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This is the funniest thing I've ever seen. Captain Euro saving the world with his diplomacy and polygot powers!

LONDON (AFP) - Crude prices continued their dizzying spiral down on Friday, shedding nearly four dollars to trade below 114 dollars a barrel as the US currency strengthened amid concerns about energy demand, dealers said. Brent North Sea crude for September delivery hit an intra-day low of 113.55 dollars a barrel. It recovered slightly to stand at 114.06 dollars, down 3.80 dollars, at about 1420 GMT New York's main contract, light sweet crude for September stood at 116.28 dollars a barrel, down 3.74. Oil futures have shed more than 20 percent in value since hitting record highs above 147 dollars...

France believes that the European Central Bank's present monetary policy is fundamentally misguided but will not push for a revision of the statutes that enshrine the bank's independence from political pressure, the Elysée Palace said yesterday. As it launched France's long-awaited European Union presidency, the Elysée said it wanted to open up public debates on sensitive topics such as the ECB's approach to economic growth and inflation, the EU's stance in the Doha talks on liberalising world trade, EU immigration policy and much else besides. In a tour d'horizon of France's ambitions for its presidency, which will last until December...

Collapsing growth in Germany, Italy and Spain has forced the European Central Bank to abandon its hawkish policy stance, preparing the way for rate cuts in coming months. Jean-Claude Trichet said yesterday that the picture had darkened over recent months and growth was now "particularly weak" across the eurozone. "We knew that there were downside risks, and those risks are materialising," he said after a meeting that left rates on hold at 4.25pc. The comments caused the euro to plummet by almost two cents against the dollar to $1.5310 yesterday. Traders scrambled to unwind bets on future rate rises. "The...

Though most of Europe has avoided the real estate slump, the euro zone is feeling the pinch from disparities among its member states.For most of August, business across Europe grinds to a halt as ... the Continent head[s] off for month-long vacations. This year, Europe's sun-seekers may want to savor their time away from the office a little more than usual. That's because bad economic news awaits their return to work as the euro zone moves headlong toward recession. Business activity hit a seven-year low in July, and growth in the region's gross domestic product is expected to slump to...

Euro seen easing to $1.50 in six months, $1.44 in a year * 10 of 61 see euro at $1.60 or higher in next 6 months * Euro forecasts range from $1.48-$1.61 in 3 months, $1.35-$1.63 in 12 By Nigel Davies LONDON, Aug 6 (Reuters) - The euro has probably already hit its last record high against the dollar in this cycle and will move gradually lower as oil prices fall and euro zone economic growth stalls, a Reuters poll of analysts found. The common currency took a hammering in the second half of July and slid to a six-week...

Recent strikes in Germany prove what many experts have long been warning: Labor unions in the country are fragmenting. Mini-organizations representing specialized employees are making strikes more frequent and more complex than ever. Revolution is in the air at Lufthansa: Last week's five-day strike by ground staff had hardly ended before 5,000 pilots, organized in the union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), began planning the next work stoppage. They want to see pilots working for Lufthansa affiliates receive pay hikes and are also fighting to create their own works council. A warning strike is planned for sometime in the next few days...

The planned construction of over 180 mosques in Germany is mobilizing right-wing xenophobes but also an increasing number of leftist critics. They fear the Muslim places of worship will facilitate the establishment of a completely parallel society. ... the media reported "turmoil" and an "enraged" audience in a school auditorium in Ehrenfeld, a district of the German city of Cologne. The mood was almost comparable to that of the protest gatherings once held against nuclear missiles or reactors. Instead the outrage was directed at a huge mosque planned for the area. Still, the words used by the project's opponents called...

Merrill Lynch has warned that the United States could face a foreign "financing crisis" within months as the full consequences of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage debacle spread through the world. The country depends on Asian, Russian and Middle Eastern investors to fund much of its $700bn (£350bn) current account deficit, leaving it far more vulnerable to a collapse of confidence than Japan in the early 1990s after the Nikkei bubble burst. Britain and other Anglo-Saxon deficit states could face a similar retreat by foreign investors. "Japan was able to cut its interest rates to zero," said Alex...

Insofar as a currency derives its strength from the balance sheet of the issuing central bank, the euro is unsound and becoming more so, as Mr. Mersch did not quite say. We, however, will say it for him. In fact, we will say the same for most of the leading monetary brands, that of the United States not excluded. The mortgage mess is the immediate cause of the new debasement. A long-held article of central banking dogma is the remote cause.

