How about those wily veteran central bankers? They all got together and decided to cut rates. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) went first with their 100 BPS cut, and opened the rate cut sea for the rest of the central banks around the world. The European Central Bank, The Riksbank (Sweden), Swiss National Bank, Bank of Canada, Bank of England, and the Bank of China all lined up at the rate cut table. The Bank of Japan, The Norges Bank (Norway), and Reserve Bank of New Zealand did not participate.

Hank Paulson’s bailout strategy will almost certainly cost $1 trillion or more. Bloomberg reports it will increase national debt by 6.6% to $11.3 trillion. Bill Bonner says US policy makers will eventually have no choice but to inflate away this debt. And this is when physical gold becomes worth much more than paper money… and even gold ETFs

Earlier this year Bush and the boyz pumped $150 billion into the consumer economy by way of their much-hyped stimulus check package.

Despite Bush’s best efforts the National Retail Federation says US retailers will see their slowest holiday sales growth this year since 2002.

But it isn’t all doom and gloom in the retail world. Stephanie Grimmett says Japan’s Fast Retailing (PINK:FRCOF) has ambitious growth plans in fast-growing emerging markets. FRCOF’s share price is on a down trend. But it will likely bottom soon.

The idea that the rest of the world has decoupled from the US economy has has taken it in the neck this year.

Major emerging markets -including China, South Korea, Russia and India – have seen stocks pummeled, as investors become more risk averse.

Eric Roseman says the fundamentals in these countries are far stronger than those in the US and Europe. Many emerging market nations have saved trillions in dollar reserves and have plenty precious resources to sell.

Eric says a strong rebound is on the cards, but only once US assets stabilize.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has cut its benchmark rate 25 basis points to 7%. This has sent the Aussie dollar and local stocks tumbling.

Chuck Butler says only one more rate cut is likely this year. Charles Delvalle, meanwhile, expects dividends on Austrialian companies BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP) and Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) to fall as the Aussie dollar weakens against the greenback.

Al Robinson at The Daily Reckoning Australia says the RBA is caught between fighting higher prices and a stagnating economy. But he says local mining stocks still a good bet…

Peter Schiff, economic adviser to the recent presidential campaign of Ron Paul, says conventional wisdom is wrong on the global slowdown.

Global economies are cooling off not because American consumers spending has slowed but because U.S. homeowners are defaulting on hundreds of billions of dollars of existing loans underwritten by lenders around the world.

This means, although foreign banks are suffering due to lending to the U.S., they can avoid future pain by refusing to lend to America anymore. This will torpedo the dollar. But Peter says this is precisely what must happen…

The practice of naked short selling isn’t just for stocks, says the Mogambo Guru. It’s everywhere.

The recent plunge in gold prices and silver prices has little to do with supply and demand of the shiny metals.

Both markets are dominated by paper trades – promises to sell gold or silver – where no metals change hands.

In fact, more ‘paper silver’ has been sold than the amount of real silver that exists in the world.

The biggest rap about investing in emerging markets has been that they suffer from out-of-control inflation. The high prices of food and fuel undermined otherwise strong economic progress in emerging nations. On a conservative estimate, food-price rises may reduce the spending power of the urban poor and country people who buy their own food by 20%, according to the Economist.

Investors have turned against gold in the last month, sending the price of the shiny metal tumbling over 20%. But Adrian Ash in the Rude Awakening says the market fundamentals have not changed. Too much debt and inflation threaten to destroy the value of paper wealth. But gold bars are a tangible asset, and cannot be created at will.

An important date in the City’s social calendar went almost unmarked this week. Tuesday, the Twelfth of August, marked the official start of the grouse shooting season. It’s easy to see why amid the war in Georgia, and fear of recession in Europe, people might have had other things on their minds.