Fortune. The dollar's fall. It's
a powerful reminder that even in an age of go-it-alone foreign policy
and unilateral military action, the rest of the world still matters
when it comes to economics. “When the market saw how clear the Bush
victory was, with stronger Republican majorities in both houses of
Congress, people thought, 'There will be no quick deficit reduction,' ”
says Thomas Mayer, chief European economist for Deutsche Bank in
London. In Europe's view, GOP plans to partially privatize Social
Security while making some of the tax cuts passed in Bush's first term
permanent could dramatically worsen the deficit, which hit $413 billion
in fiscal 2004. [John Robb's Weblog]