Final Call News Editor Richard Muhammad speaks on trip to Haiti

In Denver Colorado On 11/27/10 Editor of the Final Call Newspaper Richard B. Muhammad speaks on his recent trips to Haiti and the truth concerning the Haitian people..

Jews and Money: But Foxman Forgot the Blacks!

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Jews and Money: But Foxman Forgot the Blacks!

Katrina witness: Officer laughed after burning body

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A New Orleans police officer was laughing after he burned the body of a man who had been gunned down by police in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, a fellow officer testified Thursday.

The testimony came during the trial of officer Greg McRae and Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann, who are charged with burning the body of 31-year-old Henry Glover in a car after he was shot and killed by a different officer outside a strip mall on Sept. 2, 2005. Three other current and former officers also are charged in Glover's death.

Lt. Joseph Meisch testified Thursday that he was standing outside a police station near the Mississippi River when he saw a car followed by a pickup truck driving on a levee. McRae was driving the car and Scheuermann was driving the truck, according to prosecutors.

Moments after the car drove off the levee, Meisch saw a plume of thick, black smoke.

Meisch didn't know who was driving the vehicles until McRae and Scheuermann ran toward him. Scheuermann had a blank look on his face, but McRae was laughing, Meisch said.

"Laughing like somebody had just played a joke?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracey Knight asked.

"It could have been humorous or nervous laughter," he said.

Meisch said he asked what had happened, and McRae told him not to worry about it.

"I got it," Scheuermann added, according to Meisch.

McRae's lawyer, Frank DeSalvo, has conceded that his client burned the body. DeSalvo said in his opening statement that McRae was under stress from Katrina's harsh conditions when he made a "very bad decision" to toss a flare in the car. Jeffrey Kearney, one of Scheuermann's attorneys, has said his client didn't know McRae was going to set the car on fire.

Meisch said he didn't check on the car until four or five days later. When he looked into the back seat, he saw what appeared to be a ribcage.

"It kind of actually scared me," he said.

But he didn't tell anybody about his discovery, assuming Scheuermann was handling it, Meisch said.

"It did raise some suspicion in my mind," he said. "But, again, Lt. Scheuermann said he's got it."

Meisch said he didn't discuss the matter with Scheuermann again until 2009, after federal authorities started investigating Glover's death. Meisch said Scheuermann told him that they wouldn't deny what happened and that McRae had made a "stupid mistake."

A former officer, David Warren, is charged with shooting Glover. Prosecutors say Glover wasn't armed and didn't pose a threat to Warren.

Scheuermann and McRae are accused of beating people who drove Glover to a makeshift police headquarters in search of help. The three men were handcuffed when the officers drove off with the car containing Glover's body.

Former Lt. Robert Italiano and Lt. Travis McCabe are accused of falsifying a report to make it appear Glover's shooting was justified.

In other testimony Thursday, a federal agent deployed in New Orleans after Katrina said he interviewed William Tanner, the owner of the burned car, about a month after the shooting. Tanner had driven Glover, Glover's brother and a friend to the school, where he claims they were beaten before the officers drove off with his car.

John Schmidt, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, said he recounted Tanner's story to Italiano because he supervised the investigative unit for the police district where the shooting and alleged beatings occurred.

"He said he was going to take care of it," Schmidt recalled Italiano saying.

But prosecutors say Italiano helped cover up the incident and lied to the FBI about his knowledge of the shooting and burned car.

Farrakhan Headed to Rockford

ROCKFORD (WIFR) -- Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan will speak at the Coronado theatre in Rockford Saturday. He was last here in September when he spoke at Kingdom Authority church and even donated money to the Brown family, who are in charge of the church. An aide to Farrakhan says the minister will talk about justice in the Forest city and the many problems the city and the entire country now faces.

"Unemployment, we look at the gang and youth violence, the problems that Rockford is experiencing, is not unique and isolated from what is happening throughout our whole nation and so Minister Farrakhan brings a message that is good for Rockford, good for America."