Spain has suspended an auction of sovereign bonds as investors take fright over the country's property crash and accelerating slide into economic crisis. Spain has suspended an auction of sovreign bonds as investors take fright over the country's property crash and accelerating slide into economic crisis Spanish government officials have been shocked by the intensity of the downturn The treasury pulled an expected sale of 15-year bonds after probing the market informally, saying it would wait until credit conditions began to calm down. "We are not facing financing problems. We placed a successful three-year note on Wednesday," said a spokesman....

The Eurocrats should take heed. A village in southern France has decided to bring back the franc as legal tender in an experiment that it hopes will be followed elsewhere. Collobrières, a village of 1,600 inhabitants in Provence, is motivated largely by profit: accepting the franc has boosted their business. “It’s amazing how many francs people have kept at home,” said Dominique Cardi, a gift shop owner. “Now they can spend them.” There is also a note of protest, however: nostalgia has grown for the colourful old money depicting French national heroes and its reappearance has warmed the hearts of...

A satire about the decline of the US dollar, written in a mock biblical style reminiscent of *Private Eye's Old Testament-based spoofs. In the last days of the ancient world, the people of Egypt loved their chariots above all. Each chariot was pulled by many horses, and each horse was an oats-guzzler, consuming many barrels of oats per mile traveled. And the land of Egypt was bountiful in all but oats to feed the horses to pull their chariots. So the Egyptians traded with the lands of the Arabites, which had plentiful oats. But the Arabites wanted gold and silver...

Notes printed in Berlin have more currency for bank customers who fear a 'value crisis' Ordinary Germans have begun to reject euro bank notes with serial numbers from Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal, raising concerns that public support for monetary union may be waning in the eurozone's anchor country. Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper says bankers have detected a curious pattern where customers are withdrawing cash directly from branches, screening the notes to determine the origin of issue. They ask for paper from the southern states to be exchanged for German notes. Each country prints its own notes according to its economic...

Last week, Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank, gathered with fellow euro-worthies in Frankfurt to be photographed next to a giant cake. However, having attended the single currency's 10th birthday party, eurozone policy-makers could now be suffering from a permanent hangover. A decade on, the single currency area is still enduring the co-ordination problems that have bedevilled it from the outset. And, such are the difficulties in running a huge currency bloc, now with 15 member states, that Trichet's attempts to temper inflationary expectations last week simply made price pressures much worse. Last week, the International Monetary...

Only a month ago the dollar slumped to an all-time low against the euro. And it's just five weeks since the greenback hit a 12-year low against the yen. But now, the US currency has started to strengthen - with the markets talking about a "turning point". On Wednesday, the dollar reached a six-week high against the European single currency, closing in on $1.53 - an improvement of more than 5 cents. And on the same day, the greenback climbed to a 10-week peak against the pound. But does the dollar remain in danger? Could "the rope slip" and the...

When a currency rises after government officials say that it should, you learn one thing: that the fundamentals were pushing it up anyway. It makes sense for senior US and European officials to talk up the dollar against the euro – as they did this week in the Financial Times – especially now that optimism about the US economy makes their arguments plausible. In the long run, however, the real risk of a dollar crisis is against the managed currencies of Asia and the Middle East. Early March was a time of danger for the dollar. There were forecasts of...

5/2/2008 - SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- Sheppard officials have identified the pilots killed when their T-38C Talon crashed during a May 1 training mission. Maj. Brad Funk, 35, a 90th Flying Training Squadron instructor pilot, and 2nd Lt. Alec Littler, 23, a student pilot in the 80th Flying Training Wing's Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program, died when the aircraft crashed on approach during a training mission at about 7:55 a.m. A board of officers is investigating the accident. More information will be released as it becomes available.

Cannot post article, see link below:: THIS IS HUGE NEWS BECAUSE THE ENTIRE WORLD USES DOLLARS TO BUY OIL. IF DOLLARS ARE NOT USED, THEN THERE WILL BE NO NEED FOR DOLLARS IN THESE NATIONS BANKS, AND THESE COUNTRIES WILL HAVE SPARE DOLLARS THAT WILL NEED TO BE CHANGED TO EUROS, MAKING THE DOLLAR MUCH LESS USEFULL. FOREIGN COUNTRIES THAT ARE INVESTING IN AMERICAN TREASURY BILLS WILL EXPERIENCE LOWER INTEREST RATES, SIMILAR TO THE FED DROPPING INTEREST RATES YESTERDAY, ONLY INSTEAD OF DOMESTIC RATES GOING DOWN, THE COLLAPSE OF THE DOLLAR WORLD WIDE MEANS FOREIGN INVESTMENT WILL SHUT DOWN, COUNTRIES...

