Amazing that when it was much higher, your compatriots would claim how great it was, that it was because your country is strong, because there is no deficit and so on ....

Now, it is great that it is low, so you can export more ( aside from jobs and military equipment, what does the US export ? ) and corporate assets are strong sellers...

You are proud that foreigners can buy out on the cheap your big corporations ????? :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

IBM desktop = Lenovo ( Chinese )
Port Security = Saudia Arabia

and so on ....



**** 50 low dollars ****

europe has more people so the dollar will be weaker?
people in europe don't consider travel in their own country travel so the dollar will be weaker?
europe has higher educational standards so the dollar will be weaker?
the chinese have a dollar?


you are an economic genius. great timing. Milton Friedman just died the other day and now we have you to step up and take the reigns.

pheeeew! what a relief!

lolololol 1 reason im glad im an american, why? because when i get my $300 check, and cash it, its still $300 to me :D

i guess its americas way of saying "hey fuckwits, you say you hate us and all that crap, then good luck having a lower value of our money, hahaha!"

.. in fact, many more than ONE :1orglaugh

Ehm, 'scuse me, but how about the fact that you can get a mortgage with a PROPER fixed rate mortgage (meaning the ENTIRE life of the mortgage, not some crappy 5 years), at a rate of *cough* 2.1%

Yeah, no benefit for the having the Euro, long live Bank of England interest rates :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I recently got a 6.75% 30 year fixed rate with 20% down.. not too bad.

i hate when exchange rates are so small...

Will oil ever start trading in Euro? If it does, and the Euro becomes stronger, then Opec will decide to switch trading to Euro.

On THAT day, the USA will become a crippled monkey.

You know after the first Iraw war, Saddam Hussein traded all Iraqi oil in Euro, refusing to trade in $. Ignoring the fact that that hurt the US quite a bit, but it made for an emergency Opec meeting in Spain ('93 or '94 I think), but it was decided to stay on the $.

Why doesn't the UK join teh Euro? Fuck what Gordan Brown bullshits about the 5 points or whatever it is - if the UK joins the Euro, then it will be under strong pressure to trade North Sea Oil in Euro, thus tipping the balance a little bit more to global Euro Oil.

I personally believe Iraq was about oil, but not control over the oil fields, but their trading currency.

Oh look, Iraqi oil switched back to trading in $ last August....

i wish dollar get up again :(

I will increas to an almost 1 to 1 in the next 8 months.

3yrs ago, we got 20 yr fixed rate for 2.1% with 35% down - you in Europe?
It's currently floating around 3.2 in France at teh moment

No, i'm in the USA..

This sucks! :(

Um, the euro is only a few years old. There was no euro back in 93 or 94. 01-02 would be a bit more accurate.

This has nothing to do with the euro, I live in Europe and those cheap mortage rates have always been like that. They are so cheap because if you stop paying back the loan the bank takes the house and put it up for sale so there is no risk for them to lose the money they loaned.

I know that Americans prefer new homes but in Europe the age of a property makes no difference at all, so a property doesn't lose any value. That is why banks can offer these cheap loans.

I know you can buy building plots in California where you pay 1$ for a square metre while in Europe you pay 150$ per square metre so this is also something you need to take into your calculations when comparing mortgage rates between Europe and the US.

As for property I did some digging where you could get the best value for your money and when you compare Europe and the States the US is the best place to settle and get the most for your money.

Interesting to hear how you do that trick.

why do you think so?

I don't think you get the current state of the world's economy...

Why do you think we really went into Iraq? Saddam was trying to sell oil in Euro's.. What do you think keeps the US dollar the defacto world currency? It's because oil can only be sold in US dollars.

Iran was looking to do the same thing, trade oil in euros.

America is definitly in troubled times right now.

Oh yeah. But you're whole country is buying EVERYTHING you use oversea... You have less buying power with a less dollar so in the end, the "fuckwits" ends up beeing you paying an higher price for what you need.

And you are slowly selling your country's assets peice by peice to support your big war lifestyle ;)

True but even with their war going on etc... America is still a very powerfull nation, the most powerfull one to be exact. Ending the war with Iraq would be a very good start to rebuild the dollar strength, I remember when the Euro launched to dollar had the bigger value, things can change again, even faster than you could imagine. America gets things done in comparison to most Europeans who just sit around and are having useless discussions.

And everyone thought the Democrats victory in Congress would make things better :)
Europeans should get paid in Euro :)

PayServe bills in Euro! Americans! Make more money!

That was my point :thumbsup

I wasn't comparing the Euro to $ in that post - it was a reply to there was no benefit in the Britain joining the Euro, and last time I looked, British mortgage lenders did the same thing - repossess and sell the house on default.

And that low interest rate on mortgages IS because of the Euro - the Bank of England base interest rate is now at 5%, wherease the European central bank is at 2%. It has got fuck all to do with whether the banks repossess the house, it's to do with WHERE the banks get their money form to lend to you.

Hey Mike,


This will shut them up:


New study compares GDP and growth:
EU versus USA

If the European Union were a state in the USA it would belong to the poorest group of states. France, Italy, Great Britain and Germany have lower GDP per capita than all but four of the states in the United States. In fact, GDP per capita is lower in the vast majority of the EU-countries (EU 15) than in most of the individual American states. This puts Europeans at a level of prosperity on par with states such as Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia. Only the miniscule country of Luxembourg has higher per capita GDP than the average state in the USA. The results of the new study represent a grave critique of European economic policy.