Farrakhan will speak at 6p.m. in the Coronado Theatre. Everyone is welcome to attend the free event.

Rappers in jail? It's all your fault, Simmons says

Lil Wayne was just released from his stay at Riker's Island. T.I. is on his way back to jail for violating his probation. Wiz Khalifa might be on his way to the slammer too. And it's all your fault, says Russell Simmons.

Simmons, co-founder of Def Jam Records, says it's his fault and society's fault that our favorite rappers are making poor decisions. In a recent interview with Atlanta's V-103 radio station, Simmons said that the glorification of crime in hip-hop has made bad behavior "more acceptable."

He bases his claims on the idea that society consists of consumers who have control over the market, and that the albums we buy speak to not only what we want to hear but also what we expect and accept in our community. If consumers stopped purchasing hip-hop filled with lyrics about domestic abuse and gun violence, a shift would occur. The market would be reassessed and when rappers look at album sales and see that the public is no longer buying into the gangster rap and paying their super hefty paychecks, the music will change. It's pure economics. Stop demanding the supply, and they'll stop supplying the demand.

"We got these images out of the streets," Russell said to V-103. "The violence, the things they talk about are topics we chose."

Not all the rappers are bad people, Simmons said. They have the ability to inact positive decisions in members of our community as well. Rapper T.I., who recently received an 11-month prison sentence for drug possession, recently talked down a man from jumping off a building in Atlanta. He also hosted a show on MTV in February of 2009, "Road to Redemption," in which he helped mentor seven teenagers away from a life of crime and violence before his first sentencing.

"T.I is very insightful. He's a good person," Simmons said. "These guys are learning their lesson in front of the world. And it's a good thing they're growing up before us. Otherwise, they might not have grown up at all.
CHECK OUT SIMMONS IN INTERVIEW...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Private prisons profit off race prejudice

Arizona's controversial immigration law is actually a business model carefully crafted by private prisons rather than a law aiming to fix anything about America's broken immigration system. The seeds of this law -- SB 1070 -- were planted last year when two men from a private prison company showed up in Benson, AZ to sell the idea of a prison made specifically for illegal immigrants.

When NPR broke a story revealing the link between the private prison companies and SB 1070, many expressed outrage at how the prison industry is working to profit off of immigrant communities. What was not much discussed is the historical roots of private prisons and the reality that this industry has in fact been acquiring massive wealth off of communities of color at least since the 1860s Reconstruction Era.

The privatization of prisons in modern American history is directly linked to society's desire -- specifically in the South -- to find cheap labor to replace the workforce lost to slave owners after emancipation. After the Civil War, prison populations in the south skyrocketed -- mostly by the flow of newly freed slaves into correctional facilities as a result of the Black Codes, vagrancy laws, and other policies specifically targeting them. The convict lease system was quickly set up to return the newly freed slaves who were being funneled into prison back to their employers who had just lost their slave labor.

Private companies paid the state a fee in return for the ability to lease out convicts (who did not receive wages at that time). Many southern businessmen acquired massive amounts of wealth by doing this -- including Nathan Bedford Forrest, the cofounder and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who made a portion of his millions trading slaves and running a prison farm camp on President's Island in the late 1800's. Although the convict lease system was phased out across the country through the 20th century, its legacy lives on not only in the continued disproportion of minorities in America's prisons -- which house over 2.3 million people, over 2/3 of them people of color -- but also through the private prison industry.

Today's private prison are for-profit contractors who enter into agreements with local, state, or federal government to run correctional facilities and receive per diem funding based on the number of people they confine. America's "war on drugs" has led to mass incarceration and overpopulation of our prisons and jails, becoming too large a burden for governments to manage. The situation created a most ideal opportunity for private sector involvement in the prison system. The trend quickly evolved to complete private building, ownership, and management of facilities -- beginning with the Corrections Corporations of America (CCA -- the largest private prison corporation in the U.S.) being awarded a full contract for a prison in Tennessee in 1984. Today, over 264 private correctional facilities exist in the U.S, housing roughly 100,000 inmates.

