Newsday reports that four of the Democrat presidential hopefuls took individual private jets to their first debate. All travelled from Washington DC. They could have shared one or two planes, or, heaven forfend, flown on a commercial airliner. Of course that would require breathing the same air as the peasantry and we couldn’t do that, could we?

These aristocrats are the same people that want us out of our cars.

These aristocrats are the same people that want to slap a “carbon tax” on us.

These aristocrats are the same people that when they do deign to take a car, they instead take big SUVs or limos, while demanding that the peasants carpool or be fuel efficient.

These aristocrats are too special to share an airplane. They are too special for commercial jets. Only the peasantry ever flies coach. Folks, if Bill Gates could fly coach for most of his career, so can you.

DETROIT (Reuters) - “Ford Motor Co. said on Friday that U.S. auto industry sales to date in April were “terrible” as consumer confidence was hit by a slow housing market and rising gas prices.

“This month is terrible,” Ford chief sales analyst George Pipas said in an interview. “We are not even close to where we expected to be in April.”

Pipas said industry volume appeared to be down 10 percent to date before seasonal adjustment, but expected Ford’s U.S. retail share to hold steady around 13 percent.”

Earlier this week, General Motors Corp. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said the crisis in the U.S. mortgage market has hurt U.S. auto sales this month. Apparently, GM is offering lower-interest financing to customers with weaker credit ratings through this weekend in an effort to boost sales for April. Good luck with that, I guess GM hasn’t figured out what caused the “crisis”.

Some notice is finally being in the financial press to the extent of the fraud problem. Bloomberg: “Cheating on mortgage applications is so widespread and so seldom punished that it’s fueling an increase in foreclosures that will prolong the housing slump, said Robert W. Russell, counsel to the director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, which oversees savings and loans.

Borrowers and brokers commit fraud when they exaggerate the applicant’s income, qualifying the borrower for a home he otherwise couldn’t afford. Such fraud robbed lenders of an estimated $1 billion last year, according to data collected by the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

I see the dollar is down again tonight. The Canadian dollar is back over 89 cents US. Practically all the “experts” seem to think the US dollar is headed for a long decline into insignificance. I am not sure this is true, although short-term the trend is certainly down. The consensus view is that the dollar is just fiat paper, of which way too much has been printed. The problems that I have with the “dollar is going to practically nothing” meme are:

1. As the credit bubble collapses, the broad money supply will decline. This means there will be fewer dollars running around.

2. The other currencies are just fiat paper too. They only look good while their countries are running big trade surpluses with the US. As the economy slows, imports will slow as well, reducing the demand for those currencies to pay for them. Energy imports will probably be little affected, as nominal price increases are likely to offset volume declines, but that’s no help for the euro and the pound. It does make me feel OK about being long Canadian dollars, though.

The Economist’s Big Mac index asserts that the Euro and the pound were both about 20% overvalued against the dollar in February, on a PPP basis. Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland are hugely (40-100+%) overvalued. The Canadian dollar was at rough parity, and the yen and Australian dollar were very undervalued. If the drought in Australia doesn’t break this summer (winter in Oz), it could be hard for the Australian currency to strengthen. The yen has its advocates because of its apparent undervaluation, but personally I think the Japanese economy is very fragile. Any weakness in the US will cause a prompt swoon in Japan. Although if I were a currency trader, shorting the Swissie/yen cross might not be a bad idea.

While I’m not exactly a dollar bull, it is not the only ugly sheep in the flock.