absent extreme dollar weakness."

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The buck stops here? Virginia eyes switching off dollar - WND
2.1.11 -- "Virginia state Delegate Robert G. Marshall has introduced legislation to study whether the Commonwealth should make the preparations now to switch suddenly to an alternative currency in the event of an implosion of the Federal Reserve System and the destruction of the dollar. The kind of study Marshall is proposing never has been popular among politicians who get elected and stay elected by making promises to the voters, usually with lofty price tags. On the other hand, a commodity-backed currency – a gold standard - forces governments to spend only as much money as its country has in gold and provides a self-regulating and stabilizing effect on the economy."

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Get Out of Your Dollar Assets Now! -KingWorldNews
1.25.11 -- "The real news, the critically important news, centers around the US dollar. It's as if you are reading a report on a building you want to buy. The report tells you all about the heating system, the repairs to the roof, the condition of the wood floors, but the report leaves out the critical fact that the foundation of the house is crumbling. If the dollar collapses, every investment you own will be adversely affected -- your home, your stocks, your insurance policies, your bonds, your 401K -- everything that is denominated in dollars. The Russell advice -- swap your dollars for physical gold or CEF, GLD, or SGOL. In other words, do as China and Russia and many other nation are now doing -- get out of your dollar assets."

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Which currency is going to crash first? -PressTV
1.24.11 -- "There are even many that believe that authorities at the highest level actually want the dollar, euro and yen to fail. Why? Well, many of the same individuals and groups that brought us NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF, the OECD and the World Bank believe that it would be absolutely wonderful for humanity if we could all have a single, united global currency. If we allow the globalists to push a truly global currency down our throats it will be another giant step towards the creation of a totalitarian one world system."

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Chinese Yuan-Upmanship - UK Guardian
1.21.11 -- "Chinese premier Hu Jintao has called the dollar-dominated international currency system 'the product of the past'. A recent poll by the Guardian asked readers, "Is Hu Jintao right that the era of dollar dominance of the global currency system is coming to an end?" 61% said YES. 38% said NO. So, almost two-thirds of readers polled are now expecting the dollar era to soon end.

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Last Man Standing in a Monetary Crisis - DailyReckoning
1.20.11 -- "We can't tell you which of these paper currencies will shrivel up and blow away first... but they're all going to do so... every paper currency ever tried - apart from present company - has always disappeared. And none has ever survived a complete credit cycle. They're okay on the upside. They fall apart on the downside. We're on the downside of the credit cycle now. Or not far from it. The dollar won't survive. And when it begins to limp and cough badly, some investors may go to Chinese yuan or Swiss francs. Most will want to go to real money... the kind you can trust... the kind that never goes away... the ‘last man standing' in a monetary crisis - gold," writes Bill Bonner.

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The incredible shrinking dollar -Marketwatch
1.18.11 -- "Guess what? Your pocket has been picked. I don't mean your wallet, or even its contents. What I am referring to is the buying power of the money it contains. The modern-day Fed has injected gobs of liquidity into the markets, which will turn into cash once the banks start lending. This will mean far more money in circulation than goods and services. This is a recipe for a new round of inflation if I ever saw one. Since wages are no longer indexed to inflation, rising prices will hurt people's buying power, thus depressing consumer spending - the last thing this economy needs."

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Fate of U.S. Dollar and Economy May Be Decided This Week -CTDMedia
1.18.11 -- "The fate of the U.S. Dollar and America's economic future will be on the table at Wednesday's (Jan. 19, 2011) White House State Dinner for visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao, warns Swiss America CEO Craig R. Smith, who contends that America's economy depends on China continuing to extend credit to the U.S. President Hu and other Chinese officials have criticized Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke's creation of $600 billion out of thin air by this coming July - a policy called Quantitative Easing Two, or QE2. "This means the U.S. can repay China with devalued dollars," says Smith, "and it makes China's $2.85 Trillion foreign currency reserve worth a lot less."

