Emergency talks focused on the debt crises in Europe and the United States are planned Sunday for G7 finance ministers before Asian markets open, while the European Central Bank will consider buying Italian public debt to stem the turmoil.

World markets are expected to react negatively to Standard and Poor's downgrade of the U.S. credit rating and intensifying debt problems in Europe when trading opens. Ralph Orlowski/ReutersGroup of Seven policymakers were to take part in their second telephone conference call of the weekend to work on a response to Friday's nosedive on financial markets in light of Standard and Poor's U.S. credit rating downgrade and intensifying debt problems in Europe.

Finance ministers and central banks from the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan may issue a joint statement after the talks, Jiji Press said in Tokyo.

Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has insisted Canada is "well-positioned" to face economic uncertainty but also cautioned the country's economy "is not an island" and could eventually be affected by the global debt troubles.

Middle East markets have already opened in Sunday trading. Many of those indexes are down sharply, but world leaders are focused on the larger Asian markets.

The Frankfurt-based European Central Bank (ECB) is also scheduled to hold a rare Sunday conference call to discuss a strategy for handling the debt crisis in Europe, where Italy is at risk of default.

ECB sources say officials will discuss whether to buy Italian government bonds to help bring down Italy's borrowing rate.

For months, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government denied his country was even in economic danger.

Finally last Friday, Berlusconi pushed up the date of implementing an almost $100 billion austerity package. The Italian leader called a last-minute news conference where he promised to make the cuts in 2013, a year sooner than planned.

It was a late and many say insufficient move to reassure investors and the European Union that Italy is serious about reducing its almost $3 trillion debt.

Observers say some bank governors want Italy to make even bigger public spending cuts even sooner.

China is demanding “international supervision over the U.S. dollar” and says they are looking at the option of creating a new single global currency to replace the dollar altogether.

China has published an article in its stated owned Xinhua news agency that rails against the United States for losing its AAA credit rating and has issued a series of demands to U.S. policy makers and the international community.

China begins by railing against the “arrogance and cynicism from some Western commentators” in regard to the credit rating downgrade of U.S. debt that was issued by China’s Dagong Global credit rating agency last year and goes on to state that they have the right to demand the U.S. address its debt problem to protect the Chinese dollar.

In concluding the article China is calling upon the international community to intervene with a program of “international supervision over the U.S dollar” while indicating they are looking at the option of creating a global currency to replace the dollar altogether.

China Calls For International Supervision Over The US Dollar And New, Single Global Currency To Replace It

Zero Hedge reports:

Gloating China Says “Has Every Right To Demand US Address Its Debt Problem”, Asks For New Global Reserve Currency

Submitted by Tyler Durden
08/06/2011 11:21 -0400

China has released a scathing op-ed in Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, in which the authors waste no time to humiliate a “debt-ridden Uncle Sam” following the S&P downgrade, in the most violent surge in the recent war of words between the ascendent and descendent superpowers. Some choice selections: “Dagong Global, a fledgling Chinese rating agency, degraded the U.S. treasury bonds late last year, yet its move was met then with a sense of arrogance and cynicism from some Western commentators. Now S&P has proved what its Chinese counterpart has done is nothing but telling the global investors the ugly truth”, “China, the largest creditor of the world’s sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets.” It doesnt stop there, “[the US] should also stop its old practice of letting its domestic electoral politics take the global economy hostage and rely on the deep pockets of major surplus countries to make up for its perennial deficits.” China takes the opportunity to give the US a little lecture on a broken way of life: “All Americans, both beltway politicians and those on Main Street, have to do some serious soul-searching to bring their country back from a potential financial abyss.” And lastly, China once again gets back to its pissing contest about whose reserve currency is bigger: “International supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars should be introduced and a new, stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country.” Just wild fun. Read the whole thing below.

From Xinhua:

After historic downgrade, U.S. must address its chronic debt problems

The days when the debt-ridden Uncle Sam could leisurely squander unlimited overseas borrowing appeared to be numbered as its triple A-credit rating was slashed by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) for the first time on Friday.

Though the U.S. Treasury promptly challenged the unprecedented downgrade, many outside the United States believe the credit rating cut is an overdue bill that America has to pay for its own debt addition and the short-sighted political wrangling in Washington.