Stark differences become apparent when comparing official economic statistics. Europe lags behind the USA when comparing GDP per capita and GDP growth rates. The current economic debate among EU leaders lacks an understanding of the gravity of the situation in many European countries. Structural reforms of the European economy as well as far reaching welfare reforms are well overdue. The Lisbon process lacks true impetus, nor is it sufficient to improve the economic prospects of the EU.

EU versus USA is written by Dr Fredrik Bergström, President of the Swedish Research Institute of Trade, and Mr Robert Gidehag, until recently Chief Economist of the same institute and now President of the Swedish Taxpayer's Association.

http://www.timbro.com/euvsusa/

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/base-rates.php

I tell a lie, the ECB is at the moment at 3.25%, so mortgage are going to be at a higher rate than when we got ours (Aug 2003, when it was at 1%)

The damage has already been done by the huge deficit.

:error :error :error

Playing with statistics like that is bullshit!
How the hell can you have a GDP for a State??? Those values must be GSPs and are uncorrected for inflation and purchasing credits from the US govt, whereas GDP is corrected for inflation in that country, purchasing power parity per capita, and then internationalised on an international $. If you're going to break down the US into States, then break down things even further and look at individual cities: London for example with a GDP of $52k is second only to District of Columbia.

You can spin figures anyway you want if you're trying to make a point!

Internation GDP per PPP capita:

And looking at the entire European union as a whole:

GDP-PPP per Capita ($USD) 25,536

That's not bad for a population of 456,319,275
(2004 figures)

I know what you guys mean

when i started it was usa 45c to NZ $1
now it usa 70 c + to the NZD $1

usa $1,000 use to go far with me now i cant get shit

i totally AGREEE with you :thumbsup

Don't you understand there's plenty of oil in the US but they cap the wells
until the price is too high.

All the Gov't has to do is cut off all tax breaks to the oil companies unless they start pumping and prices won't be Hurt by the euro.

The US also has technology that can replace oil pretty fast if the market demands it so don't think oil will be the downfall of the USA !

Excuse me :winkwink: That is too damned funny.

Fact is the US has no exports to talk about - there has been a trade deficit since the late sixties. This year will see the largest trade deficit ever - obviously the weak dollar value helped increase this deficit.

Meanwhile the US is consuming more than it can afford with spending at 160% of wages.

Growth rates are not in the US or the EU, but in Asia. Despite that, at least EU countries actually have a fiscal policy and balance their books - something that is sure not happening in the US over the last few years.

That's the reality :thumbsup

As far as spending goes it looks to me that the US government is just too scared to curb it - most probably the most effective way is to increase the basic interest rate which makes loans way too expensive - but yet again politicians only care about their re-election so why introduce unpopular measures, let the Americans spend, it's going to be their grandchildren that are going to pay the price...


and about Sleazy's comment (which btw has nothing to with economics) - the Europeans have better education but the Americans still have great professionals - meaning that a US doctor is at least as good as his EU colleague, the only difference is that he thinks that Canada is in Latin America
:winkwink:

i love the "but payserve pays in euros" comments..fucking morons

No, you misunderstood - I'm not talking about the American's need for oil. Oil drives the world economy and its trading currency is the US$. If OPEC ever switched to the Euro, the $ would be internationally dead. And along with it the US's only strength.

this really sucks....

2 Norway 42,364
3 United States 41,399

Norway ownz you.

lol @ great for the u.s. economy.

Sure its great...for OUTSIDE INVESTORS. ( europeans corporations enjoy insane tax breaks while outsourcing jobs over to india.)
Sure its great....for europeans to enjoy great holiday getaways to the U.S.

SUre its great....the u.s. becoming a 3rd world country.

ITS GREAT!

well thats certainly true, when I enter the US my money instantly increases with 30% plus a lotta stuff is a lot less expensive in the US then in EU.

Does it hurt to be as dumb as you are?

ahh that's bad!

Euro is going rise up again

Na.. the Central Bank of China is the owner. China owns more of the US than any other country and is lending em even more - at the rate of $2-4 billion/daily (tho that's only around 22-28% of the daily US borrowings from other nations).

The simplified version is.... the US is a credit card holder, China (and others) are big bad VISA. VISA loves spenders - spend as much as you want and enjoy a lifestyle you can't afford or manage. But, when the card gets maxed out, - sorry folks - it's time to pass over your assets.

Any time the Central Bank of China choose to dump dollars, the scenario gets worse. They have been discreet about selling the US debt so far but are, in effect (along with other nations), the controllers of the US dollar.

The other "owner" of the dollar are oil-producing nations and OPEC. The day OPEC dream (that day has already come) of valuing oil in eg. Euro's instead of dollars and put this into effect, is the day the US economy goes into a rapidly downwards spiral.

The lowering of dollar value against other currencies at the moment has little to do with China or others. It appears to be more related to a failure in US economic performance. The White House recently downgraded US growth forecasts in the middle of a sharp slowdown in the housing market and giving markets a lack of confidence in the dollar.

For webamsters? Hell.. if you are pricing a paysite in dollars, - add and extra $10/month to memberships and bring this into line with other currencies you may have for payment options. Sure are hell that's what China will be doing when pricing their goods for US sale.

1.31 currently

the US dollar is seriously fucked

ok smart ass - tell me a nation with a decreasing nation average education level and narrow world view will REMAIN a world economic power.

won't happen.

ohhh wait - you're AMERICAN arn't you? that explains it....

you're supposed to invest 10 percent of your funds into gold to offset the falling dollar. silver would be a good idea also.

i bought 1000's of onces of silver when it was only $4 and change. now it's $13.50.

i started buying gold at $400 and change. now it's at $638. the more the $ drops, the more metals will go up.

These guys got my interested in investing.
http://www.hesradio.com/radioshows.html