[Marxism] Whatever happened to....

["rrubinelli" <rrubinelli@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

.....whatshisname?  Or in this case, euro ascendancy, dollar decline,
and the loss of US hegemony.  I mean it wasn't so long ago that many
were eagerly measuring that downward trajectory of the greenback and
predicting its replacement by.... euro? renimbi? Anyway, from the FT of
6 July:

Euro tensions boost dollar

*Greenback hits 14-month high as parliament snubs ECB * 'Only central
bank raising rates is the Fed' * Italy forecasts zero growth


Political tensions within the struggling eurozone intensified yesterday
when the European parliament reject the central bank's tough
anti-inflation policy and Italy looked set to cut its growth forecast to
zero this year.

The news helped the dollar to a 14-month peak against the euro, as
investors bet on further rate rises in the US but priced in the
possibility of  looser monetary policy elsewhere.

[My note:  The Fed has raised short term rates.  The price of US
Treasury ten year notes has risen  as inflation seems, but only seems to
be under control, and labor is actually under control. It is the labor
issue that separates the US from the Eurozone and makes US instruments
the darling of international capital.  The actual interest payments on
the Treasury instruments, the coupon, have fallen substantially in
markets since February and March. So the raise in Fed rates has
something to do with the rise of the dollar, but nothing to do with the
rise of the dollar denominated instruments of debt, the Treasury notes.
Finance ratings and rankings are just another refllection of the class
struggle. The dollar denominated instruments now look like the winning
trifecta all wrapped up into one, appreciating dollar, increased face
value of the security, increased yield to maturity.]

"The only central bank in town raising rates is the Fed-- little wonder
that the dollar just hit a one-year high, " said Bobby Briones, a
Merrill Lyncih economist....

...Yesterday's vote... was a snub to Jean-Claude Trichet, the bank's
president...

The worsening economic outlook of some of the eurozone's biggest
economies, including Germany and France, will weigh heavily at the
meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Monday, with Italy set to
downgrade its growth for 2005 to zero.....


rr


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