Politics and economics: six worries for 2005

Economic outlook: Six worries for 2005 - at Moneyweek.co.uk - the best of the week's international financial media.

The 19th-century novelist Marie von Ebner-Eschenback was first to point out in print that a stopped clock is right twice a day - and wittily added that "over the years it can thus boast a notable series of successes". In a Breakingviews article this week, the author and journalist Edward Chancellor introduces us to the Stopped Clock Club, a previously little-known brotherhood of professional investors and financial scribes. The Club, whose Chief Horologist' is The Spectator's Christopher Fildes, is a group of men (for "there are no lady members") who are chronically gloomy about the prospects for financial markets. They pride themselves on never losing money when the market turns down, but never seem to notice the profits they spurn by pulling out their money years too early. However, this year there appear to be so many potential nasties about in the global economy that these fundamentalists of pessimism may be about to find their time has come. Here are six things they worry about:

The complete collapse of the dollar

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