Dollar plunges to 2½-year low

By Peter Garnham

Published: April 21 2011 12:30 | Last updated: April 21 2011 12:30

The dollar dropped to its lowest level in more than two-and-a-half years on Thursday as buoyant risk appetite prompted investors to sell the currency to fund carry trades.

ttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9a977da0-6bfd-11e0-b36e-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1KFRqqEEm

S&P sounds alarm on US debt

S&P sounds alarm on US debt

By Robin Harding and James Politi in Washington and Michael Mackenzie in New York

Published: April 18 2011 15:19 | Last updated: April 18 2011 22:48

Standard & Poor’s issued a stark warning to Washington on Monday, cutting its outlook on US sovereign debt for the first time and throwing more fuel on the raging debate over America’s swollen deficits.

The agency kept America’s credit rating at triple A but for the first time since it started rating US debt 70 years ago, cut its outlook from “stable” to “negative”. A negative outlook means there is a one-third chance of a downgrade in the next two years.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d6c97342-69bd-11e0-826b-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1JvCRXEuR

World Bank president: 'One shock away from crisis'

World Bank president: 'One shock away from crisis'

The president of the World Bank has warned that the world is "one shock away from a full-blown crisis".

Robert Zoellick cited rising food prices as the main threat to poor nations who risk "losing a generation".

He was speaking in Washington at the end of the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Meanwhile, G20 finance chiefs, who also met in Washington, pledged financial support to help new governments in the Middle East and North Africa


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13108166

Who is John Galt ?

For the uninitiated Atlas Shrugged, the movie is the adaptation of Ayn Rand’s 1957 classic novel. The novel, which centers around railroad executive Dagny Taggart as she fights to keep her business a float as American society crumbles around her, and descends into deeper and deeper recession .

In the novel Rand dramatized her unique philosophy in an intellectual mystery story that integrated ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics and sex. She considered herself primarily a fiction writer, but realized that in order to create heroic fictional characters, she had to identify the philosophic principles which make such individuals possible.

http://www.manhattanstyle.com/arts-entertainment/movies/who-is-john-gault/

Stuck on Stupid : US deficit up 15.7% in first half of fiscal 2011

Stuck on Stupid : US deficit up 15.7% in first half of fiscal 2011

US deficit up 15.7% in first half of fiscal 2011
(AFP) – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON — The US budget deficit shot up 15.7 percent in the first six months of fiscal 2011, the Treasury Department said Wednesday as political knives were being sharpened for a new budget battle.

The Treasury reported a deficit of $829 billion for the October-March period, compared with $717 billion a year earlier, as revenue rose a sluggish 6.9 percent as the economic recovery slowly gained pace.

The Treasury argued that the pace of increase in the deficit was deceptive because of large one-off reductions in expenditures made during the first half of fiscal 2010, compared with previous and subsequent periods.

Those included a $115 billion reduction in funds spent on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) -- the financial institution bailout program -- in March 2010.

But 2011 so far has also seen significant increases in spending on defense, Social Security, health and debt service, while receipts have not grown as fast.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5il-7COiRQUJ9kbLkZ3gg4nrlac5Q?docId=CNG.dcd81b51497966fd4c6461748e63e3ee.921

Stuck on Stupid : US lacks credibility on debt, says IMF

US lacks credibility on debt, says IMF

By Chris Giles and James Politi in Washington
Published: April 12 2011 19:15 | Last updated: April 12 2011 19:15

The US lacks a “credible strategy” to stabilise its mounting public debt posing a small but significant risk of a new global economic crisis, says the International Monetary Fund.

In an unusually stern rebuke to its largest shareholder, the IMF said the US was the only advanced economy to be increasing its underlying budget deficit in 2011 at a time when its economy was growing fast enough to reduce borrowing.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc1aadea-652e-11e0-b150-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1JLXw8WWX

Two George Soros Events Aim to Remake the Financial Order and the Media -- So Where's the Reporting

Two George Soros Events Aim to Remake the Financial Order and the Media -- So Where's the Reporting?
By Dan Gainor
Published April 06, 2011
FoxNews.com

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/04/06/george-soros-events-weekend-aim-remake-financial-order-media-wheres-reporting/#ixzz1IpY4Adz2

Apparently, megalomaniacs need schedulers.

Just ask George Soros. The left-wing billionaire is helping fund two major conferences that start on the same day, in two different locations just a three hours apart by car. Two liberal events packed into one long weekend. God created the world in six days. Apparently, Soros, who sees himself as “some kind of god,”needs just a long weekend to start remaking today's world in his image.
The emphasis of both conferences is a familiar one to American voters – change. Soros wants to begin changing the global economy in one event. In the other, his flunkies want to “Change the world. Change the media.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/04/06/george-soros-events-weekend-aim-remake-financial-order-media-wheres-reporting/#ixzz1IpXzn1IV

NBC’s Brokaw: Saudis ‘So Unhappy' With Obama They Sent Emissaries to China, Russia Seeking Enhanced Ties

NBC’s Brokaw: Saudis ‘So Unhappy' With Obama They Sent Emissaries to China, Russia Seeking Enhanced Ties
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
By Susan Jones

(CNSNews.com) – Reporting from Baghdad, Iraq yesterday, NBC’s Tom Brokaw said the Saudi Arabian monarchy is “so unhappy with the Obama administration for the way it pushed out President Mubarak of Egypt” that it has sent senior officials to the Peoples' Republic of China and Russia to seek expanded business opportunities with those countries.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/nbc-s-brokaw-saudis-so-unhappy-obama-adm

Ryan: Debt on Track to Hit 800 Percent of GDP

Ryan: Debt on Track to Hit 800 Percent of GDP; 'CBO Can't Conceive of Any Way' Economy Can Continue Past 2037
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
By Nicholas Ballasy

(CNSNews.com) – House Budget Chairman Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said President Barack Obama’s budget strategy is to “do nothing, punt, duck, kick the can down the road” while the debt remains on track to eventually hit 800 percent of GDP. Ryan added that the CBO is saying it "can't conceive of any way" that the economy can continue past 2037 given its current trajectory.

Ryan also said that the House Republicans’ FY2012 budget, which he unveiled yesterday, would save Medicare and help the United States avoid a debt crisis.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/rep-ryan-obama-s-budget-path-do-nothing