Ben Bernanke
I vad som endast kan kallas en panikåtgärd så har USA:s Centralbank Federal Reserve under sin orförande Ben Bernanke sänkt styrräntan med hela 0.75% på Martin Luther King Day, en helgdag i USA:
USA-räntan sänks kraftigt. USA:s centralbank, Federal Reserve, sänker sin viktigaste styrränta med 0,75 procentenheter till 3,50 procent. , och Börsglädje efter räntesänkningen

Det är den största räntesänkningen på 18 år och visar vilka gigantiska skador som George Bushs sju år av misskötsel av USA-ekonomin har åsamkat inte bara USA utan hela världen.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Frågan är nu hur mycket krisen kommer att fördjupas och hur stora skadorna blir världen över.

Howard Schneider, Ariana Eunjung Cha och Neil Irwin skriver om den fördjupade amerikanska finanskrisen i Washington Post: Fed Cuts Key Interest Rate as Global Markets Drop for Second Day. Sell-Offs on All Major Exchanges

The rate cut, decided by the Fed’s Open Market Committe in an emergency videoconference on Monday night, is larger even than the interest rate reduction that the central bank made following the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

It is also the largest single rate cut in at least 18 years for a bank that prefers to move in smaller quarter- and half-percentage point increments. The new federal funds rate of 3.5 percent will effect a broad array of lending, from the amount consumers pay on credit cards to the rate for auto loans and some bank lines of credit.

Coming more than a week before the Fed’s next scheduled meeting on interest rate policy, the action reflects the central bank’s judgment of a weakening economy coupled with a financial sector that has “continued to deteriorate.”

The nation’s largest banks and financial companies have been pummeled in recent months by losses linked to risky subprime mortgages. The situation has forced them to write down by tens of billions of dollars the value of a broad array of investments, and also prompted them to become less free to lend to business and even to each other.

The Fed has taken several steps to try to ensure cash continues to flow, including a series of prior interest rate reductions last fall.

But Tuesday’s action was of a different order, reflecting a shift by the Fed into full recession-fighting mode, said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist with the High Frequency Economics consulting firm.

En björntjänst som George Bush redan har gjort USA är att avföra den alltmer irrelevanta dollarn som världens reservvaluta. Som The Slow Fall of The Greenback. The dollar is as weak as it’s been in more than three decades. Its slide is ushering in a new economic era.

Amerikanerna har hittills kunnat strunta i världen runt omkring och levt i sin egen bubbla. Inte längre. Det försvagade USA kommer i framtiden inte längre att kunna bestämma i världen. Man förskingrat sitt arv som världens enda supermakt och man måste nu ta konsekvenserna.