The fact that Hungary's National Bank did not decide to make an unexpected interest rate cut at its meeting earlier this week seems to have a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchiveamp;sid=a84zp9hh0af0"surprised some/a, but it really should not have done. According to James Morsink, head of the IMF delegation to Budapest, Hungary only has room to cut its benchmark interest rate a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchiveamp;sid=aW.6Yo1wzmp4"at a “gradual and cautious” pace/a. The reasoning behind this view is simple, any more rapid reduction in the bank's benchmark rate risks being accompanied by a devaluation of the forint, and and any such devaluation would inevitably lead to a rise in mortgage defaults and problems for the banking system as holders of Swiss Franc forex loans find themselves unable to maintain their payments as unemployment rises and wages and salaries fall.br /br /Thus it is that even though the Hungarian economy is now in its worst recession in over a decade ...

O.K., so the headline isn’t exactly accurate, but it did catch your eye. And if one David Cay Johnston has his perverse way, it would be a statement of fact. Indeed, Johnston seriously calls for a U.S. declaration of war not only on the Cayman Islands, but also Bermuda and other offshore tax havens. His lengthy radical views are set out in an article (”Fiscal Therapy”) in the Jan-Feb 2009 issue of the left-leaning magazine Mother Jones, known for investigative reporting with a decidedly radical slant.

Ordinarily a nutty proposal such as Johnston’s could be laughed off as evidence of a sick sense of humor or an advanced mental problem, but Johnston is not your run of the mill left-wing nut.

Prize Winning Radical

In 2001 Johnston won a Pulitzer Prize “for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code.”

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Logitech International SA (LOGI) slipped around 8% after withdrawing its financial targets for fiscal 2009, due to the worsening global recession.

The manufacturer of computer products also announced that it will shed 15% of its workforce.

The Switzerland-based company had slashed its sales and profit estimates in October.

LOGI is scheduled to post third-quarter results later this month. Meanwhile, analysts are expecting a profit of 54 cents for the current quarter. The company is a Zacks #3 Rank ("Hold").

"LOGI" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?Zacks Investment Research

Logitech International SA (LOGI) - a maker of computer mice, webcams and other computer peripherals - announced on January 5th, 2009 that it is cutting its salaried work force by 15% in response to weak consumer demand amid what it expects to be an extended global downturn.  Based in Switzerland, LOGI also has offices in Fremont, CA; it has about 3,500 salaried employees out of a total work force of about 9,000.

LOGI also abandoned its previous fiscal 2009 forecasts of sales growth in the range of 6 to 8 percent and operating income growth in the range of 3 to 5 percent. It did not provide revised targets, as it plans to update investors on its outlook during the Q3-09 results briefing on Jan. 20.

LOGI will book a restructuring charge for the job cuts in its fiscal fourth quarter and will give details of the charge with the issuance

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Syngenta AG (...

Euro gains, then loses, then gains…  Inflation and Commodities…  The euro turns 10!  Risk Aversion remains but is waning… And Now… Today’s Pfennig! Remember those Wild Swings I talked about yesterday? The Wild Swings that could be a result of thin volumes in this the second week of Christmas. Well… We witnessed them in earnest yesterday! As I signed off yesterday, I told you that the euro had rallied 2 whole figures to 1.43 and change. Well, that rally dissipated throughout the morning, and by late in the day the single unit was 1.39 and change… WOW! Now that’s a Wild Swing!

You can point to profit taking as the reason for the move,

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Woes on Wall Street coincide with gold coin rush

Wednesday December 24, 12:50 pm ET By Sandy Shore, AP Business Writer US Mint labors to meet demand as investors buy up assets they can hold in their hands

DENVER (AP) — Investors who have forsaken shaky financial markets for the safety of gold must feel a little bit like prospectors.

As the worst recession in at least a generation spreads, so too does the clamor for gold bars and coins, assets less likely to go up on smoke like so many derivatives and asset-backed securities.

“I’ve never seen a case where demand was so high and supply was so short,” said Chicago coin dealer Harlan Berk, who has been in the business 44 years.

Spikes in demand for gold coins this year appear to run parallel with the mounting woes on Wall Street.

In August, as the Federal Reserve pumped $62 billion into the U.S. banking

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GoldDrivers 2009 – Extraordinary Bullish Outlook for Gold

By: Eric Hommelberg ldSeek.com

Dollar topping out Physical demand skyrocketing Supply chain shutting down COMEX Gold Manipulation exposed Gold shares on the move again

It sure has been a brutal year for gold and its shares and many may wonder if the $1030 top clocked in March 2008 marked the top for the gold bull market that started in April 2001. Despite the fact that many analysts want you to believe that gold has failed to act as a

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A lot of investors woke up recently to find their money had ‘disappeared’ in Bernie Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme. And it all happened under the noses of the regulators. Byron King says there are probably many more scammers out there. And the US government is among them. He says this just strengthens the case to buy gold and silver.

This from Whiskey & Gunpowder:

What if you woke up one day and there was a flying saucer sitting in the middle of Central Park? It would change your view of the world, if not the universe, right? At least that’s the idea behind the newly released remake of the classic 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still.

And what if you went to bed one night and thought that you had money on account in a fine silk stocking firm? What if you believed that you and your family were well

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The IMF finally announced it's Latvia "bailout" plan on Friday. The plan involves lending about €1.7 billion ($2.4 billion) to Latvia to stabilise the currency and financial support while the government implements its economic adjustment plan. The loan, which will be in the form of a 27-month stand-by arrangement, is still subject to final approval by the IMF's Executive Board but is likely to be discussed before the end of this year under the Fund's fast-track emergency financing procedures, and it is not anticipated that there will be any last minute hitches (although I do imagine some eyebrow raising over the decision to support the continuation of the Lat peg). The Latvian government admits that some of the IMF economists involved in the negotiations advocated a devaluation of the lat as a way of ammeliorating the ...