America for Sale

Of all things, the Japanese yen just hit an historic high against the dollar!  And Europe, with all its many troubles (the credit ratings of Portugal, Spain, Greece, and Ireland have all recently been downgraded ... with more to come) still enjoys a strong euro.  One can only conclude that George Soros and his ilk still believe that the United States is not about to fix its fiscal situation any time soon.  And Ben Bernanke is keeping our interest rates effectively at zero (and flooding the world with dollars) in order to stabilize the U.S. financial sector (primarily mortgage debt) here at home.

All this dollar weakness comes with a cost ... which the United States is beginning to pay.  This cost is that foreign companies are beginning to use their strong(er) currencies to buy up American companies.  Anheuser Busch (Budweiser) is now owned by a Belgium company. Coors Brewing is now owned by a Canadian company.  Citigroup is substantially owned by mideast sovereign-wealth funds.  And now the New York Stock Exchange is about to fall to a German company.  And this trend is bound to continue.

And, while Obama is vacationing in Brazil this weekend with his family, rumor has it that a "For Sale" sign is being installed on the White House lawn.