Although private prison companies claim they provide more cost efficient ways to manage an overflowing prison population, studies cast serious doubt on whether they have provided actual cost savings. Much of the research has produced inconclusive findings, and many studies have actually been tied to financial backing, http://www.justicestrategies.org/node/61 by the private prison industry itself.

Even the Bureau of Justice Statistics has admitted that savings promised by private prisons "have simply not materialized." But what is abundantly clear is a host of other private businesses -- from food services, to medical care, to communications and transportation services -- also profit off of inmates and their families. Private phone companies, for example, charge notoriously high prices for collect calls that inmates make to their friends and families.

One analysis shows that prisoners in at least 10 states pay over $1/minute for out of state calls. And according to reports, feeding prisoners is an industry totaling $1 billion a year, and growing between 10-15 percent annually. In fact in the late 1980's, Campbell Soup Company who has contracted with private prisons, recognized America's prison system as "the fastest growing food service market."

And the latest example of how private prisons accrue wealth and stay in business by targeting communities of color is Arizona's controversial SB 1070. This past Spring, SB 1070, which forces local law enforcement to act as pseudo immigration officers by asking for immigration papers from people they stop, generated much emotionally charged debate around the nation. But few looked into the source of this controversial bill, until NPR revealed the result of their investigation last week: SB 1070 was the brainchild of representatives of the private prison industry and Arizona sate politicians. Together, they devised a perfect and profitable plan to operate new private facilities, filled with "illegal" immigrants that would be funneled in via SB 1070 - and eventually other copycat laws that began to pop up across the country.

Once again, private prisons succeeded in targeting communities with no political power. And through political campaign contributions -- for example, the donation of $100K by CCA and $50K by Correctional Medical Services to a political action committee during two key election cycles -- the private prison industry and other corporations who stand to gain from continued incarceration ensure that politicians who are friendly to their cause remain in power and that profit flows to their pockets at the expense of communities who have no similar influence to wield. And so, the story of the private prison industry's role in Arizona's immigration law is nothing but business as usual.

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD


FACTOR THIS!!
95 PERCENT OF AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE LACTOSE INTOLERANT!!
Each sip of milk provides you with the following:
Growth hormones, fat, cholesterol, allergenic proteins, blood, pus, antibiotics, bacteria, virus and more!

* Pituitary hormones (PRL, GH, TSH, FSH, LH ACTH Oxytocin)
* Steroid hormones (Estradiol, Estriol, Progesterone, Testosterone, 17-Ketosteroids, Corticosterone, Vitamine D)
* Hypothalamic hormones (TRH, LHRH, Somatostatin, PRL-inhibiting factor, PRL-releasing factor, GnRH, GRH)
* Thyroid and Parathyroid hormones (T3, T4, rT3, Calcitonin, Parathormone, PTH peptide)
* Gastrointestinal peptides (Vasoactive intestinal peptide, Bombesin, Cholecystokinin, Gastrin, Gastrin inhibitory peptide, Pancreatic peptide, Y peptide, Substance P and Neurotensin)
* Growth Factors (IGF's (I and II), IGF binding proteins, Nerve growth factor, Epidermal growth factor and TGF alpha, TGF beta, Growth Inhibitors MDGI and MAF, and Platelet derived growth factor
* Others... (PGE, PGF2 alpha, cAMP, cGMP, Delta sleep inducing peptide, Transferrin, Lactoferrin, Casomorphin and Erythropoietin

HOW TO SHOP TO AVOID GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS:

FOODS TO AVOID:

SPECIFIC BRAND NAME PRODUCTS TO BOYCOTT:

THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES USE GENETICALLY ENGINEERED INGREDIENTS IN SOME OR ALL OF THEIR PRODUCTS:

* Coca Cola (corn syrup and/or Aspartame)
* Fritos (corn)
* Green Giant Harvest Burgers (soy)
* McDonald's French Fries (potatoes)
* Nestle's chocolates (soy)
* Karo Corn Syrup (corn)
* NutraSweet (Aspartame)
* Kraft Salad Dressings (canola oil)
* Fleishmann's margarine (soy)
* Similac Infant Formula (soy)
* Land o Lakes butter (rBGH)
* Cabot Creamery Butter (rBGH)

AVOID ALL OTHER CONVENTIONAL (NOT CERTIFIED-ORGANIC) TOMATOES, POTATOES, CORN, SOY, CANOLA OIL, COTTON SEED OIL, AND YELLOW CROOK-NECK SQUASH:

TOMATOES: Genetically engineered with bacteria-derived kanamycin resistance genes, Antisense backwards DNA, antibiotic marker genes, viruses, and DNA of flounder and North Atlantic shellfish. This and the following genetically engineered foods have antibiotic marker genes used to facilitate the genetic engineering process. They can cause allergies and autoimmune disease.

POTATOES: Genetically engineered with wax moth insect DNA; genetically engineered to produce its own pesticide internally with the DNA of bacillus thuringiensis bacteria.

CORN: Genetically engineered to tolerate high quantities of the chemical pesticide glufosinate, and genetically engineered with a virus and the DNA of the bacteria bacillus thuringiensis.

SOY: Genetically engineered and DNA-altered by Monsanto with bacteria; capable of tolerating heavy doses of Monsanto's Roundup brand chemical pesticide (glyphosate).

YELLOW CROOK NECK SQUASH: Gene-spliced with two experimental viruses and arbitrary marker genes, capable of causing unpredictable and unexpected effects.

CANOLA OIL: Genetically engineered and DNA-altered with California bay turnip and various viruses and bacterium in order to produce high quantities of lauric acid.

COTTON SEED OIL: Genetically engineered and DNA-altered with Arabidopsis bacterium, and viruses to be able to withstand large applications of the chemical pesticide bromoxynil. Bromoxynil causes birth defects in human beings.

AVOID ALL PRODUCTS DERIVED FROM THE ABOVE NON-ORGANIC ITEMS

As of the beginning of 1997, these products will have been genetically engineered and on the market as a percentage of the total conventional food supply. Since they are sold unlabeled in the conventional market, there is no way to tell specifically which tomatoes, potatoes, corn, soy, etc. have been actually genetically engineered. If you live in a nation which may receive imports from the U.S. and Canada, you should also avoid these non-organic foods as a safety precaution. Your own nation or another exporting to yours may be doing genetic engineering. Eat only organic food if possible. Even if you buy seeds to grow your own food, buy only organic seeds.

AVOID EATING IN NON-ORGANIC RESTAURANTS

Unless the restaurant management makes it clear in writing that they are committed to using only non-genetically engineered foods and products, avoid eating out as much as possible. Since genetically engineered foods are not labeled, they also have no idea which of their tomato, potato, corn, soy, canola, yellow-crook-neck squash products may be genetically engineered.

READ LABELS CAREFULLY:

BE CAREFUL WITH ALL PROCESSED FOODS

WATCH OUT FOR CONVENTIONAL, NON-ORGANIC CORN AND SOY, BECAUSE THEY ARE IN SO MANY PRODUCTS:

Avoid corn syrup, fructose, and fructose corn syrup in almost all beverages and sodas (even health food brands), and in almost all sweet products, yogurt, and aspirin. Avoid corn oil, corn starch, corn meal, baking soda, baking powder, glycose syrup; Avoid soy; soy flour in baked goods; pizza, cookies, cakes, pasta; fillers in meat products, (for example Big Macs) vegetarian meat substitutes, (for example tofu, tofu burgers, tofu hot dogs) soy milk, infant formula, baby foods; diet and protein shakes, protein bars; chocolate and candy bars; margarine; ice cream; pet food; soy oil in salad dressings & snack chips; soy sauce; lecithin and soy lecithin. In all, well over 30,000 products!

