The Dollar Sucks ???
The US Dollar gets you the following….
1.02 CDN Dollar 6.99 Chinese Yuan 8979.00 Iranian Rial 3.59 Israel New Shekel
100.00 Japanese Yen 23.47 Russian Ruble 1.29 Turkish New Lira 2142.30 Venezuela Bolivar
We could be better we could be worse.
The two currencies that get stacked up against the $ US are of course the Euro and the British Pound. The dollar is worth .63 Euro and .50 to the Pound. The Euro is remarkable since it’s “new” to be so strong vs the dollar. I remember having my fiscal ass handed to me years ago on a trip to England so I’m not getting the hype now.
The Economist has an interesting look at the Pound and the Euro. The following excerpt is from here and I highly recommend you take a look. No charge.
The pound has looked like a one-way bet for much of the last 15 months. After all, if you think the world is going to hell in a handcart, you buy the euro (or the Swiss franc); if you think the world is going to recover, you buy the dollar. Britain has neither the dynamic economy nor the financial stability to benefit from either extreme.
RE: “After all, if you think the world is going to hell in a handcart, you buy the euro (or the Swiss franc); if you think the world is going to recover, you buy the dollar.”
Interesting post, and I’ll stick with the dollar.
Hi i,
It’s always nice to know one is welcome
As to the so called mortgage crisis, from my point of view it’s really more of a stupidity crisis. On one hand we have citizens who are too stupid to either read the small print or shell out the extra cash for competent advice. On the other hand we have somehow managed to insulate corporate management to the point where they don’t understand the limits on what scams are allowed. Truly, the Government would save everyone a lot of time, money, and effort if they’d just go ahead and pass legislation defining the limits on how much cash the average under educated person can be tricked out of in any one transaction.
the Grit
Also on the oil side the Euro is starting to be the trading currency. The rest of my post was aimed at all the “sky is falling,but only in America” folks. The other nations are experiencing mortgage issues and all the rest. You analysis is a great addition and a more thoughtful one. Thanks and know you’re always welcome to drop by.
Hi i,
My theory is that we’ve been allowing the dollar exchange rate to fall, quietly, for two reasons. On one hand, it makes our exports more competitive and lowers the amount of goods we import, which has helped our trade balance a good bit. On the other hand, it reduces the value of our national debt. Reagan handled our debt by allowing inflation to reduce its size in relation to GDP, and I suspect, since we currently have inflation under control, our Government is attempting to achieve the same results through currency devaluation. What they didn’t take fully into consideration is that oil is the new gold standard, so its price didn’t follow the dollar down. On the up side of this, the high price of oil is bringing inflation back into the equation, so it’s likely that we’ll start moving the value of the dollar back up.
the Grit
perhaps we can feel more gratitude and less self contempt!..interesting read.:)