The US dollar has fallen further against sterling and other major currencies as analysts await a slew of economic data due out later this week.
The pound was worth $1.9736, up from $1.9613 when last traded on Friday, as the dollar’s recent weakness continued.

The dollar also slipped against the euro and the yen although trading was thin as the US bond markets closed early for President Ford’s funeral.

Economic concerns saw the dollar fall 14% against the pound last year. (more…)

An international trade union, working in at least three countries, could be created within a decade, the leader of one of Britain’s biggest unions has predicted.

Amicus, which has 1.1 million members and is soon to merge with the T&G, has forged solidarity agreements with IG Metall in Germany and two American unions, the Machinists and the United Steel Workers. The T&G also has links with the SEIU, the US service industry union.

Derek Simpson, general secretary of Amicus, said: “Our aim is to create a powerful single union that can transcend borders to challenge the global forces of capital. I envisage a functioning, if loosely federal, multinational trade union organisation within the next decade.”

One of Amicus’s predecessor unions, the AEEU, held merger talks with IG Metall seven years ago but the idea was put on ice.

Unions are increasingly keen to forge international links in an attempt to match up to globalised industry. Their intention is to force multinational companies to deal with one union rather than be able to make changes in one country and not consult unions elsewhere. (more…)

Money talks - and in the very near future it will be talking through your mobile phone.

Fumbling for coins in your pocket will be a thing of the past as the latest technology lets you load up your phone with credit and pay by simply pointing it at the till.

It’s further proof that new technology is killing off hard cash.

In the coming year, even the smallest purchases will be paid for electronically after credit card giants Visa and Barclaycard struck a deal to create the next generation of “wave and pay” cards for purchases of less than £10.

Users will simply wave the card across a scanner to pay for small items for which they would normally use coins, such as their Daily Mirror or a pint of beer.

But the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona has taken the technology one step further by having tiny data chips implanted surgically under customers’ skin. (more…)

On January 1, 2007, Europe celebrates the fifth anniversary of the launch of euro notes and coins by welcoming a thirteenth member of the eurozone – Slovenia, the tiny former Yugoslav republic. But the eurozone’s geographical expansion is modest in comparison with the rapid growth in euro notes in circulation within the region and beyond.

Earlier this month, the value of euro notes pushed through the €600bn (£402bn; $787bn) level – roughly double the value of the then-national currencies in circulation at the end of 2001. The signs are that in December the currency came of age by overtaking the US dollar in terms of the value of notes in circulation. The figures used for the comparison by the Financial Times include notes held in the vaults of commercial banks but exclude reserves of notes held by central banks.

Slovenia’s small size – its population is just 2m – means that the impact of its entry will be hard to separate from the usual spike in demand for cash around Christmas and New Year, according to Antti Heinonen, head of the European central bank’s bank notes directorate. So what has driven rapid growth in euro notes?

After the 2002 launch, the rate of increase slowed, but has remained at or above 10 per cent a year. The exact reasons are unclear; even central banks do not know where their notes are or for what purposes they are used. (more…)

WASHINGTON — Pushed up by soaring oil prices, America’s trade deficit surged to a record high in the summer, but analysts predicted a slowly improving imbalance in the months ahead.

The current account trade deficit increased 3.9 percent to an all-time high of $225.6 billion in the July-September quarter, the Commerce Department reported Monday.

That third-quarter deficit was equal to 6.8 percent of the total economy, up from 6.6 percent of gross domestic product in the second quarter. (more…)

PARIS — She is a former marine, a native Californian and, now, an ex-American who prefers to remain discreet about abandoning her citizenship. After 10 years of warily considering options, she turned in her United States passport last month without ceremony, becoming an alien in the view of her homeland.

“It’s a really hard thing to do,” said the woman, a 16-year resident of Geneva who had tired of the cost and time of filing yearly United States tax returns on top of her Swiss taxes. “I just kept putting this off. But it’s my kids and the estate tax. I don’t care if I die with only one Swiss franc to my name, but the U.S. shouldn’t get money I earned here when I die.”

Historically, small numbers of Americans have turned in their passports every year for political and economic reasons, with the numbers reaching a high of about 2,000 during the Vietnam War in the early 1970s.

But after Congress sharply raised taxes this year for many Americans living abroad, some international tax lawyers say they detect rising demand from citizens to renounce ties with the United States, the only developed country that taxes it citizens while they live overseas. Americans abroad are also taxed in the countries where they live. (more…)

WASHINGTON — Given rising metal prices, the pennies and nickels in your pocket are worth more melted down than their face value — and that has the government worried.

U.S. Mint officials said Wednesday they were putting into place rules prohibiting the melting down of 1-cent and 5-cent coins, with a penalty of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 for people convicted of violating the rule.

