STWR - Share The World's Resources

THE weather may be cold and wet, but in the rich world's financial markets it is beginning to feel like August all over again. Credit spreads have widened and shares are pitching from gloom to elation as investors look to the Federal Reserve for solace. The anxiety is unmistakable. But this time the scare is about more than bad mortgage loans and their baleful effect on the credit markets. America may be falling into recession. And a new fear now stalks the markets: that the dollar's slide could spin out of control.

Hubris and arrogance are too ensconced in Washington for policymakers to be aware of the economic policy trap in which they have placed the US economy. If the subprime mortgage meltdown is half as bad as predicted, low US interest rates will be required in order to contain the crisis. But if the dollar’s plight is half as bad as predicted, high US interest rates will be required if foreigners are to continue to hold dollars and to finance US budget and trade deficits.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The President of Iran claimed yesterday that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) had considered pricing oil in currencies other than the dollar.

A cross party group of MPs has urged the government to introduce a small tax on foreign exchange dealings as a way of raising money to combat poverty worldwide.

A new United Nations study reveals that migrants working in industrialized countries sent home more than $300 billion to their families in 2006 – surpassing the $104 billion provided by donor nations in foreign aid to developing countries.