Dagong Global, a fledgling Chinese rating agency, degraded the U.S. treasury bonds late last year, yet its move was met then with a sense of arrogance and cynicism from some Western commentators. Now S&P has proved what its Chinese counterpart has done is nothing but telling the global investors the ugly truth.

China, the largest creditor of the world’s sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets.

To cure its addiction to debts, the United States has to reestablish the common sense principle that one should live within its means.

S&P has already indicated that more credit downgrades may still follow. Thus, if no substantial cuts were made to the U.S. gigantic military expenditure and bloated social welfare costs, the downgrade would prove to be only a prelude to more devastating credit rating cuts, which will further roil the global financial markets all along the way.

Moreover, the spluttering world economic recovery would be very likely to be undermined and fresh rounds of financial turmoil could come back to haunt us all.

The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone.

It should also stop its old practice of letting its domestic electoral politics take the global economy hostage and rely on the deep pockets of major surplus countries to make up for its perennial deficits.

A little self-discipline would not be too uncomfortable for the United States, the world’s largest economy and issuer of international reserve currency, to bear.

Though chances for a full-blown U.S. default are still slim now, the S&P downgrade serves as another warning shot about the long-term sustainability of the U.S. government finances.

International supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars should be introduced and a new, stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country.

For centuries, it was the exuberant energy and innovation that has sustained America’s role in the world and maintained investors’ confidence in dollar assets. But now, mounting debts and ridiculous political wrestling in Washington have damaged America’s image abroad.

All Americans, both beltway politicians and those on Main Street, have to do some serious soul-searching to bring their country back from a potential financial abyss.

The events in this video look more and more likely every day.

Reuters also reported on the Xinhua article and added that China will now be forced to dump the U.S. dollar.

The downgrade of U.S. credit rating is expect to take a major toll on China’s over $2 trillion in investments in the U.S. dollar.

With no where else to put all of that money China will be forced to invest it into a one world currency.

Reuters reports:

China blasts U.S. over debt problems, calls for dollar oversight

SHANGHAI | Sat Aug 6, 2011 2:35am EDT

(Reuters) – China roundly condemned the United States for its “debt addiction” and “short sighted” political wrangling and said the world needed a new stable global reserve currency.

In a harshly-worded commentary by the official Xinhua news agency on Saturday, China gave its first official comments on the United States losing its gilded AAA long-term credit rating from Standard & Poor’s.

[...]

Chinese economists said the U.S. credit rating downgrade posed a great risk to financial markets and they expected it to prompt China, the world’s biggest holder of U.S. Treasuries, to accelerate the diversification of its holdings.

S&P cut the United States’ rating to AA-plus on concerns over the government’s budget deficits and rising debt burden. The move is likely to raise borrowing costs eventually for the U.S. government, companies and consumers.

“There would be chaos in international financial markets at least in the short term. The most direct impact for China would be the hit on its reserves. The value of China’s dollar investments will fall and the shrinking effect may be great,” said Li Jie, a director at the Reserves Research Institute at the Central University of Finance and Economics.

Earlier this week, China had urged Washington to act responsibly to deal with its debt issues, saying uncertainty in the U.S. Treasuries market will undermine the global monetary system and hamper global growth.

Beijing has repeatedly urged Washington to protect its dollar investments, estimated by analysts to account for about two-thirds of its $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, the world’s largest.

“China will be forced to consider other investments for its reserves. U.S. Treasuries aren’t as safe anymore. There is a class of assets out there that are more risky than AAA, but less risky than AA+. China didn’t consider these investments before, but now it would be forced to do so,” Li said.

[...]

Source: Reuters

Dagong made headlines last week when it became the first rating agency to cut its U.S. credit rating from “A+” to “A” after policymakers in Washington failed to act in a timely manner to lift its debt celing.

However, the announcement failed to register in the markets as investors have yet to decide whether to take the Beijing-based company seriously.

“It has been around for quite a while, but I do not know of anyone assigning risk assessment to thir portfolio according to Dagong,” said Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank. “However, clearly the rating industry could do with some competition and deviance from firm beliefs.”

But Guan’s observation—made just before S&P slashed its ratings on the world’s biggest economy—now seems strangely prescient.

“I think the most pressing issue facing the U.S. at the moment is to reflect on the crisis which happened in relation with the debt ceiling," Guan said. "They should get a clear understanding that the continuous decline of the debt service capability will inevitably result in the outbreak of a sovereign debt crisis.”