AVOID rBGH MILK & DAIRY PRODUCTS:

Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH), marketed through veterinarians and injected into dairy cows, causes increased milk production and horrible mastitis. These cows then require constant medical supervision and continuous high doses of antibiotics. Their milk contains high levels of pus. The cow's milk and dairy products made from this milk also contain rBGH, bovine growth hormone. This hormone increases cancer risk in human beings.

EAT ONLY ORGANIC RENNETLESS CHEESE:

Most non-organic cheeses are made with a genetically engineered rennet called chymosin.

AVOID DOUGH CONDITIONER:

This is a code word for a combination of genetically engineered enzymes and other components, found in cheaper breads and baked goods.

OTHER GENETICALLY ENGINEERED ADDITIVES AND ENZYMES:

Avoid Amylase (used in making bread, flour, whole wheat flour, cereals, starch), Catalase (used in making soft drinks, egg whites, liquid whey) and Lactase.

Relevant Websites About Genetic Engineering:

* http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/shag/
* http://www.bio-integrity.org
* http://www.netlink.de/gen/

FOODS TO FAVOR:

BUY AND EAT ONLY CERTIFIED ORGANIC FOODS:

Certified organic tomatoes, potatoes, corn, soy, canola oil, cotton oil, and yellow-crook-neck squash are safe. Many other genetically engineered products will be coming to market in 1998 and 1999 if the bio-tech industry has its way. By buying only organic foods of every type, you will protect yourself and your family from Frankenfoods. Almost everything that can be found in your conventional food market is also produced by the organic food industry. If you buy a few carefully chosen conventional foods, keep up-to-date on which few conventional foods are safe through the websites and mailing lists.

MEAT AND POULTRY (apologies to vegetarians)

Most livestock are being fed genetically altered feed, as well as a disgusting mix of ground-up and often diseased and discarded animal carcasses. The only safe beef and poultry will be those fed only organically grown grain. Avoid commercially produced seafood. Commercial pork has been genetically altered with DNA from human beings. Great time to decide to be vegetarian.

FAVOR DAIRY PRODUCTS FROM COMPANIES THAT DO NOT USE (rBGH) BOVINE GROWTH HORMONE (apologies to strict vegans)

Research and buy only from suppliers that promise on the package or in other writing that their products are rBGH-free. Be especially careful with butter. Buy only organic butter, because even otherwise good companies buy cheap rBGH milk to make butter, or else they buy their butter (rBGH) from other companies.

AVOID DOUGH CONDITIONER:

This is a code word for a combination of genetically engineered enzymes and other components, found in cheaper breads and baked goods.

Motivation is Everything

Its All about you staying Motivated

THE MYCOMEUP.COM VIDEO from mycomeup on Vimeo.

With less money for prisons, states ease rules against ex-convicts

States across the country are passing laws intended to make ex-offenders more likely to find jobs and, as a result, less prone to commit crime again. Behind the legislative trend is an unusual combination of budget-conscious officials seeking to trim prison populations and activists opposing “structural discrimination” against applicants with criminal records.

Within the last four years, one-third of the states have approved legislation to improve employment prospects of residents with records, according to surveys by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Generally, the laws either allow otherwise qualified ex-offenders to progress further in the hiring process or shield official records of some offenses from employers conducting background checks.

Four states have passed laws that prohibit employers from inquiring about criminal history on initial job applications. Activists based in California are waging a national campaign to “ban the box,” a reference to a standard question many employers ask about whether an applicant has convictions or arrests.

