(Click) Central banks shift re$erves away from US
Financial Times (London) By Chris Giles - Jan 24, 2005
Central banks are shifting reserves away from the US and towards the eurozone in a move that looks set to deepen the Bush administration's difficulties in financing its ballooning current account deficit. In actions likely to undermine the dollar's value on currency markets, 70 per cent of central bank reserve managers said they had increased their exposure to the euro over the past two years. The majority thought eurozone money and debt markets were as attractive a destination for investment as the US ... Any rebalancing of central bank reserve portfolios has serious implications for the global financial system as the US has become increasingly dependent on official flows of funds to finance its current account deficit, estimated at $650bn in 2004 ... Any reluctance to increase exposure to dollar assets further could cause the greenback to plunge on currency markets.
... Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned in November that there was a limit to the willingness of foreign governments to finance the US current account deficit.
Money Quote: "I think the economy is standing on a trap door, and I don't know that we necessarily hold the levers," HILLARY 2008 said, astonishing the crowd with the fact that the United States borrows $50 million each month from other countries.
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Overstating of Assets Is Seen to Cost U.S. Billions in Taxes
Investors, entrepreneurs and landlords annually avoid paying at least $29 billion in taxes by overstating the price of stocks, businesses and real estate, two professors say in an article being published today in Tax Notes, an influential tax policy journal. Claiming to have paid more than the actual price for a stock, business, apartment building or piece of art results in a smaller profit being reported when the asset is sold, and a lower tax on that profit.
"An unpublicized problem of crisis proportions is plaguing" the tax system, one that will cost the government at least $250 billion in the coming decade, the professors wrote. ... Congress could easily reduce this cheating to a minor problem through changes in tax laws that, the professors wrote, would apply the same rules to those harvesting capital gains that now apply to workers, home owners and parents.
... The authors also argue that by adopting the record keeping and other reforms outlined in their paper, Congress could reduce the federal budget deficit without raising tax rates. The full report is here.
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Billy Joel was drunk at the Trump Nuptials - well, I think I was, too - but I wasn't there . . .
Assessing the Trump pump -
Oddsmakers at one offshore gaming company, BetWWTS.com, are placing 8 to 1 odds that Melania Knauss gets knocked up in 2005, and 1 to 10 odds that she doesn't. (N.Y. Post, N.Y. Daily News, Lloyd Grove's Lowdown, N.Y. Times)
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Those Playboy Bunnies are such merry pranksters. It's not clear whether Hugh is in on the tease . . .
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Does she look good enough to kill for?
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Those zanies over at low culture took a quick look at Scottie Peterson's interim squeeze Amber Frey in those braces and said:
"My GAWD those are huge braces! My *car* doesn't have that much metal in it! How fucked up do your teeth have to be to get plates like those?"
"She may not be the sharpest tool in the box, but at least she didn't kill someone."
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"There must not be any other women in that town."