US$1 = AUS $1 How much more fucked up is the US economy going to get?

Was the Canadian dollar as low as 0.48? That was the USD-AUD rate in 2001. I did a couple of quick historical lookups of CAD in 2001 and the lowest (best) rate I could find was 0.63

So given that CAD and AUD are pretty much equal to USD these days, that means us Aussies have lost a lot more. (Unless the CAD has dipped to 0.48 at some stage...)

This is bad!!

If you're depositing those sorts of amounts regularly it may be worth doing a wire transfer, since banks will usually give you a slightly better conversion rate compared to a cheque. You'll need to calculate whether the extra fees - both at the sending end and any your bank charge on receipt - will wipe out the $ benefit of the better rate. The other gotchya, and this can be a biggie, is that you can't pick the best day to do the exchange; with cheques you can put them aside for a month if the rate is crappy (as I'm doing now)

From 1949 to present
High (18/01/2002) - $1.6125
Low (06/11/2007) - $0.9215

i remember for 10g's i would get 15g's, now it's even :/

Thanks for tip. However this particular host refuses to TT unless I have a minimum of $5K commission each month. It's a little sporadic and as I have 4 different accounts with them for tracking purposes, I'm screwed for now.

Right, so in early 2002 it dropped as low as 0.62
About 6 months earlier it was 0.48 in AU. Those USD 10 gs got 20.8 here.
USD AUD is currently at parity, a change of more than 100%.

Do you see now how we've lost more than you guys?

Probably worth asking your bank if they can give you a better rate or discounted fees anyway. Which bank are you with and how much are they charging you to deposit the cheques? Are they negotiated (converted on the spot) or sent off for 4-6 week collection?

I started out paying $35 per cheque at Westpac, ended up at Commonwealth paying $10 per cheque with a 28 day hold (which had a little bug, you could only hold a single payment, so a subsequent deposit released a previous hold ), then moved back to Westpac with unconditional on the spot clearance for $10 per batch of cheques. They've changed the goalposts a few times since then and I'm now paying $15 per 4, but it's still a pretty good deal.

I'm with Westpac too Rowan, $20 for up to 4 cheques, but the exchange rates there don't match those I see online at places like xe.com. Shafted every which way.

You are correct my friend, as much as I dislike Bush, there is an 8 year lag in the economy so this actually started with Clinton. As much as I hate most republican policies, a democrat in the white house will be an absolute disaster with the raised taxes and liberal low-income programs.

Either way we are fucked, I'm thinking about moving back to Europe. My wife already filed her dual-citizenship papers so when that goes thru she can sponsor me.

Fuck the good ole USA, it has cost me over a million dollars in lost real estate property values in the past year plus I still need to pay the inflated property taxes and insurances.

To make matters worse, wait until you see all the bank bailouts the gov will need to pay in the upcoming months, plus when they go and bailout GM when they go BK next year.

Hold on, it's gonna be a rough ride! Thank God I get some dividends in Euros

Yep, I agree. I deposoted $1,000 USD from my paypal to my bank account and it ended up to be $1,018 AUD. That's bad!