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Leading Economist: Dollar Faces Outright Collapse
Financial experts issue dire warnings as Fed and Treasury
continue to say they are "committed to a strong dollar"
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Another prominent economist has warned that the bottom may soon
drop out of the dollar completely as the currency hits fresh lows
and continues to sink worldwide.
Peter Schiff, a dollar-bear at Security Pacific
Capital, told the London
Telegraph that the greenback faced the danger of
outright collapse as countries in Asia and the Middle East mull
plans to break their dollar pegs, which are fueling inflation
across the region.
"The decline could accelerate rapidly. The
world is still holding a lot of dollars it doesn't need,"
he said.
Schiff is well respected amongst the major financial
publications, primarily due to the fact that over two years ago
he accurately forecast that the U.S. housing market was a bubble
that would soon come to bust, and also that the crisis would extend
to the credit card lending industry.
Schiff is also the economic advisor for Ron Paul's
Presidential campaign.
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The greenback reached a record low of $1.5651 against the euro
yesterday, meaning it has lost 15 percent against the euro since
September alone. It also dipped below 100 yen, its lowest level
in 12 years, and
fell below parity with the Swiss franc for the first
time in history today.
Other analysts share Schiff's fear of a total dollar collapse.
Mitul Kotecha, head of currency strategy at Credit Agricole, said:
"The real risk remains that we get a dollar rout. The news
from from the US is consistently negative and investors are actually
not overly long euros."
The Negative dollar sentiment is now becoming global, with nations
who have traditionally accepted the dollar as equal to or better
than local currency now rejecting
it outright. Reports suggest that the once mighty
dollar is no longer good enough even for Manhattan flea market
traders:
In Manhattan's Bowery district, Billy LeRoy, the owner of Billy's
Antiques & Props, prefers payment in euros so he can stockpile
the currency for his annual antique buying trip to Paris.
"Whip out dollars at the French flea market now, and they'll
shoo you away," he said at his store near apartment buildings
where Europeans are snapping up units because they've become
dirt cheap. "Before it was like the second coming of Christ,
but now they don't want it or if they do take dollars, they're
going to take their pound of flesh."
Other nations mulling a turn away from the dollar peg are likely
to be influenced by the fact that the Chinese
yuan has risen to the highest level since the end
of its dollar link in 2005.
As the Financial
Times reports, analysts are in no doubt that the
weakness of the dollar is being caused by Fed rate cuts and injections
of liquidity, which it says constitute efforts to steady markets.
Executives, investors and politicians say they're becoming increasingly
worried. Dollars are ``printed
on toilet paper,'' Marc Faber, managing director
of Marc Faber Ltd., said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
Yesterday U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson again repeated
the now engrained mantra that he backs a "strong dollar''
and refused to elaborate when questioned at a press conference
in Washington.
"The "strong dollar" message is so familiar, and
is uttered with such unfailing regularity, that market observers
often roll their eyes when they hear it, and short-term traders
pay it little heed," reports
Market Watch.
In the wake of the news that the G7
nations may intervene to shore up the dollar, analysts
have stated that such action may now be futile considering that
the Fed is seemingly unfazed by the currency's total degradation
and has the ability to effectively "pull rank" over
policy makers who may be genuinely worried about the decline.
Supporting the dollar may also prove futile, as its decline
partly reflects the Fed's cuts and the ECB's decision not to
follow, said Chris Turner at ING Financial Markets.
The Fed has cut its main rate by 2.25 percentage points since
September to 3 percent, while the ECB's rate is still at a six-year
high of 4 percent.
"Failed intervention is worse than no intervention,''
said Turner, ING's head of currency research in London. "Policy
makers have their hands tied and will defer to the global priority
of the Fed slashing interest rates.''
Meanwhile the corporate media in the US continues to echo
the Bush administration's snowjob policy on the dollar
crisis by ludicrously citing "experts" who claim that
the unprecedented plunge of the greenback is "not necessarily
a bad thing for the U.S. economy."
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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