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I’ve been warning for some time now that there would come a day when the world started to flatly reject the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

I’m not unpatriotic, and I wish the dollar’s demise weren’t so.

But I’m afraid it’s here, now. Just take a look at the dollar’s recent action, where it has now penetrated important support on the long-term charts and is threatening to plunge another 20% in value in the weeks and months ahead.

We managed to miss out on the parabolic rise of silver, which has now been followed by a stomach-churning 12% fall in thin holiday trading. And commodity markets are less deep than securities markets. Recall that the famed peak of gold in 1980 to $850, was a violent spike up, vasty high than the level two days earlier or two days later.

Silver in particular has been closely watched due to the presence of very large short interests which were apparently partially closed out late last week leading to some very serious intraday volatility. Today we have this cheery development, courtesy Jesse:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/silver-down-12-big-default-rumored-at-comex.html

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Wal-Mart's core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.

"We're seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure," Duke said at an event in New York. "There's no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact."

Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in.

Lately, they're "running out of money" at a faster clip, he said.

"Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year," Duke said. "This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.  

End.

http://www.blacklistednews.com/?news_id=13695

“On the one hand, the Fed acknowledges higher commodity prices and rising inflation.  Yet they go on to say that inflation trends are "subdued" and inflation expectations are "stable" - and those are the exact words they use.  I mean, what can they possibly be looking at to reach those conclusions?    Then they say that they will keep interest rates low, but the reality is they need to be raising interest rates to fight the growing inflationary pressures, just like Volcker did when he was Fed chairman thirty years ago.

 http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/4/28_James_Turk_-_The_Waterfall_Decline_in_the_US_Dollar_Has_Begun.html

U.K. consumer confidence slumped to its weakest level since the depth of the recession in February 2009 as the government’s budget cuts began in earnest, a report by GfK NOP Ltd. showed.

The index of sentiment fell to minus 31 in April from minus 28 in March, the London-based research group said in an e-mailed statement today. The reading is down from minus 16 a year earlier and each of the five measures that make up the gauge declined on the month.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-27/u-k-consumer-confidence-falls-to-lowest-since-2009-recession.html