The ban applies to public and private employers in Massachusetts but only to public agencies in Connecticut, Minnesota and New Mexico. The laws exempt employers such as day care centers and schools that have other legal mandates to check criminal records.

Before last year, Hawaii was the only state with a similar law.

“It's getting to be more and more an accepted idea,” said Madeline Neighly, an attorney with the National Employment Law Project, which provides technical assistance to state and local governments. “It creates a bigger, better applicant pool.”

About a dozen states have begun permitting people convicted of drug offenses, minor crimes or violations as juveniles to have their records sealed sooner or more easily. Nevada, for instance, requires special drug courts to seal the records of offenders after they complete drug or alcohol rehabilitation programs, eliminating a three-year waiting period. Washington automatically destroys some juvenile records three months after a youthful offender turns 18.

The trend of giving ex-offenders a better shot at a fresh start is strongest in the West, where seven of the 17 states with new laws are located. It extends into the South, a region historically tough on crime.

In South Carolina, a prison sentencing overhaul enacted in June includes a provision making first-time drug offenders eligible to have their sentences dismissed and records expunged. Gov. Mark Sanford, a conservative Republican, has predicted that the overall legislation will “both discourage recidivism and save taxpayer resources” because it would “limit unnecessary prison population increases.”

For the first time, Mississippi allows purging some felonies from public records. The law approved earlier this year applies to a single conviction for bouncing checks, possessing illegal drugs, shoplifting, stealing or engaging in malicious mischief. Such offenders can seek a court order five years after completing their sentences.

Taken together, the new state laws chip away at what All of Us Or None, the group in Oakland, Calif., that launched the “ban the box” campaign earlier this decade, calls “structural discrimination against formerly-incarcerated people.”

Nearly 40 percent of the country's 2.3 million inmates are Black, according to the U.S. Justice Department. In recent years, more than 700,000 offenders have been released annually. Most eventually return. Nationally, the recidivism rate approaches 70 percent.

Studies have shown consistently that ex-offenders are less likely to be incarcerated again if they are working. But their chances of landing a job are not good, despite federal and state laws banning blanket discrimination against applicants with criminal records. Young Black men with records, in particular, have a tough time in the job market.

Early this decade, Devah Pager, now a Princeton University sociologist, sent college-age White and Black men with similar qualifications to apply for entry-level jobs in Milwaukee, rotating which ones posed as former offenders. When the Black applicants faked having a criminal record, they received fewer than one-third as many callbacks from potential employers as White applicants playing the same role.

Other studies have shown, however, that ex-offenders stand a much better chance of being hired if they pass initial screenings and participate in an interview, during which they can explain in person past problems with the law.

Hawaii's pioneering law to ban initial inquiries about conviction records, adopted in 1998, also forbids employers from considering convictions until after a conditional offer of employment. The Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii balked initially but relented when the legislation was amended to allow withdrawal of offers if a potential hire's convictions have a “rational relationship” to a job's duties.

In Massachusetts, where Gov. Deval Patrick, a liberal Democrat, signed a less elaborate ban in August, a major business lobby dropped its opposition after employers were promised better access to official criminal records and protection from lawsuits if they reject applicants based on incorrect, state-supplied information. But applicants must approve employer requests for their state records and be given a copy if they are rejected for that reason.

“We just need to have the information to make the assessment based on risk and have that open and honest conversation” about an applicant's record, says Bradley MacDougall, associate vice president of Associated Industries of Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts law also reduces the number of years that criminal records are available to employers and the public—to 10 years for felonies, down from 15; and five years for misdemeanors, down from 10. “The best way to break the cycle of recidivism is to make it possible for people to get a job,” Mr. Patrick said.

States that have eased barriers to employment for former offenders since 2006 include, at least, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Washington.

(Distributed by New America Media.)

Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura Season 2 Episode 3

The age of the dollar is drawing to a close

Right from the start of the financial crisis, it was apparent that one of its biggest long-term casualties would be the mighty dollar, and with it, very possibly, American economic hegemony. The process would take time – possibly a decade or more – but the starting gun had been fired.

