:)

[url=news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_2097000/2097064.stm]IMF warns over dollar collapse[/url]

"The head of the International Monetary Fund, Horst Koehler, has warned that central banks worldwide might need to work together to prop up the US dollar."

"The global fall in stock markets amid uncertainty over the strength of the US economic recovery has led to further doubts about the strength of the dollar.

The US is also facing the largest trade deficit in its history.

A weak dollar would hurt exporters in Europe and the Far East by making their goods more expensive in the US, while in turn increasing inflationary pressures there.

Mr Koehler said that there was a danger that financial markets could "exaggerate problems so that they become a self-fulfilling prophecy".

But he admitted that there was a one-in-five chance of a global financial meltdown.

That could happen if a further stock market collapse in developed nations happened at the same time as debt defaults by developing countries such as Brazil and Turkey - both receiving IMF help at the moment.

And he warned that the financial excesses of the past had created problems for governments and international institutions.

"We can't have a world where excessive profits are reaped, and then, all of a sudden, the IMF and governments have to repair the damage," Mr Koehler said."

Kind of sounds like the beginning of "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse"

Sounds like "Der Euro VILL get stronger, and zee if I dint told you so!"

Wishful thinking

Tax cuts are all we need, baby. And none of this 10 year phase in junk, either.

Me thinks the IMF is full of crapola.

True, but the markets (stock and currency) are based on confidence and speculation.  It doesn't matter one way or another whether or not they know what they're talking about.  All that matters is that people listen and react to what they say.  It's definitely a self-fulfilling prophecy, but that's the reality when you buy stocks and currency based upon perceived current value and projected future value.z

I would not consider imminent collapse of the world economy as a realistic justification for owning a room filled with MREs or reason to borrow funds to buy bullion. It is not going to happen unless there is years and years of mismanagement, intentional or not.

However, mismanagement may have occurred during the Clinton/Gore years. No one has said it in the media yet, but the US may have entered a recession in 1999 and the "powers that be" decided it was in the "powers that be" interests to pretend there was no recession. One fact we know is Chrysler lost 1.1 billion about that time. WorldCom probably started losing 1 billion a year then. Enron probably started losing 1 billion per year in 1999. Some of the "Baby Bells" including Qwest may have severe accounting irregularities that have not be fully disclosed. Rumors abound of another large US auto firm with problems with their reported financials. The list goes on to lesser known companies including the French firm Vivendi...

A rhetorical question to ruminate upon: What if Gore had won, Bubba Clinton bought control of the UN. What if there was a war against illegal gun owners - you. What if there was a national electrical power emergency because California needs your power? What if gas was $3 per gallon but there was shortages because of a huge CO2 tax and there was a cap on the price wholesalers could pass along? What if we declared peace with the Islamic extremists and Gore/Clinton declared war on domestic terrorists and religion? Would you care about the economy or would you be busy with more immediate concerns?

The IMF may be full of crap in general, but they're dead on on this one.  The dollar has been falling for a couple of months, and other governments are already propping it up.  But intervention NEVER works.

Prediction:  by mid-2003, $1 = E1.25, $1 = Y90.
(Euro/Yen).

Yep.

All false gods/temples must and will fall before Creator's return.

Of course there will be a worldwide economic collapse. Those who seek to destroy freedom/life/Creator have long used money as one of the primary means of control. They are realizing that all manner of diversions ("terrorists", kidnapped kids, wildfires, etc) are NOT working, the masses are starting to smell something rotten in Denmark and are about to do something about it.

How better to beat the masses down spiritually and physically to control them than by snatching the rug out from under them and giving them nothing to think about other than utter economic squalor?

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves, whether they are to have any property they can call their own, whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed and themselves confined to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington