But anyway, returning to big picture issues, what do you make of the following items? 1) The dollar gained internationally when it looked like financial meltdown on Wall Street would precipitate solvency disasters and liquidity crunches across the world, and there was -- ironically to be sure -- a "flight to quality" in US T-bills. 2) Now that the Paulson Plan 2.0 has given way to full-blown equity stakes in US super-banks -- the sort of initiative you mistakenly assume to be uniquely European -- the dollar is easing back down vis a vis other currencies. To me this signals the durability of dollar hegemony rather than its death knell, but what do I know? ========================================== The diollar gain is reportedly due to the repatriation of foreign assets by US financial institutions needing to shore up their balance sheets, and the hoarding of USD's by European banks unwilling to lend to each other or to their corporations needing access to the currency. The dollar easing back down is, as you suggest, a measure of relief that the total collapse of global capitalism may have been averted. But I'd bet against the dollar reverting to it's hegemonic position. There has been a slow but steady diversification out of the depreciating USD for the past several years which has been due to fundamental shifts in the world economy. The US originated crisis can ony lend impetus to that movement. Gordon Brown's call for another Bretton Woods conference today can be read as another straw in the wind.