Zimbabweans hunt for US cash as shortages bite

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.
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Banning the Benjamin Suggests the Democrats Are Running Out of Ideas

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.
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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.
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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.


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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......

Geithner 'open' to China proposal

POLITICO, 3/25/2009, Ben Smith's Blog - Geithner, at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the U.S. is "open" to a headline-grabbing proposal by the governor of the China's central bank, which was widely reported as being a call for a new global currency to replace the dollar, but which Geithner described as more modest and "evolutionary."

"I haven’t read the governor’s proposal. He’s a very thoughtful, very careful distinguished central banker. I generally find him sensible on every issue," Geithner said, saying that however his interpretation of the proposal was to increase the use of International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights -- shares in the body held by its members -- not creating a new currency in the literal sense.

"We’re actually quite open to that suggestion – you should see it as rather evolutionary rather building on the current architecture rather than moving us to global monetary union," he said.

"The only thing concrete I saw was expanding the use of the [special drawing rights]," Geithner said. "Anything he’s thinking about deserves some consideration."

The continued use of the dollar as a reserve currency, he added, "depends..on how effective we are in the United States...at getting our fiscal system back to the point where people judge it as sustainable over time."

President Obama flatly rejected the notion of a new global currency at last night's press conference.

UPDATE: Evidently sensing a gaffe, moderator Roger Altman told Geithner that it would be "useful" to return to the question, and asked if he foresaw a change in the dollar's centrality.

"I do not," Geithner said, adding several forceful promises, including, "We will do what's necessary to say we're sustaining confidence in our financial markets." Read More......