US Dollar Woes (memories of a great USD/AUD life)

For all the people who voted for Bush, why did u re-elect him?

I think the U.S economy will slowly bounce back once Bush is out. He is definitely the worst U.S president in U.S history. He'll probably end up writing a book about how bad is was.

Bomber

Agreed on both

Especially meant Western Europe, if we have more than 2% GDP growth, they are happy, 3% and governments start flipping out. I remember some years ago the US had more than 5%, it was booming, but as soon as it dipped under 5% problems started.

You can not underestimate how volatile financial security is for Americans compared to Europeans.
In Western Europe if you loose your job for instance the unemployment check you get is decent, you will not become poor, because you lost your job. Also there are no real added costs for health care and pensions, unemployment benefits count towards your pension.

BUT that security comes at the price: the system is not flexible if you want to do something that is something new or different. It is far more easy to become rich in the US. Starting a company in Europe is painstakingly slow, expensive and difficult, compare this to the quick and cheap American LLC and you start crying.

and if you don't believe me, just compare poverty statistics, you will also notice Japan is kicking both our asses on that account

which the US had up till now, problem is that much of that growth was financed on lending, while Europe saved, America spent and the payments on those loans are causing a lot of problems

if Europeans aren't careful however, they will also fall in this trap, easier and smaller loans and credits are popping up left and right, while in the past you would only get a loan for a house and a car, now you have idiots buying vacations and appliances with those small loans
in Belgium, savings have declined 30% in the last 10 years, let's hope people will know when to stop or we are headed for the same types of problem

This sums up much of the problems right now. Unsustainable consumer spending, made possible by risky and speculative loans, had been boosting the US economy for quite some time, but it obviously couldn't continue forever.

I am convinced that over the next few years, many more bad loans will surface, and many more loans will go bad. This will have a large detrimental effect on the economy as a whole and financial institutions in particular, and is pretty likely to result in prolonged recession.

Who knows how long this shit trend with last. Hopefully it will start to up turn within the next couple months though. I really don't see the dollar falling significantly lower because if it does then the US economy will crash and I definitely don't see that happening at all.

Imagine if San Andreas cracked or Yellow-Stone went up now.....

There are triggers around, natural and otherwise that could well see a massive failure cascade.

-Ben

that's what they said at $1.40 and $1.50

there is nothing indicating a change, even worse, the high oil price pushes the dollar down and the lower dollar pushes the oil even higher, it seems like a vicious circle

but hey you have to give it to the Americans, always optimistic till the grave, I really think this cheerleader mentality stops people from coming to turns with reality
how can you solve a big problem, if you don't acknowledge that there is a big problem

I'd buy that for a dollar?

It's just sad

$60 ? you have a very tiny car