When the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates for a seventh consecutive time this Wednesday, it will begin to wind down a pernicious campaign that has flooded the market with cheap dollars since last summer. At the same time, the whoosh of air from Europe's deflating credit bubble puts new pressure on the European Central Bank to begin cutting borrowing costs in order to goose growth. The strategy shifts by central banks will drive a greenback comeback against the overpriced euro, turning back the 15% slide that since August has lifted the euro -- to a record $1.60 last week --...

The euro has suffered its sharpest drop in four years as a blizzard of weak data from Germany, Belgium, France, and Spain spark fears that economic contagion may be spreading from the Anglo-Saxon world to Europe. A cafe waiter carries his tray with euro notes and coins: Euro dives as wheels fly off eurozone economy The IMF has cut its eurozone growth forecast three times since October. Spain's business federation warned that Spanish unemployment will rise by 500,000 by the summer unless the government takes "valiant measures" to offset the housing and construction crash. "For every dwelling not built, two...

Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU's 'Mr Euro', has given the clearest warning to date that the world authorities may take action to halt the collapse of the dollar and undercut commodity speculation by hedge funds. Momentum traders have blithely ignored last week's accord by the G7 powers, which described "sharp fluctuations in major currencies" as a threat to economic and financial stability. The euro has surged to fresh records this week, touching $1.5982 against the dollar and £0.8098 against sterling yesterday. "I don't have the impression that financial markets and other actors have correctly and entirely understood the message of the...

Soros: euro can't replace dollar Thursday April 17, 12:28 pm ET By Aoife White, AP Business Writer George Soros: Euro cannot replace dollar as world's reserve currency BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The euro cannot replace the U.S. dollar as the world's anchor currency, billionaire financier George Soros said Thursday, warning that investors are instead fleeing currencies to put their money into real assets. "I don't think that the euro can replace the dollar and a system with two major reserve currencies? Not a stable system," he told a Brussels event organized by the Centre for European Policy Studies think tank....

Europe’s growing ability to dictate global regulations and business practices is worth watching A regulatory war has erupted between the European Union and the United States. Just ask executives at Microsoft. In mid-January, they were forced to set aside their whiskey sours and golf clubs and dig out their pinstriped suits and law books when EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes initiated a new antitrust investigation into the goliath of American companies. Kroes’s January 14 announcement was salt on an already painful wound for Microsoft. Barely three months had passed since the American behemoth caved in and ended its opposition to...

Why the euro is unlikely to eclipse the dollar By Barry Eichengreen and Marc Flandreau Published: April 2 2008 17:54 | Last updated: April 2 2008 17:54 Judging from commentary by international economists, one would think that the dollar was on its deathbed. America’s financial crisis and the dollar’s depreciation are bringing us to a tipping point where the greenback will lose its international currency mantle to the euro. A few more losses on dollar investments, it is said, and central banks will learn to hold their reserves in euros. Other investors will follow. America’s “exorbitant privilege” will be no...

The dollar is taking a pounding. With the US sinking deeper into recession, the greenback recently hit an all-time low against the euro and a 12-year low against the yen. Last week, America's currency fell again - dropping more than 2 per cent in euro terms, to $1.5779. On a trade-weighted basis, the dollar is now south of its late-70s low point and close to its historic nadir of the mid-1990s. The markets sense the US Federal Reserve, having already slashed interest rates by 300 basis points to 2.25 per cent since the credit crunch erupted last summer, will soon...

"European bankers and the dollar holocaust" OK, this article isn't finished yet, but I was thinking like "why not publish what I've written so far beforehand, the topic is a highly important one and people here on Free Republic aren't whiners, sure they'll forgive me for saving this draft for later forum abuse and instead I could go treat my sore European intellect to some Absolut and b-movies". I'm on holiday, actually. The unfinished article (please comment!!): "Personally, I'm not born of banking stock. My forebears here in Sweden (yes, I am, again, trying to write an article in English...

Americans are living beyond their means and Asia is currently financing that. But eventually the Asians/Europeans will stop financing the USA and then the bubble will burst. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n3g5lUgkWk&NR=1

I am turning to the educated community of FREE REPUBLIC for an education in the falling dollar. Please list here some forums, blogs, somewhere to get an education to make some sense out of the dollar's devaluation. Nothing I've read so far explains how this is anything but a catastrophy.

The U.S. economy lost the title of "world's biggest" to the euro zone this week as the value of the dollar slumped in currency markets. Taking the gross domestic product of both economies in 2007, the combined GDP of the 15 countries which use the euro overtook that of the United States when the European currency surged to a record high of more than $1.56 per euro. "The curious outcome of breaching this latest milestone is that the size of the euro zone's annual output has now exceeded that of the U.S.," the economics department of Goldman Sachs, the Wall...