At next week's meeting in Seoul of the G20's leaders, there will be no last rites – this hopelessly unwieldy exercise in global government wouldn't recognise a corpse if stood before it in a coffin – but it seems clear that this tragedy is already approaching its denouement.
To understand why, you have to go back to the origins of the credit crunch, which lay in the giant trade and capital imbalances that have long ruled the world economy. Over the past 20 years, the globe has become divided in highly dangerous ways into surplus and deficit nations: those that produced a surplus of goods and savings, and those that borrowed the savings to buy the goods.

It's a strange, Alice in Wonderland world that sees one of the planet's richest economies borrowing from one of the poorest to pay for goods way beyond the reach of the people actually producing them. But that process, in effect, came to define the relationship between America and China. The resulting credit-fuelled glut in productive capacity was almost bound to end in a corrective global recession, even without the unsustainable real-estate bubble that the excess of savings also produced. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened.

When politicians see a problem, especially one on this scale, they feel obliged to regulate it. But so far, they've been unable to make headway. This is mainly because the surplus nations are jealous defenders of their essentially mercantilist economic models. Exporting to the deficit nations has served them well, and they are reluctant to change.

Ironically, one effect of the policies adopted to fight the downturn has been to reinforce the imbalances. Fiscal and monetary stimulus in the US is sucking in imports at near-record levels. The fresh dose of quantitative easing announced this week by the Federal Reserve will only turn up the heat further.

What can be done? China won't accept the currency appreciation that might, in time, reduce the imbalances, for that would undermine the competitiveness of its export industries. In any case, it probably wouldn't do the trick: surplus nations have a habit of maintaining competitiveness even in the face of an appreciating currency.

Unable to tackle the problem through currency reform, the US has turned instead to the idea of measures to limit the imbalances directly, through monitoring nations' current accounts. This has already gained some traction with the G20, which has agreed to assess the proposal ahead of the meeting in Seoul. As a way of defusing hot-headed calls in the US for the imposition of import tariffs, the idea is very much to be welcomed, as a trade war would be a disaster for all concerned. China, for one, has embraced the concept with evident relief.

Unfortunately, the limits as proposed would be highly unlikely to solve the underlying problem. Similar rules have failed hopelessly to maintain fiscal discipline in the eurozone. What chance for a global equivalent on trade? With or without sanctions, the limits would be manipulated to death. And even if they weren't, the proposed 4 per cent cap on surpluses and deficits would only marginally affect the worst offenders: for a big economy, a trade gap of 4 per cent of GDP is still a massive number, easily capable of creating unsafe flows of surplus savings.

No, globally imposed regulation, even if it could rise above lowest-common-denominator impotence, is unlikely to solve the problem, although it might possibly stop it getting significantly worse. But what would certainly fix things would be the dollar's demise as the global reserve currency of choice.

As we now know, dollar hegemony was itself a major cause of both the imbalances and the crisis, for it allowed more or less unbounded borrowing by the US from the rest of the world, at very favourable rates. As long as the US remained far and away the world's dominant economy, a global system based on the dollar still made some sense. But America has squandered this advantage on credit-fuelled spending; with the developing world expected to represent more than half of the global economy within five years, dollar hegemony no longer makes any sense.

The rest of the world is now openly questioning the merits of a global currency whose value is governed by America's perceived domestic needs, while the growth that once underpinned confidence in its ability to repay its debts has never looked more fragile.

Already, there are calls for alternatives. Unwilling to wait for one, the world's central banks are beginning to diversify their currency reserves. This, in turn, will eventually exert its own form of market discipline on the US, whose ability to soak the rest of the world by issuing ever more greenbacks will be correspondingly harmed.

These are seismic changes, of a type not seen for a generation or more. I hate to end with a cliché, but we do indeed live in interesting times.