Because of the prevailing prices of metals, the cost of producing pennies and nickels exceeds the coins’ face value. (more…)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government approved new technology that will automatically scan shoes and boots for bombs, and promises that travelers will soon be spared the trouble of scurrying through security in their socks. But the new machines will be available only to travelers who pay to join a special program, at least at first.

The shoe-scanner approval will give a crucial boost to the Registered Traveler program, which is designed to provide faster airport security screening, via a special security line, to travelers who sign up in advance and undergo a background check. But the program, to be run by private companies under the supervision of the Transportation Security Administration, has languished for years, and currently is operating only in Orlando, Fla.

The shoe scanner is expected to draw customers to the program because not only will it speed up lines. It will also offer another perk — remaining shod — to attract customers willing to pay annual fees of about $100. (more…)

The Bangladeshi banker Muhammad Yunus, who invented the practice of making small, unsecured loans to the poor, warned today that the globalized economy was becoming a dangerous “free-for-all highway.”

“Its lanes will be taken over by the giant trucks from powerful economies,” Dr. Yunus said during a lavish ceremony at which he was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. “Bangladeshi rickshaws will be thrown off the highway.”

While international companies motivated by profit may be crucial in addressing global poverty, he said, nations must also cultivate grassroots enterprises and the human impulse to do good.

Challenging economic theories that he learned as a Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville in the 1970s, he said glorification of the entrepreneurial spirit has led to “one-dimensional human beings” motivated only by profit. (more…)

The Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) is agreable to replacing the US dollar with the euro in Iranian foreign transactions, said a member of the Majlis Planning and Budget Commission, Morteza Tamaddon, on Saturday.

Speaking to IRNA, the MP said the move is part of Iran’s general policy towards the West as dependence on the US currency would have negative consequences for Iran in the long-term.

Reducing Iran’s dependence on the US dollar would eventually make the country less vulnerable to the dollar, argued the MP.

Referring to the move as a “positive approach,” Tamaddon said Iran’s decision to replace the US dollar with the euro was not politically motivated. (more…)

Think deep recession likely regardless of Fed’s actions

Two analysts who have reconstructed money supply data after the Fed stopped publishing it argue a coming dollar collapse will set the stage for creating the amero as a North American currency to replace the dollar.
The reconstructed M3 data – the broadest measure of money – published on econometrician Gary Kuever’s website, NowAndFutures.com, shows M3 increased at a rate of 11 percent in May, compared to 9 percent when the Federal Reserve quit publishing M3 data earlier this year.

Asked why the Fed decided to stop publishing M3 data, Kuever told WND, “The Fed probably wants to hide how much liquidity is being pumped into the market, and I expect the trend to keep pumping liquidity into the market will continue, especially since the economy is slowing down.” (more…)

The politically sensitive trade deficit with China swelled to a record $24.4 billion in October, as imports from there surged to $29.3 billion, also a record.

The trade gap with China for the first 10 months of the year totaled $190.6 billion, keeping it on track to easily surpass last year’s record of $202 billion.

“It looks as if our deficit with China will be about $240 billion this year, about a 15 percent increase,” said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors.

The galloping trade deficit with China is one of the main reasons for top-level meetings on Thursday and Friday in Beijing. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is leading a team of Bush administration cabinet officials and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for talks with senior Chinese officials on trade and economic concerns. (more…)

Transferring some money? OK. First, what’s your favorite movie?

Customers of St. Paul-based Western Bank will soon have to jump through a few extra hoops to log into their accounts online.

In addition to their standard username and password, customers at the bank will be instructed to choose a picture from a list of pre-selected options — puppies, butterflies, sunsets, etc — and to make up a phrase, such as “How now brown cow.” They’ll also have to answer questions about their favorite movie or where they went to high school.

The extra steps are intended to make online banking more secure and guard against instances of identity theft and fraud. (more…)

Oil producing countries have reduced their exposure to the dollar to the lowest level in two years and shifted oil income into euros, yen and sterling, according to new data from the Bank for International Settlements.

The revelation in the latest BIS quarterly review, published on Monday, confirms market speculation about a move out of dollars and could put new pressure on the ailing US currency.

Market liquidity is traditionally low in December, and many traders have locked in profits, potentially reinforcing volatility.

Russia and the members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the oil cartel, cut their dollar holdings from 67 per cent in the first quarter to 65 per cent in the second. (more…)

The United States sees potentially escalating trade friction with China next year as Beijing is stepping up restrictions on foreign investment and recent U.S. Congressional elections create uncertainty, a U.S. trade official said on Friday.

“There’s potential next year for greater friction in the trade relationship,” Franklin Lavin, U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, told a business lunch during a visit to Hong Kong.

Lavin said the United States’ record trade deficit with China was not in itself a problem but barriers to market access for U.S. companies in China were.

“From the Department of Commerce’s point of view a pure bilateral trade deficit is not intrinsically a sign of a problem,” he said. “We look at market access: can U.S. businesses fairly compete?” (more…)