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Could the Federal Reserve Become Insolvent? -CNBC
1.11.11 "As the monetary authority, the central bank is the master of the printing press. It can literally conjure up money at will, and arguably did exactly that when it bought about $2 trillion of mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasuries. Some economists and market analysts have even begun pondering the unthinkable: could the vaunted Fed, the world's most powerful central bank, become insolvent? The Fed is sitting on paper losses of about $2.3 billion on the purchases of U.S. Treasuries it made from Nov. 12 until late last week, according to an analysis by Reuters Insider. "What would the international reaction be if the Fed suddenly had to go and be recapitalized?" said Bob Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at Cumberland Advisors and a former head of research at the Atlanta Fed. "I don't think that would bode well for Treasuries, or for the dollar, or anything else."

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Harry Schultz's last testament -Marketwatch
1.11.11 -- "Roughly speaking, the mess we are in is the worst since 17th century financial collapse. Comparisons with the 1930's are ludicrous. We've gone far beyond that. And, alas, the courage & political will to recognize the mess & act wisely to reverse gears, is absent in U.S. leadership, where the problems were hatched & where the rot is by far the deepest," writes legendary investment newsletter writer Harry Schultz in his last issue.

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5 Failed Currencies And Why They Crashed -Forbes
1.7.11 -- "When it comes to the value and stability of a currency, there is no free lunch. A nation's currency is not exempt from the laws of supply and demand, so the more that is printed, the less it is worth. While expanding the money supply may be needed in an emergency situation, it's very difficult to reverse this policy once the emergency has abated. As history shows, it usually takes a crisis and uncontrolled inflation before painful steps are taken to stabilize the currency and reverse the economic damage."

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1.6.11 -- 3 Youtube Economic Videos Worth Watching
"Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem

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THE MADNESS OF A LOST SOCIETY 2: FINAL WARNINGS

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The Day the Dollar Died

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"Fight Against Deflation Will Kill the Dollar -Russell" -KingWorldNews
12.7.10 -- "Gold has been in an established and clearly identifiable primary bull market since the year 2000. Just to ease my conscience, I ran a long-term chart of gold divided by the Dow going back to the year 2002 (see above), and you can study the chart and see the results. It's been gold over the Dow." The Dow is denominated in dollars, and frankly, I'm very concerned about the future of the dollar. The actual number of dollars has been expanding, year after year, and dollar creation has even been accelerating recently. The more dollars being created, the less the dollar will be worth in purchasing power. And that, in a nutshell, is the reason I like gold. The fight against deflation is bashing the dollar, and if it continues it will literally kill the dollar."

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Money to Burn: 10% of Cash Supply to be Destroyed -WealthDaily
12.7.10 -- Your Tax Dollars at Work. Here's a story that is sure to leave the gold bugs shaking their heads. It seems as though Uncle Sam can't even print his own fiat currency without screwing it up. A full 10% of all existing U.S. currency is going to be quarantined and burned at a cost of over $120 million. From Yahoo News by Zachary Roth entitled: Government can't print money properly "As a metaphor for our troubled economic and financial era -- and the government's stumbling response -- this one's hard to beat. You can't stimulate the economy via the money supply, after all, if you can't print the money correctly."

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Ben Bernanke "60 Minutes" Interview "Troubling"
12.6.10 -- Crashing the Dollar author Craig R. Smith labeled the Federal Reserve Board Chairman's interview on the December 5th episode of 60 Minutes, as "troubling." In response to Mr. Bernanke's claim that the Federal Reserve is "not printing money," Mr. Smith responds, "But the Fed is conjuring up $600 billion by printing money out of thin air!" Mr. Smith claims that the Fed's "quantitative easing" actions have in essence created the "largest de facto tax increase in history on Americans in the form of fast-approaching, dollar-crashing inflation." (Read more).

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Dollar's Role in Danger as U.S. Influence Declines -Bloomberg
12.1.10 -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who is chairman of President Barack Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said the U.S. dollar is in danger of losing its role as a global benchmark currency. "The growing question is whether the exceptional role of the dollar can be maintained...The time is gone when the U.S. could lay claim as the putative superpower with both unchallenged economic and military might...The growing sense around much of the world is that we have lost both relative economic strength and more important, we have lost a coherent successful governing model to be emulated by the rest of the world...Instead, we're faced with broken financial markets, underperformance of our economy and a fractious political climate," Volcker said.

