More Fun Than A Barrel Of Monkeys

What kind of recovery is this? We don't know, but if it continues much longer we'll all be unemployed.
-Bill Bonner, The Daily Reckoning


The demise of the dollar
In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading
By Robert Fisk
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-demise-of-the-dollar-1798175.html

Three Government Reports Point to Fiscal Doomsday
by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.
When our leaders have no awareness of the disastrous consequences of their actions, they can claim ignorance and take no action.

Or when our leaders have no hard evidence as to what might happen in the future, they can at least claim uncertainty.

But when they have full knowledge of an impending disaster … they have proof of its inevitability in ANY scenario … and they so declare in their official reports … but STILL don’t lift a finger to change course … then they have only one remaining claim:

INSANITY!

And, unfortunately, that’s precisely the situation we’re in today: Three recently released government reports now point to fiscal doomsday for America; and one of the reports, issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), says so explicitly:

The CBO paints two future scenarios for the U.S. budget deficit and the national debt. But it plainly declares that fiscal disaster will strike in EITHER scenario. Furthermore …

The CBO states that its fiscal disaster scenarios could cause severe economic declines for decades to come, including hyperinflation and destruction of retirement savings.

The CBO then proceeds to admit that even its worse-case scenario could be understated by a wide margin due to panic in the financial markets or vicious cycles that are beyond control.

Separately, in its Flow of Funds Report for the second quarter, the Federal Reserve provides irrefutable data that we are already beginning to witness the first of these consequences in the United States: an unprecedented cut-off of credit to businesses and consumers.

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department shows that America’s fate remains, as before, in the hands of foreigners, with the U.S. still owing them $7.9 trillion!

And despite all this, neither Congress nor the Obama Administration have proposed a plan or a timetable for averting these doomsday scenarios. Their sole solution is to issue more bonds, borrow more, and print more without restraint.

That is the epitome of insanity.
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/three-government-reports-point-to-fiscal-doomsday-4-35722