Europe's monetary union may be tested to near breaking point as the economic downturn engulfs the bloc's southern tier, and German investors cut off a crucial source of foreign funding, according a hard-hitting report by the Swiss bank UBS. "The coming two years are likely to prove the most testing time for the coherence of the single currency to date," said Meyrick Chapman, the bank's Europe strategist. "We expect that it will emerge unbroken. There is too much political and economic capital invested to break the project. However, adjustments are likely to be severe," he said. UBS warned of a...

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) — Hugh Quinn has seen the ever-weakening dollar shatter his ability to sell hand-cut Irish lead crystal to American customers. Ingolf Haas says profit at his family-run cuckoo clock business in Germany has dropped at least 10 percent since the U.S. currency's latest decline began. Roberto Anselmi now sells more of his Italian white wine to Canada than to the United States. Times are tough for small and artisanal businesses across Europe that traditionally target Americans as their No. 1 buyers, since the swooning dollar shrinks their revenues from U.S. sales but their costs remain in expensive...

Dollar slumps amid the gloom Published: March 1 2008 02:00 | Last updated: March 1 2008 02:00 The dollar slumped this week after a worsening array of US economic data deepened fears of recession and increased expectations of further aggressive US interest rate cuts. The US currency fell to record lows against the euro and Swiss franc and multi-year troughs against a number of other currencies. Tumbling US house prices, falling consumer confidence, weaker-than-expected orders for durable goods, stalling manufacturing, flat economic growth and signs of a weakening labour market drove expectations of lower interest rates.

The Air Force snubbed longtime partner Boeing and awarded a lucrative contract to Northrop and EADS, the European maker of the Airbus, to build a fleet of refueling aircraft. The decision stunned Boeing and elected officials in the Northwest, who immediately objected to the decision to reject the all-American option. However, officials claim that Boeing’s submission simply didn’t measure up — literally: Air Force officials offered few details about why they choose the Northrop-EADS team over Boeing since they have yet to debrief the two companies. But Air Force Gen. Arthur Lichte said the larger size was key. “More passengers,...

The euro has surged to an all-time high of $1.51 against the dollar, prompting bitter complaints from European industry and setting of a sharp sell-off in sovereign bonds from southern states deemed least able to withstand a super-strong currency. Germany's car-maker BMW said it was slashing 5,600 jobs and warned of more drastic action if there was a "sustained rise" in the euro above $1.50. Charles Edelstenne, head of France's Dassault Aviation, told Le Monde that the euro's rise was reaching asphyxiation level. "We can't cope with a such an exchange gap by producing and sourcing in the eurozone. The...

Shown as "Breaking News" nothing follows.

Cyprus and Malta will tomorrow embrace the euro, boosting Europe's monetary union to 15 states and adding another two Club Med votes to the policy board of the European Central Bank. The two islands - one near the coast of Africa and the other kissing the Levant - make up just 0.3pc of eurozone GDP and barely flicker on the radar screen of the 320m-strong currency bloc. Yet their arrival marks a crucial stage in the declining dominance of the German Bundesbank. The Latin and Hellenic cluster of states now has a majority of the votes on the governing council...

The euro has fast gained ground against the dollar in international official foreign exchange reserves in recent months, according to official statistics highlighting the nine-year-old currency’s growing global importance. Reflecting its increasing strength on foreign exchange markets, the euro’s share of known foreign exchange holdings rose to 26.4 per cent in the third quarter of this year, the International Monetary Fund reported late on Friday. That was up from 25.5 per cent in the previous three months and from 24.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2006. The dollar’s share of known official foreign reserves, calculated in dollar terms,...

Euro reaches field that is for ever England The street names commemorate bygone battles fought by British troops: Agincourt Lane, Tobruk Lane, Waterloo Road and Crimea Road. A Union Jack flutters outside the police station and there are roadside bins for pooper-scooped dog droppings – an innovation alien to the rest of Cyprus. Welcome to Dhekelia, a British sovereign military base that strives to be a corner of a foreign field that is forever England. Only the turquoise Mediterranean lapping at Dhekelia’s shore, the blue sky and palm trees prevent this colonial footprint from being a mirror image of Aldershot....

The British pound hit record lows against the euro on Monday for the second straight day, weighed down by falling home prices and expectations that the Bank of England will keep cutting interest rates. The euro rose to 72.710 British pence, compared with the earlier record of 72.350 pence from May 27, 2003, according to the daily reference rate of the European Central Bank. That was the lowest since the euro began trading on financial markets in 1999. Traders seized on data showing that house prices fell 0.3 percent in December from the month before, with the average property staying...