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China, Russia quit dollar -ChinaDaily
11.24.10 -- St. Petersburg, Russia - "China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late Tuesday. Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies."

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21st century Dark Ages ahead? Economist says hope for the best but prepare for the worst...-RenewAmerica
11.22.10-- "The recent move by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to infuse $600 billion of paper money into the economy is seen by the Obama White House -- if not by Bernanke -- as a means of ginning up the economy in time for November 2012. Let us understand that what we may confront is beyond a U.S. experience of anyone living today or in all American history. In the new book "Crashing the Dollar" Craig Smith and Lowell Ponte hold nothing back: "Because our dollar is the world's reserve currency, and we are the biggest and richest consumer of the whole world's products, if the United States becomes a black hole, we will probably pull the whole world economy down with us."

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Bernanke Seeks New "International Monetary System", Accuses China of Currency Intervention... -GETA
11.19.10 -- "In speeches before a European Central Bank conference in Frankfurt, Ben Bernanke went on an unprecedented attack, accusing China of throwing a monkey wrench into the global recovery, blaming China for slow global growth and a potential "End to the Tepid U.S. Recovery". If Bernanke was trying to spook the markets, provoke China, cause a currency war, and get Congress to launch an extremely foolish set of tariffs, he would have been hard pressed to deliver a more powerful speech." [Where Do We Stand? -FED- 11.19.10]

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Ron Paul's Golden Opportunity -WSJ
11.18.10 -- "If Dr. Paul does accede to the chairmanship of the monetary subcommittee, he will, in but a few months, gavel it to order on the 40th anniversary of the summer in which President Nixon closed the gold window and brought an end to Bretton Woods. Yet a few weeks ago, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan himself, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, warned that "fiat money has no place to go but gold." Even the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, has just called for restoring a role for gold in the monetary system. The great debate is finally starting up again."

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U.S. Dollar Skidding Down -Nasdaq
11.18.10 -- "The US Dollar continues to lose steam in Asia, extending further minor losses posted on Wednesday...Gold came to life reversing its recent downward momentum to spike higher, recovering $1,350/oz...the USD... [is] one of the most fragile currencies today."

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Quantitative Easing Explained -RightNet
11.17.10 -- "It's simple once you enter the Twilight Zone of Economic Fantasy. This whole video is less than seven minutes long. Meanwhile, the entire output of the mainstream news media - thousands and thousands of hours - fails to illustrate these facts."

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China Acts to Slow Food-flation -NYTimes
11.17.10 -- "Facing an unexpected acceleration of inflation, the Chinese government announced Wednesday that it would take forceful measures to limit price increases for a wide range of foodstuffs and cotton, and that it would distribute additional supplies of fuel, for which prices are already regulated. "With the pressure on world prices of most commodities not abating, the international community must remain vigilant against further supply shocks in 2011 and be prepared," said The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, based in Rome."

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Dollar Coming or Going? -Daily Bell
11.15.10 -- "Greenback debased and doomed? Not so fast ... "As far as investors are concerned, there's an old saying: don't fight the Fed. The Fed has a larger credit line than you do." Indeed, one of the main reasons why the dollar has been under pressure in recent months has been the diversification of reserves by central banks, mainly in Asia, away from the US currency. These reserve managers have been accumulating dollars as they fight to stem the appreciation of their currencies. But, if the Federal Reserve is really trying to debase the dollar, it may need to rethink its strategy."

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What Will Hyperinflation in the U.S. Look Like? -FoodConsumer
11.10.10 -- "In this audio interview, John Embry, chief investment strategist for Sprott Asset Management, tells King World News why he believes hyperinflation is a certainty. Blogger Gonzalo Lira has also published a disturbing piece detailing what the effects of hyperinflation in the U.S. would be. He used as an example one of the modern instances of hyperinflation -- Chile under the government of Salvador Allende. The currency became worthless, and when consumer goods ran out and were rationed, people perceived as unfriendly to the government received insufficient rations or none at all."

