Zimbabweans hunt for US cash as shortages bite

(Hat tip: KimR) - Severe shortages of U.S. dollars that are used as local currency in Zimbabwe have forced many residents into cash hunter-gatherers. This week, Zimbabwe’s central bank imposed measures in an attempt to ease the cash crunch, which reflects the country’s dire economic situation. The measures include reducing the amount of money that travelers can take outside the country and limiting daily cash withdrawals. Read more at the Associated Press Read More......

Banning the Benjamin Suggests the Democrats Are Running Out of Ideas

(Hat tip: KimR) - The latest brainstorm being cooked up by the Democrats — to do away with the hundred-dollar bill — is front-page news all over the world. And for good reason. It’s a terrible idea, and not only because the c-note is the most popular form of green. Read more at the New York Sun Read More......

China stocks start new week with 5.3% drop

Chinese stocks plunged deeper into negative territory Monday after a brutal first week of the year. The Shanghai Composite closed down 5.3%, and the Shenzhen Composite ended 6.6% lower. The grim day of trading followed steep declines in Chinese stocks last week amid worries over the country's slowing economy and weakening currency.

Read more at CNN
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

China Devalues Its Currency as Economic Slowdown Raises Concerns

As China contends with an economic slowdown and a stock market slump, the authorities on Tuesday sharply devalued the country’s currency, the renminbi, a move that could raise geopolitical tensions and weigh on growth elsewhere.
The central bank set the official value of the renminbi nearly 2 percent weaker against the dollar. The devaluation is the largest since China’s modern exchange-rate system was introduced at the start of 1994.

Read more at the New York Times
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

A hundred billion dollar printing error has Geithner's name on it

12/7/2010 - The $100bn blunder: Fed forced to 'quarantine' one billion $100 bills after printing error makes them worthless. Read more at the Daily Mail or at CNBC... Read More......

Imagine There's No Countries

CNSNews.com (via Patriot Post email), 9/28/2009 by Rich Galen, Political Analyst - "Interesting that many of us thought the election of Barack Obama might signal the end of American Independence as we surrendered sovereignty to the United Nations. Imagine my surprise, then, to find that Obama has decided to give up American power to a group that doesn't even officially exist: The Group of 20, which is shorthanded to the G-20. In an example of governmental inflation at its most dangerous, the G-20 was originally the G-6, then Canada was allowed to sit at the grownups table and it became the G-7. When the Soviet Union returned to being good old Russia, they were invited in and it became the G-8. The G-20 is supposed to be a meeting of the finance ministers and central bankers of the 20 largest economies. But these G-X meetings have now become summits. The meeting in Pittsburgh last week, included a significant number of the heads of states who had been in New York a few days earlier for the opening of the UN and who decided to make the trek along the Pennsylvania Turnpike to spend a day or two in the Steel City. ... Obama knows he can never cede sovereignty to the UN, but he may be able to get away with the G-20 as the international Board of Directors dealing with everything from banking regs to global warming to human rights to labor law to ... whatever. Obama knows America -- even Air America -- would never sit still for letting the United Nations make decisions for us. ... However, sharing sovereignty with the 20 largest economies on the planet is a potentially saleable deal as long as Obama doesn't say 'We are sharing sovereignty with the 20 largest economies on the planet.' You say things like, 'We are establishing new rules for international banking which will avoid the problems of last September.' One of those new rules will be an international reserve currency which does not have 'UNITED STATES OF AMERICA' printed anywhere on it. ... And we've been wasting our time worrying about Obama's relationship with ACORN." Read More......