Dollar Edifice Crumbling

September 24, 2007
Dollar Edifice Crumbling

U.S. national debt has almost doubled since the start of George W. Bush's first term as president. A lot of people will be looking to blame Bush and his brand of big government conservatism, as well as the unpopular war in Iraq, for the downtrend in the value of the dollar - on which attention has been strongly refocused in the wake of the recent rate cut.

And things are likely to get pretty bad for a while once the dollar's slide turns into a rout, as at some point it will; such is the nature of markets. There was always the possibility that the sub-prime mortgage crisis and associated economic damage – leading to last week's rate cut - would be the trigger, but that hasn't happened so far.