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Quote: "There is no Information Overload, there is just selection failure!"

Really? Internet nerds and the Generation Web loves to brag about all the information revolution, how it empowers users and saves the world. But instead we are polluted with information noise ...

Even in quiet times, predicting the paths of exchange rates is a fool's errand. Economists can come up with the most reasonable of arguments for why this currency will rise and that will fall, only to have their forecasts overturned by small shifts in the financial weather. In 2008, working out where foreign-exchange markets might be in a week's time, never mind a year's, has been about as easy (and as sensible) as holding a finger to the wind in a tornado.

To make matters trickier still, past financial crises have been national or regional--meaning that analysts have had only a few currencies to focus on. This time the turmoil is much broader, and America and western Europe are in the thick of it. And whereas economies as a whole can suffer or stockmarkets around the globe can fall, in foreign-exchange markets it is relative prices that count: whether the world economy is doing badly or well, some currencies must go up and others down.

Even so, some trends are discernible. And those trends do not look at all bad for--of all currencies--the dollar, even though the financial crisis began in the United States and America's economy is in hard times. Indeed, as the crisis intensified during 2008, the dollar's six-year decline against the euro and some other leading currencies went into reverse. There are good reasons to think that the dollar will hold up in 2009.

Europe's single currency has been a haven in recent financial storms. But as capital markets become more discriminating, it no longer affords shelter from reform

Alamy

PAUL VOLCKER once likened global capital markets to a vast sea that cannot escape the occasional big storm. Mr Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve who is now an adviser to Barack Obama, counselled that when the waters got choppy, it was far safer to be on a big ship. A stately liner can sail serenely through turmoil that would capsize even the sturdiest small vessel.

Mr Volcker was speaking a few months after the collapse of the Thai baht set off the Asian financial crisis, and a few months before the launch of the euro, which celebrates its tenth anniversary on January 1st. A decade on, the euro has demonstrated the virtue of size in rough seas. As small economies were tossed by the financial storms that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September, the currencies with global clout, such as the euro and the dollar, were the most stable.

In its first ten years the euro has come through several tests already. Claims that the currency zone would fall apart have proved groundless. Nor is the euro a soft currency, as some had feared. The European Central Bank's (ECB) common monetary policy has drawn on the traditions of its best constituent central bank, the Bundesbank--and has produced an even better record of low inflation.

From the standpoint of economic stability, the euro has been a success. If there is cause for disappointment it is that sound money and the price transparency afforded by a common currency have not fostered faster economic growth. The hope when the euro was launched was that countries stripped of the licence to cheapen their currencies would be forced to compete directly, and that competition would beget more flexible markets and higher productivity. Yet there has been little improvement in the euro area's underlying growth rate in the past ten years. Income per person has remained at around 70% of that in America.

ICELAND will be the world's worst economic performer in the coming year, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister organisation to The Economist. The tiny country will see growth shrink by nearly 10% following the spectacular collapse of its banks in the global financial crisis. Countries with free-falling currencies, burst housing bubbles and a heavy reliance on finance and trade will also suffer. Qatar will grow by over 13%, and many sub-Saharan African countries will also perform strongly. China is still in the top ten but will grow at a considerably more sedate pace than in recent years. Global growth is set to be a feeble 0.9%.

America's CIA has found a novel way to gain information from fickle Afghan warlords - supplying sex-enhancing drug Viagra, a US media report says.

The Washington Post said it was one of a number of enticements being used.

In one case, a 60-year-old warlord with four wives was given four pills and four days later detailed Taleban movements in return for more.

"Whatever it takes to make friends and influence people," the Post quoted one agent as saying.

"Whether it's building a school or handing out Viagra."

HOLIDAY cheer can give way to new year's gloom when over-indulgers realise that it may take months to shed the pounds put on as a result of festive gluttony. But next year the desire to slim down may gain an unexpected ally: the government. On Tuesday December 16th New York's governor, David Paterson, announced a controversial plan to help the state's fight against an obesity crisis while simultaneously replenishing New York's empty coffers. In 2009 consumers will have to pay an 18% tax on non-diet sodas and sugary drinks.

Critics have denounced the new measure as a "sin tax". The American Beverage Association, with an outrage only a notch or two below that which sparked the Boston Tea Party, has called Mr Paterson's tax an unjust "money grab". The beverage industry is fearful that the new tax will do to fizzy drinks what similar taxes did to smoking: push prices so high that it discourages consumers.

President not included.

A Turkish shoe firm says it has had to take on 100 extra staff to cope with a surge in orders after an Iraqi threw shoes at US President Bush.

Istanbul-based Baydan Shoes claims it made the shoes and says it now has tens of thousands of orders from around the world - including from the US and Iraq.

The shoe was called Model 271 but has been renamed Bush shoe, the firm said.

However, the brother of shoe-throwing journalist Muntader al-Zaidi says he believes the shoes were Iraqi-made.

Durgham al-Zaidi criticised people he said were trying to exploit his brother's actions for commercial gain.

"The Syrians claim the shoes were made in Syria and the Turks say they made them. Some say he bought them in Egypt. But as far as I know, he bought them in Baghdad and they were made in Iraq," he told the AFP news agency.

It is difficult to verify exactly where the shoe is from as Mr Zaidi has not been seen in public since the incident eight days ago, and the judge in the case says the shoes were destroyed during security checks.