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Palin's Dollar, Zoellick's Gold -WSJ
11.9.10 -- Monetary reform is a terrible thing to waste: "We don't want temporary, artificial economic growth brought at the expense of permanently higher inflation which will erode the value of our incomes and our savings," Sarah Palin, the former GOP Vice Presidential nominee said. "We want a stable dollar combined with real economic reform. It's the only way we can get our economy back on the right track." Mrs. Palin and Mr. Zoellick are offering a better policy path: More careful monetary policy in the U.S., and more U.S. leadership abroad with a goal of greater monetary cooperation and less volatile exchange rates. If Mr. Obama is looking for advice on this beyond Mr. Zoellick, he might consult Paul Volcker or Nobel laureate Robert Mundell. A chance for monetary reform is a terrible thing to waste."

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Fed Global Backlash Grows -WSJ
11.8.10 -- China and Russia Join Germany in Scolding; Obama Defends Move as Pro-Growth "Global controversy mounted over the Federal Reserve's decision to pump billions of dollars into the U.S. economy, with President Barack Obama defending the move as China, Russia and the euro zone added to a chorus of criticism. Mr. Obama returned fire in the growing confrontation over trade and currencies Monday in a joint news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, taking the unusual step of publicly backing the Fed's decision to buy $600 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds -- a move that has come under withering international criticism for weakening the U.S. dollar."

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U.S. Dollar Index Breaks Long-Term Support - FinSense
11.8.10 -- "The Fed is determined to devalue the dollar, and I think, based on the technicals, that they will succeed beyond their wildest dreams...this [chart] looks like a giant reverse pennant formation, and the implications are extremely bearish -- a downside projection of about 50 points. To me that sounds crazy, but so does what the Fed is doing."

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Gold Soars on the Back of a Declining US Dollar-Mineweb
11.8.10 -- "It is my firm belief that these [government] expansionary monetary policies are not going to help unemployment nor are they going to resolve the current crisis. Instead what will happen is that they will debase the values of currencies, in particular the US dollar...Governments around the world are bankrupt and politicians are out of ideas and are quickly running out of time in dealing with the massive amounts of sovereign debt hanging over the global economy....I think that if the US dollar loses another 10% from its current value, we could expect to see the price of gold trade over $1700 an ounce."

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The age of the dollar is drawing to a close -Telegraph
11.5.10 -- "Right from the start of the financial crisis, it was apparent that one of its biggest long-term casualties would be the mighty dollar, and with it, very possibly, American economic hegemony. The process would take time - possibly a decade or more - but the starting gun had been fired. At next week's meeting in Seoul of the G20's leaders, there will be no last rites - this hopelessly unwieldy exercise in global government wouldn't recognize a corpse if stood before it in a coffin - but it seems clear that this tragedy is already approaching its denouement."

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Dollar at Risk of Crashing, Triggering Inflation -CNBC:
11.5.10 -- "Federal Reserve policies have put the US dollar the risk of crashing, which will hammer consumers through higher prices," said strategist Axel Merk, CIO of Merk Investments. "It's with the best of intentions but I think it's a very, very wrong policy...We will have a cost-push inflation. We're going to get inflation but not where Bernanke wants to have it. We're not going to get wages to go up. We'll get the price at the gas pump to go up instead." [Publisher's Note: This is exactly what Crashing the Dollar author Craig R. Smith told Lars Larson Show listeners last night!]

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Recommended Video -- Debt 101: A student's understanding of Obamanomics and proposed budget cuts (:98 trt)

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Fed sees slow recovery, housing depression, $600B bond buy:
11.3.10 -- FOMC STATEMENT: "The pace of recovery in output and employment continues to be slow... Housing starts continue to be depressed... Inflation expectations have remained stable... The Federal Open Market Committee intends to purchase a further $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a pace of about $75 billion per month. The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4%. Voting against the policy was Thomas M. Hoenig. Mr. Hoenig believed the risks of additional securities purchases (would cause an increase in long-term inflation) outweighed the benefits," reports Marketwatch.

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QE2 risks currency wars and the end of dollar hegemony
11.2.10 -- "As the US Federal Reserve meets today to decide whether its next blast of quantitative easing should be $1 trillion or a more cautious $500bn, it does so knowing that China and the emerging world view the policy as an attempt to drive down the dollar... so the question that Ben Bernanke and his colleagues should ask themselves is whether they have thought through the global ramifications of their actions, and how the strategic consequences might rebound against America itself," reports Telegraph.

