CATE BLANCHETT will not be getting a young lover any time soon.

The 37-year-old said she cringed with embarrassment when filming scenes for new film Notes On A Scandal, about a teacher's affair with a young pupil - played by 18-year-old ANDREW SIMPSON.

She told Source magazine: "It leaves you feeling very uncomfortable and I became incredibly prudish.

"Men take so much longer to mature and I could never even conceive of having a relationship with a much younger man."

She said she would prefer a man 20 years her senior instead "because older men have an attraction for women".

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2004580002-2007030494,,00.html

In order to understand our present situation, it is instructive to read this article from the WSJ from June 9, 2005:

In Treating U.S. After Bubble, Fed Helped Create New Threats

* Low Rates Bolstered Economy, But Housing, Foreign Debt Appear Out of Balance

* Greenspan's Legacy at Stake

"If I were a biologist I'd call this a perfect example of symbiosis," former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker mused in a February speech at Stanford University. "Contented American consumers matched against delighted foreign producers. Happy borrowers matched against willing lenders. The difficulty is, the seemingly comfortable pattern can't go on indefinitely."

Almost every economist agrees. The debate is over how, not whether, the global economy rebalances: Will it be smooth, through some combination of declining dollar and accelerating foreign demand? Or will it be chaotic, with a dollar collapse, much higher U.S. interest rates and perhaps a global recession?

Mr. Volcker thinks a crisis is likely. Investor confidence could fade "at some point," he said, with "damaging volatility in both exchange markets and interest rates."

http://www.andongkim.com/articles/2005/06/greenspanafterbubble.htm

re: 'Clinton's proposals to fix the mess include eliminating prepayment penalties, [As if someone was out there willing or even able to lend money to people with marginal credit to refi their homes at rapidly disappearing lower rates] tightening regulatory supervision of mortgage brokers [A return to traditional lending standards means a return to traditional pricing, which is why housing prices are collapsing since fewer can qualify, which in turn is wiping out the paper equity people thought they had in their homes, which in turn is impacting mortgage equity borrowing by homeowners, which in turn is drying up one of the main sources of consumer spending, which is the only thing that has kept the Bush economy afloat], expanding federal government support for homeowners facing foreclosure [which neccessarily means more govenment borrowing, further drying up available credit], and boosting funding for affordable housing [even more government borrowing, etc.].'

Any "solution" at this point is akin to someone offering a "solution" to the Captain of the Titanic -- after it struck the iceberg.

@Cosmic Mojo re: "She's just talking for the sake of selling tickets to her movie."

Yeah, uh huh, sure. Cate is probably the world's finest actress. Her intelligence, depth, sensitivity and angelic grace are what mesmerize the world and pack in the audiences to her films.

@Anonymous re: "one of my husbands friends has a girlfriend like this, she is a bore and we all hate her"

Somehow I sincerely doubt that you have any friends even remotely approaching someone the caliber of Cate Blanchett.

China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

Xia Bin, finance chief at the Development Research Centre (which has cabinet rank), kicked off what now appears to be government policy with a comment last week that Beijing's foreign reserves should be used as a "bargaining chip" in talks with the US.

"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order," he added.

He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.

"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.

"China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan's exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar," he told China Daily. (MORE)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/08/07/bcnchina107a.xml