Found this revealing chart (and article) not in any American financial medium but in the London Economist. I wonder why. Is it too scary for CNBC, where a search for "Nasdaq bailout index" yields nothing? It sure isn't pretty, and won't help narrow the gap between supporters and opponents of the U.S. government's stimulus/bailout programs.
Sadly, America at the moment is so caught up in this debate that it can't hear the world's urgent calls for American leadership to resolve the global crisis. Any doubts on this? Read Martin Wolf. In a March 5, the New York Times editorializes that
The economic news is so frighteningly bad here, it has all but squeezed out reports of the turmoil wrecking the developing world. The news there, if possible, is even more frightening.Not auspicious. The other day a CNBC guest said it would be calamitous for the US to lose both its triple A credit rating and the U.S. dollar's status as the global reserve currency. I thought he had his head in the sand. And again, I wondered. Would it be impossible for the US to retain its AAA credit rating while working with other nations to develop a new global reserve currency? The idea would be for the U.S. a) to pay a fair penalty for U.S. government miscalculations and Wall Street misdeeds in causing the crisis and b) to help itself and the world weather the storm of hyperinflation that seems likely to result from the trillions of dollars spent on government bailouts and stimuli.
Just a thought. But if a contestant on my (imagined) financial crisis reality TV show were to advance such a position, I would likely vote for him, at least until someone pulled the wool off my eyes. Nouriel Rubini might do so - he said several months ago that the dollar is likely to remain the world's global reserve currency "for the forseeable future." (Am looking for the link).
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