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Fed Easing May Mean 20% Dollar Drop: Bill Gross
11.1.10 -- "The dollar is in danger of losing 20 percent of its value over the next few years if the Federal Reserve continues unconventional monetary easing, Bill Gross, the manager of the world's largest mutual fund, said on Monday. "It is a globalized economy of our own doing for the past 20-30 years. We encouraged all of this, but it is coming back to haunt us," reports CNBC.

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Fed organizing attack on dollar's value -John Hathaway
10.29.10 -- "The world's monetary system is in the process of melting down. We have entered the endgame for the dollar as the dominant reserve currency, but most investors and policy makers are unaware of the implications. The only questions are how long the denouement of the dollar reserve system will last, and how much more damage will be inflicted by new rounds of quantitative easing or more radical monetary measures to prop up the system," reports Bloomberg.

"Naysayers point to gold's price and see a bubble, without understanding that the only acceleration that is taking place is in the rate of decline of paper currency. The Fed is organizing an attack on the dollar's value, believing that this is the most expedient way to defuse deflationary market forces. The man in the street is unaware, a perfect setup. Inflation can only be successful when the public doesn't see it coming."

10-year currency chart courtesy of BMI "Gold vs. Bonds"

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Inflation in the Real World:
10.27.10 -- "There is a big difference between what the government statistics are reporting and what's going on in the real world. According to the most recent inflation reading published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), consumer prices grew at an annual rate of just 1.1% in August," reports Caseyresearch.com. But ...

"On average, our basic food costs have increased by an incredible 48% over the last year (measured by wheat, corn, oats, and canola prices). The jump in gold and silver prices illustrates that it's not just supply and demand issues driving the precious metals higher – the decline in purchasing power of the dollar is also showing up in the price of physical goods."

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As faith in Obamanomics flickers, the U.S. dollar burns
10.26.10

The dollar is making new economic headlines daily as the world rushes to find a new reserve currency with a more trustworthy store of value. Meanwhile, the Fed, Treasury and White House are embracing a weaker dollar, while espousing a "strong dollar". These recent news headlines detail what's at stake as the world makes plans to ditch the dollar ASAP.

* Dollar at Risk of Becoming 'Toxic Waste': "The dollar's slump could get far worse if the dollar index takes out last year's low, Robin Griffiths, technical strategist at Cazenove Capital, told CNBC Monday. "If the (dollar index) takes out the low that was made roughly a year ago I really think that will not only encourage more sales, it will cause a little bit of minor panic," Griffiths said.

* Bernanke Has Buried the Buck: "It wasn't too long ago that the parity pontificators were out in full force claiming that the European currency would trade one-to-one with the U.S. dollar. On June 7th 2010 the Euro hit a low of $1.1917. Since then, the Euro has risen over 17% against the US dollar, hitting $1.3961 as of today," reports IBTimes.com.

* China's Plan to Dethrone the Dollar Continues to Unfold: The U.S. dollar is on the way out as the world's top reserve currency, and the yuan could be set to replace it. China, which leads the world with more than $2 trillion in currency reserves held mostly in U.S. Treasuries, is chief among the countries seeking respite from the dollar's decline. Beijing has long bemoaned the depreciation of the dollar, stating outright that it should be replaced as the world's main reserve currency. The dollar's share of worldwide reserves has declined to 62% in June from 73% in 2001, reports Money Morning.

* Fed's Debate on Buying More Debt: Consensus is building at the Federal Reserve for a new program to pump up the economy through the purchase of Treasury bonds. Fed officials worried that the economy had become vulnerable to "potential negative shocks." Economists predicted Fed officials will approve the program at their Nov. 2-3 meeting. Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, however, has dissented from the Fed's decisions all year and is likely to oppose additional aid," reports MSNBC.

* "We're at risk of financial collapse": Ken Clarke's warning for Western economies: The West is in 'grave danger of financial collapse', UK Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke warned last night. We face 'quite the most dramatic' spending cuts in 'living memory', the former chancellor added as the Coalition prepares to unveil plans to rein in the unprecedented budget deficit left by Labour. 'I actually am one of those who believes, with a grave danger of financial collapse, we're not out of the woods in the Western world yet,'" reports Daily Mail.