His sentiment is also reflected in a strongly worded editorial published by China’s official Xinhua news agency on Saturday that is widely seen as a thinly-veiled criticism of U.S. fiscal and economic policies from Beijing.

The editorial called for “international supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars” and the introduction of “a new, stable and secured global reserve currency.”

It also noted that as its largest creditor, Beijing has every right “to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets.”

That the US postal service is on the verge of bankruptcy is well-known by now and was discussed by Zero Hedge long before it became mainstream news. Furthermore, as we previously noted, the key sticking point in cost reduction negotiations is the labor force compensation (80% of all costs), which is paid an average of $41.15 an hour, and which is over 60% unionized. As of today, we finally welcome the USPS to reality which has announced that, in an attempt to avoid bankruptcy, it is now seeking to reduce its total overhead by 20%, or a whopping 120,000 workers (a number which would amount to roughly an increase of 0.1% in the national unemployment rate). Ah yes, but this is prohibited by existing union contracts. Furthermore, WaPo writes that "SPS also wants to withdraw its employees from the health and retirement plans that cover federal staffers and create its own benefit programs for postal employees." Good luck trying to convince a labor union that cutting an ungodly amount of jobs is for the greater good. Alas, what happened in Greece (and what is about to happen in Italy) will be nothing compared to what will happen when the entire post office goes, well, postal.

This major restructuring of the Postal Service’s relationship with its workforce would need congressional approval and would face fierce opposition from postal unions. But if approved, eliminating contract provisions that prevent layoffs and quitting the federal employee health and retirement programs could have ramifications for workers across the government and throughout the national’s labor movement.

In a notice to employees informing them of its proposals, with the headline “Financial crisis calls for significant actions,” the Postal Service said “we will be insolvent next month due to significant declines in mail volume and retiree health benefit prefunding costs imposed by Congress.”

The Postal Service plan is described in two draft documents obtained by The Washington Post. A “Workforce Optimization” paper acknowledges “that asking Congress to eliminate the layoff protections in our collective bargaining agreements is an extraordinary request by the Postal Service, and we do not make this request lightly. However, exceptional circumstances require exceptional remedies.

“The Postal Service is facing dire economic challenges that threaten its very existence. . . . If the Postal Service was a private sector business, it would have filed for bankruptcy and utilized the reorganization process to restructure its labor agreements to reflect the new financial reality.”

And here are the number that will shortly be repeated ad nauseam on every talk show over the next week:

The USPS says it needs to reduce its workforce by 120,000 career positions by 2015, in addition to the 100,000 it expects through regular attrition. Some of the 120,000 could come through buyouts and other programs, but a significant number likely would be the result of layoffs, if Congress allows the agency to circumvent union contracts.

But what is a labor loving president to do (recall how in the Detroit-3 restructurings, labor unions just incidentally took precedence over secured debt holders):

“Unfortunately, the collective bargaining agreements between the Postal Service and our unionized employees contain layoff restrictions that make it impossible to reduce the size of our workforce by the amount required by 2015,” according to the postal document. “Therefore, a legislative change is needed to eliminate the layoff protections in our collective bargaining agreements.”

Those most likely to suffer yet another political whiplash as a result of this huge dilemma (massive layoffs or no more snail mail) is the democratic party:

How Congress will respond to the postal proposals remains to be seen. Many Republicans, including those who have sponsored legislation that labor considers anti-union, may support the plan. Some Democrats probably would back union opposition. But the Postal Service’s critical financial situation could make Democrats have second thoughts.

Sure enough, the unions wasted no time to craft a response:

American Postal Workers Union President Cliff Guffey said, “The APWU will vehemently oppose any attempt to destroy the collective bargaining rights of postal employees or tamper with our recently-negotiated contract — whether by postal management or members of Congress.”

National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association President Don Cantriel: “We are absolutely opposed” to the layoff proposal. “We are opposed to pulling out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Our advisers are not advising us at all to even consider it.”

National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric V. Rolando: “The issues of lay-off protection and health benefits are specifically covered by our contract. . . . The Congress of the United States does not engage in contract negotiations with unions and we do not believe they are about to do so.”

Unfortunately, about 30 years after its inception, the USPS is about to remind America what the source of the "going postal" phrase really is.