Sick as the dollar

What do you do with all those dollars? What do you do when their value in the world market is shrinking? It's obvious, you buy everything of value that is priced in dollars while you can and what better to buy than US assets, like CitiCorp. Whether you made all those bucks selling toys or computer components or oil, it's hard to find enough to buy before their value declines further. Do we see it as being bailed out by our friends, or as being bought up by people whose operations are opaque and motives not necessarily connected to our best interests?

Saudi Prince Walid, says today's Times, owns a piece of Citigroup and also News Corporation, Procter & Gamble, Hewlett-Packard, PepsiCo, Time Warner and Walt Disney. Perhaps when we take comfort in the Dow Jones figures we should remember why people are still buying stocks and who they are. Countries like China and Japan own about $5 trillion of United States debt and we'd be in trouble if they didn't.

None the less, it may be signaling the long term decline of American economic muscle along with our declining moral stature and moribund credibility. But as long as we can entertain ourselves by watching the celebrities, complaining about politically correct speech and defending Christmas against the Jews and atheists, we don't really care, do we? What about that haircut on Mitt - sure looks presidential to me -- and that Thompson guy sure reminds me of Reagan. . .