A place where you don't have to wear pants?

A self-correcting system
Is the world currency system correcting itself or is the fall of the dollar Bush’s fault? John Cassidy in The New Yorker: “Ultimately, the value of a currency is an international verdict on the honesty and competence of the government that issued it. President Bush may have recovered in the domestic polls, but in the currency markets his ratings are still falling.” But the value of the dollar has fallen only in Europe. Or you might say, Euro is rising against the dollar. Does it mean the world trusts Europe more than the United States? I have not seen any measurable indices of trust in Europe rising in the world. There is more to the dollar fall than the falling trust in the Bush administration.

Be warned and take note, ye Americans
Will America become China-compatible one day, a secondary power at the service of a new superpower that’s sans freedom, sans, democracy, sans human rights? David Smith and Dominic Rushe say in the Sunday Times. “The sale of IBM's personal computer business to a Chinese group shows that China is no longer content to be just the world's workshop. It wants to own global businesses as well, and is using its low-cost advantages to embark on the acquisition trail…. The Lenovo-IBM deal represents a coming of age for China. Until recently the economy that will dominate in the 21st century has been content to be the new workshop of the world. Now it has signalled that it wants a big slice of the control, and the boardroom action, as well.”

Ad of the day
“Isn’t it strange that your dry cleaning got you to a place where you don’t have to wear pants?” Citi/ AAdvantage