Forbes.com, which calls itself the "home page for the world's business leaders" says the battered US dollar isn't coming back to its former glory any time soon.
One of the greenback's travails is OPEC. Confidence in the US dollar took a hit last week when a technician plugged the wrong line into the wrong socket and inadvertently broadcast a full half hour of OPEC deliberations and debate. It was only when the first stories hit the Reuters web page that officials realized what was going on and pulled the plug.
The brief window into OPEC revealed both Iran and Venezuela arguing to dump the American dollar as the currency of oil trading. Saudi Arabia vetoed any further discussion, warning that word of OPEC uncertainty in the dollar could send it crashing. All of this, of course, was being broadcast live to the world.
Kuwait has already moved to switch from a dollar-peg to a basket of currencies and the ongoing malaise in the dollar may force others to follow suit. Then there's the 800-pound gorilla, China, and its trillion-dollar holdings of American currency.
The United States is vulnerable and it appears destined to remain that way for another year at least. Right now the US has its hands full just trying to ride out the storm of the housing market collapse.
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