It's the economy, stupid.

The dollar is falling! The dollar is falling!

You can call me chicken little or big turkey, but with the Euro at almost $1.47 and the British Pound at $2.10, the dollar took another step downward last night after comments by Xu Jian, a vice director at China's central bank at the National People's Congress in Beijing about the Dollar loosing its value as the major global currency. Vice Chairman, Cheng Siwei, said China "will favor stronger currencies over weaker ones, and will readjust accordingly.''Although that assembly isn't involved in currency policy decision making, it's hard to argue with his statement as the flight from US dollars into other currencies and commodities continues.

Perhaps it soon will be driven home to the American people just how much our prosperity depends on the kindness of strangers, or at least on the price of the foreign goods our standard of living in based on. It's the economy stupid, as President Clinton reminded his campaign. Somebody is going to remind us all again and all too soon, I fear.

Sure, there are any number of experts who tell us it's no big deal, but they've been telling us that since the slide began over 6 years ago, but prosperity hasn't been around all those corners we were supposed to be turning any time now -- at least for most Americans and many are beginning to fear that the next corner won't be a corner, but a cliff.