Ground Floor: If it's not bad enough that other central banks are selling the dollar, the news that Bill Gates has shorted the currency should send a shiver down the collectives spines of Federal Reserve governors.
Mr Gates told an interviewer at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos that the "ol' dollar, it's gonna go down". The reasons he thinks the currency will decline are the same as the reasons most economic commentators think it will decline - faith in the currency is being undermined by those trade and budget deficits.
I know that I've mentioned the deficits a lot over the past few weeks but the concerns seem to be growing like a snowball rolling down an Alpine mountain. As Mr Gates said, it's scary and unchartered territory when the world's reserve currency has so much outstanding debt.
The fate of the dollar was one of the main topics of conversation in the bars and restaurants of Davos (OK, I've actually no idea what they talked about in bars and restaurants but economic people revert to type even after a few brandies and I'm pretty sure it was discussed!) and the European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, reiterated his worries over the dollar's (new) record lows against the euro.
The German deputy finance minister, Caio Koch-Weser, said that - excluding geopolitical risks - the US budget shortfall was the leading risk to the world economy.
Meanwhile, George Soros took a pop at Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, saying that he has lost credibility in his management of interest rates and his support of the Bush administration tax cuts. According to Mr Soros, Mr Greenspan is now too political and his interest rate decisions were made to help the Bush re-election campaign. He suggests that Mr Greenspan "reached out beyond his sphere of competence" by advocating the tax cuts which Mr Soros blames for the deficit problem.
If George W and his team feel that they could easily ignore political leaders in relation to their escapades in the Middle East, they'll find that dealing with market traders who won't cut them any slack on the currency front a much more difficult ride.
Mr Bush can send out his policymakers to blame Europe and Japan for not buying enough US goods but that won't cut any ice with people who have grown tired of holding a declining dollar. Somehow, I don't think the patriotic line will work with the Wall Street traders, even less with overseas forex guys.
The US administration's economic policies are even being criticised by the Chinese - Yu Yongding, on the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of China, suggested that the US make more of an effort to tackle the deficits and "put its own house in order".
And in the UK, despite the benefit of the "special relationship", the strain is being felt. Kate Barker, who is on the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, has expressed her concern that the falling dollar is a potentially greater risk to UK economic health than the ongoing Bank of England concerns over the housing market.
There was certainly a sense of free fall coming from Davos. Some analysts were suggesting that a dollar crisis could be visited upon financial markets within weeks rather than months and that the impact would be devastating for global markets.
The short-term weapon against further dollar falls is a sharp rise in interest rates, which would upset investors and potentially cause a sharp pullback in equities, which is the last thing the authorities want.
The long-term weapon, which is to eliminate the deficits and stop living on borrowed money, seems to be as difficult to find in the administration's armoury as weapons of mass destruction in the Iraqi desert.
Rather worryingly, there have been some comments to the effect that it isn't in anyone's interest to provoke a dollar crisis. The implication of that is that the world can allow the US to behave like a kid in a candy store and that someone else will always pick up the tab. That is truly unsustainable.
* * * * *
On the more positive side of things for investors was the announcement that Procter & Gamble (P&G) is buying Gillette for $55.6 billion (€42.7 billion), creating a super company in the world of household products. This is a good trade.
Companies such as P&G and Gillette are never seen as being out there at the cutting edge of glamour investing, but they produce stuff that everyone uses. That's why Gillette's share price is up about 70 per cent over the past two years. (That, and the fact that they keep bringing out new blades which are even more expensive than the last lot. Generally, in the beauty and grooming department, women pay a lot when it comes to personal care but razor blades are a shocking price and I'm astonished that more men don't ask why. Is it because they think that things called Mach 3 and M3Power should actually be as expensive per square centimetre as a fighter jet?)
Clean-shaven Warren Buffet, so scathing about his country's currency, is happy about this deal too, agreeing with the view that the combined power of the merged companies would give them better terms from retailers.
Mr Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway investment firm is Gillette's largest shareholder, with approximately 96 million shares at the time of the announcement. He is going to up his holding to around 100 million shares of the new company.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, however, nobody believes that the merger will have any benefits in terms of consumer pricing.
Still, I suppose the combined strength of Gillette and P&G will give them more money to spend on research. Next stop, the e=mc2 razor blade - getting rid of re-growth faster than the speed of light.