* National Debt Up $3 Trillion on Mr. Obama's Watch: New numbers postsed today on the Treasury Department website show the National Debt has increased by more than $3 trillion since President Obama took office. The National Debt stood at $10.626 trillion the day Mr. Obama was inaugurated. The Bureau of Public Debt reported today that the National Debt had hit an all time high of $13.665 trillion. The Debt increased $4.9 trillion during President Bush's two terms. The Administration has projected the National Debt will soar in Mr. Obama's fourth year in office to nearly $16.5-trillion in 2012. That's more than 100 percent of the value of the nation's economy and $5.9-trillion above what it was his first day on the job, reports CBS News.

*Richard Alford: Fed Hasn't Learned From the Crisis: Unfortunately, the Fed seems unable to generalize from the lesson that at times appropriate interest rate policy is a function of more than just inflation and the output gap. Currently, the large, unsustainable global financial and economic imbalances are parallels to the imbalances that existed in the US prior to the crisis," reports Naked Capitalism.

* Dollar Crisis Looms if US Doesn't Curb Debt: "The U.S. must soon raise taxes or cut government spending to curb its debt, and failure to act will risk a crippling dollar crisis as investor confidence ebbs. The national debt has risen above 50% of GDP (gross domestic product) from 40% two years ago, and within 20 years will blow past a previous record above 100% of GDP set after World War Two without stern official steps," reports Reuters.

* 'End US dollar dominance', urges France: "President Nicolas Sarkozy urged an end to the US dollar's global dominance, warning that its weakness poses an 'unacceptable' threat to European competitiveness. The world is multipolar, the monetary system must become multi-monetary. 'A dollar-based system ... might have made sense in the 20th century but doesn't make sense in the 21th century,' said Prof Stiglitz, an adviser to former US president Bill Clinton," reports AFP.

The Dethroning of King Dollar?: "Dollar murdered. Drowned in red ink. Clues point to the White House." So might a tabloid headline read as the angry mourners gathered to affix blame for the end of the era in which the dollar served as the currency in which the world does business -- its reserve currency. Unless Bernanke drains liquidity from the financial system, and shrinks the Fed's balance sheet by winding down $2 trillion in support programs, the dollar's decline will accelerate, shattering confidence in its long-term value," reports The Weekly Standard.

* The Last Great Dollar Crisis: "The more the U.S. becomes financially overextended, the more it is at the mercy of seemingly insignificant financial events. The U.S. has few viable alternatives to deficit reduction and eventually tightening the money supply. If the U.S. government cannot muster the will to rein in the money supply and the national debt on its own, it faces the prospect of a rival power increasingly constraining U.S. economic policy options or a collapse in global confidence in the dollar," reports WSJ.

* Top Analysts See No Bottom in Dollar Slump: "The most accurate dollar forecasters predict the world's reserve currency will continue sliding even when the Fed begins to raise interest rates, which policy makers say is an extended period away. 'History tells us the dollar shouldn't start rising on a sustained basis until 12 months after the Fed starts to lift rates,' said Callum Henderson, the global head of foreign-exchange strategy for Standard Chartered," reports Bloomberg.

U.S. Backs Strong Dollar; Trading Partners Not Convinced: "The U.S. reiterated its support for a strong dollar Thursday but Pacific Rim trading partners remained skeptical, continuing their calls on Washington to stabilize its sliding currency, languishing near 15-month lows against a basket of currencies. 'They have to make good on what they profess. The volatility is hurting us in a serious way,' Russian Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin told Dow Jones Newswires," reports WSJ.

The Great Shrinking American Dollar: "The American government needs to control its budget deficit to stop confidence in the dollar from falling further. Our government collects far too little in taxes for what it spends. There is no choice but to raise taxes soon and rein in spending. Short-term rates (controlled by the Fed) will stay low, while long-term rates (market-determined and affected by trust in our Treasury and Fed to keep the value of dollar strong) will rise as people fear their dollar investments will be debased," reports NY Times.