LONDON - Karla Keating and her husband had retirement on their minds in May when they got what they considered an offer too good to refuse: a three-year stint in London. Coming from North Carolina, they knew it was going to be a bit of a financial leap. But the major US bank where her husband is an executive lured him with a 33 percent increase in pay. Within weeks, they had crossed the ocean and found a nice flat near Marylebone for 1,820 pounds - about $3,750. "The estate agent told me the price, and I said OK, I...

The die is now cast. As the euro brushes $1.50 against the dollar, it is already too late to stop the eurozone hurtling into a full-fledged economic and political crisis. We now have to start asking whether the EU itself will survive in its current form. It takes eighteen months or so for the full effects of currency changes to feed through, so the damage will snowball late next year and beyond into 2009. Although "damage" is a relative term. As Airbus chief Thomas Enders warned in a speech to the Hamburg workers last night, Europe's champion plane-maker - the...

The U.S. dollar dropped below the 108 yen level early Friday in New York for the first time since June 2005, reflecting the expanding credit crisis. At 8:30 a.m., the dollar was quoted at 107.90-108.00 yen, compared with its 5 p.m. Thursday quotes of 109.11-14 yen in Tokyo At 8:30 a.m. in New York, the euro traded at $1.4800-4810 and 159.80- 90 yen against $1.4813-4816 and 161.66-70 yen in Tokyo.

The weak dollar is threatening the survival of European planemaker Airbus, chief executive Tom Enders told workers in Hamburg on Thursday. And the firm once again warned that its cost saving plan would have to cut deeper to counter the impact of the weakening US currency. Airbus is owned by European aerospace and defence group EADS. "The dollar's rapid decline is life-threatening for Airbus," Mr Enders said in the speech to employees.

Disregard all hysteria. The ailing Greenback will not collapse this year, not in ten years, not in twenty years, not in half a century. There is no credible currency against which it can collapse. (Unless you count gold). None of the world's rival power blocs have the economic and demographic depth to challenge American dominance.

French president warns US it cannot allow currency to collapse as Europe suffers from euro's rise, reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has warned the United States Congress that the US risks triggering "economic war" if it attempts to devalue its way out of trouble by allowing a relentless slide in the dollar. The stunning remarks came as the greenback plunged to a record low of $1.4731 against the euro, causing a chorus of angry protests from industrial leaders in France and Italy. The dollar breached $2.10 against sterling for the first time since the early Thatcher years...

It’s no secret that the dollar is on a downward spiral. Its value is dropping, and the Fed isn’t doing a whole lot to change that. As a result, a number of countries are considering a shift away from the dollar to preserve their assets. These are seven of the countries currently considering a move from the dollar, and how they’ll have an effect on its value and the US economy. 1. Saudi Arabia: The Telegraph reports that for the first time, Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates along with the US Federal Reserve. This is seen as...

Euro Surge Hurting German Exports © 2007 The Associated Press FRANKFURT — The surging value of the euro is causing German exporters to lose orders to U.S. and Japanese competitors, industrial groups said Wednesday. "We've long surpassed the pain threshold," Olaf Wortmann, an economist at the German Engineering Federation VDMA, told Dow Jones Newswires, after the euro hit a new all-time high of $1.4737 Wednesday. The strong euro undermines the competitiveness of euro zone exporters, as it makes their products more expensive outside the currency area. "It's getting difficult for export-oriented businesses," Thomas Huene at BDI Federation of German Industries...

TOKYO - The dollar skid to a record low against the euro Wednesday in Asia on speculation that China may shift more of its foreign currency stockpiles -- the world's largest -- into the European unit and away from the greenback. The euro jumped to a record US$1.4666, compared with US$1.4554 late Tuesday in New York. The 13-nation currency reached the previous record high of US$1.4571 in late European trading on Tuesday. The U.S. dollar fell to 113.90 yen by midafternoon, down from 114.57 yen late Tuesday in New York. Reuters reported a senior Chinese political figure as saying Wednesday...

A strong euro is a sign of Europe's political deficiency Concerned about the constant rise of the euro facing the dollar, Pierre-Antoine Delhommais, sees an indication of Europe's lack of political weight. "If the euro is so strong today, it is mainly, paradoxically, because Europe is politically inexistent, incapable of making itself heard on the international stock exchange and of opposing the will of the White House. ... And yet, for Americans, the only European monetary path that counts is, because of the deutschemark's prestigious past, that of Berlin. Paris's one is viewed as exotic ... . Above all, the...