Friday News: World equities and oil drop on signs of world economic slowdown; Deficit shrinks; Jared Berstein gives more thought to the problems caused by the reserve currency status of the dollar

Markets

World equities and oil drop on signs of world economic slowdown

Fiscal

Federal deficit shrinks to 6-year low.

Monetary

Jared Berstein gives more thought to the problems caused by the reserve currency status of the dollar.  "The enlightened path is not always obvious, and here there is a lot more work to do by all of us in this debate, Pettis, Baker, Ralph Benko, Austin, Martin Wolf, even Bernanke, whose work first got me thinking about all this."

Paul Krugman disagrees as to the significance of the reserve currency status of the dollar.

In the WSJ, Jon Hilsenrath reports Fed minutes show wariness over global growth.

Pew Research reports that, In combination, more people believe that John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, or Alan Greenspan is the Fed Chair than know that it's Janet Yellen.  A dominant plurality just don't know. 

From CNBC, Peter Boockvar says the Fed has killed the saver. 

In the WSJ, Paul Vigna believes market faith in central bank omniscience is being tested. 

At Bloomberg, Jeff Kearns and Rebecca Christie report on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate timetable. 

The Middle Class Squeeze

Cost to rent rising even faster than home prices.