It's the ECONOMY, stupid - and Smirk can't "spin" this one!

[LunaC]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1045369,00.html">Trade gap could bring down dollar

The International Monetary Fund yesterday warned that the colossal United States trade deficit was a noose around the neck of the economy, emphasising that the once mighty dollar could collapse at any moment.

Arguing that the world's big economies were already too dependent on the willingness of American consumers to live beyond their means, the IMF said the US could not continue to run a current account deficit of 5% of GDP.

The IMF's chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said that it was just a matter of time before the gap closed, tipping the dollar into a potentially steep fall.

"If we were looking at a poor developing country, the world gives them just enough rope to hang themselves. A country like the United States, they give them enough rope to tie the noose around their neck several times. But it does happen in the end," he said.

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While this is certainly a sign that Junior will suffer the same fate as Poppy's unsuccessful reelection, it doesn't exactly bode well for the 'Merican public. It's a good news/bad news kinda' thing.....

[LeftCoast]

1. Wanna bet?

These guys say war is peace, losing our rights is freedom, up is down. These are the guys Orwell was warning us about.

On edit: I'm not saying they'll be elected (can't say re-elected, now can we?) - just that they'll say the economy is just peachy and "prove" it with bogus numbers.

[LunaC]

3. Yeah, but......

when people are paying $4/gal. for gas, $5 for bread and those who still have jobs can't manage to make ends meet, they're going to NOTICE that the rhetoric is out of alignment with reality

!

[Resistance Is Futile]

4. Spinning only goes so far

There have been several voices in the investment and economics communities warning that the dollar could crash for quite some time. Most of these people have been dismissed as chicken littles. The fact that the IMF is now on board adds much more weight to these warnings. This in itself is unsettling as the kind of fall predicted is not polite drops of a percent or two but rather a complete and utter collapse. One analyist quoted in Asia Times warned that the US dollar could fall to 1/1000th of its current value.

There is no spinning an Argentina.

[BeatleBoot]

2. And, of course, its Bill Clinton's fault

And thank God that Gore didn't get in there, because the situation would be so much worse.

Can't you just hear them?

:puke:

[LunaC]

5. Here's your Freeper ammo...

Clinton handed over a 10 year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion that was squandered in a blink and - in fact - the current deficit has http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/EI19Dj01.html">increased by 50% in just five months!

[QC]

6. Bush doesn't need to spin it.

Once Democrats/liberals/progressives get through cannibalizing one another, Bush can waltz back into the White House.

Republicans have for years relied on Democrats' longstanding tendency toward self-destruction, and so far there's no reason to think that this election will be any different.