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

It struck me yesterday as I was filling up my car with gas here in the States that the USD is really fucked

It took $60 USD to fill my car which is pretty much the norm now

And then I remembered that back only a few years ago I used to get $2 AUD for ever $1 USD

So that tank of Gas was the equivalent of $120 AUD from only a few years ago

$60USD now gets me $65.19AUD

$60USD now gets me 38Euro

$60USD now gets me 2501 PHP (Philippines)

I mean the USD has even dropped against the fucking Philippines

Where is the bottom of this shitfull trend I wonder

No idea but it is painful indeed.

It'll get much much worse before it gets better.

It's truly astonishing :(

I think most Americans don't realize the extent of this, they might if the overal price level of imports will start rising, all of a sudden Wallmart will become more expensive.

The US dollar is down against basically every currency in the fucking world

only way this will be fixed is to RAISE interest rates, not cut them.

What the majority of people who keep bringing up what American's don't realize is that if we go down, everyone goes down.

Here is a graphic posted by a friend detailing how the Japanese market was affected after the Fed cut interest rates.

http://images.bloomberg.com/r06/homepage/HP_NKY.png

You don't think the WORLD's LARGEST Economy failing is going to affect the rest of the world? Everyone is in for rude awakening, not just Americans.

:2 cents:

Yes, this is true, but the rest of the world will be much more able to recover than the US itself, unless all this military wealth is spent taking over china or something :thumbsup

True, however after the dust settle - the US will still have debt, while the rest of the world "just" need to find new outlets for their products, which will probably be done via increasing home/regional markets.

The US needs to do a correction to the rest of the world, rise taxes or lower goverment costs, so the debt increasing will stop. The longer the wait - the harder it will be when the bottom falls out of the USD.

And yes, I love the US, and we fucking need you guys to stay afloat both political and economical, so we europeans are not left with the socialists and religious nuts in the world.

I am pretty sure that Italy and Japan have more debt relative to their GDP than the US. Also if I remember correctly the US debt to GDP ratio is about average for the G7 countries. been a few years since I looked it up.

Actual I could foresee social revolt in China, if the US suddenly was not able to import their products. 10s of millions unemployed people in the large cities could probably create a quick revolution, which is why the chinese government have been partly financing the US debt... the same goes for the middle east countries and their oil :2 cents:

difference is that Italian and Japanese people don't have so much personal debt as the American people + they have strong social structures (health care, ...) which prevent people from falling into poverty, it's those same structures that enable Europe to only need 2% growth a year instead of the US's 5% to be healthy

Might as well get use to it. Its not going to get better. Big Oil wants $5.00 a gallon and they will get it sooner than we think.

two major factors have hidden the dollar woes from the avg US citizen. Illegal immigration and chinese/cheap imports. I feel bad for the rest of the world

agreed :thumbsup

There's the catch 22. We are over in Iraq right now to establish a beachead to keep the buying and selling of Oil in US Dollars. Once the US Dollar is no longer the currency of choice for OPEC, we are fucked. Beyond fucked.

Some say that is one of the main reasons we went into Iraq to begin with because Saddam was going to drop the dollar.

You forgot Britney Spears and American Idol!

you remember how Bush promised he was going to protect the American people from high oil prices, which would happen under a Gore Presidency?

my god, how much beter the world would have been if Florida could hold fair elections, now we got half a million dead Iraqis and the US dollar in the crapper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07...depression.jpg

http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=95714&rendTypeId=4

A depression is just like being unemployed, except that instead of having
potatos u have nothing, and neither does anyone else.

-Ben

I still think it'll end up boucing back as soon as Bush leaves office

not unless they reverse Bush's disastrous policies and even then, there doesn't seem to be a new inovative industry like in the 90s that the US can use

step 1: stop funding war profiteers

It should be $50 a gallon.

Oil is so undervalued.

It's so cheap we burn it! .... When it could be used to cure cancer, build
faster computers, take us into space, anything, if you know anything about
chemistry you'll know how handy it is to have a massive long chain of
hydrocarbon that has been put together in the past instead of taking
massive energy to put together today.

I'd like to see oil at much higher prices, sure it'll hurt, sure many will die, but
at least we'll still have some in years to come.

In the past Japan has bought MASSES of Australian coal, crushed it, and
dumped it on the harbour floor to make chips and shit outta in another 20-50
years.

-Ben

Strange statement. How do you conclude that? Both Eastern and Western Europe or do you mean the EU? And do you mean nominal or real? And what do you mean by "healthy"?

Oil is an AWESOME product. I love it. Use it every day.

Those pesky potatoes...

step to get rid of the fed

One of the best things that can happen is to fucking get rid of Bush. Am I blaming part of the money issues on him?? HELL fucking yes. One of the first things that the US can do to start making its country strong again is to get rid of the tax break for outsourcing. bring those jobs home.

Thousands of jobs were lost to that, and it hurt. then to give the companies a tax break is fucking unreal

So if European GDP grows at 2% per year for 50 years its GDP will increase 2.7 times. If US GDP grows at 5% per year for 50 years its GDP will increase 11.5 times. Assuming the EU and US to start at the same GDP (for ease of calculation) after 50 years US GDP will be 4.2 times higher than the EUs and growing. That would be absolute economic dominance by the US. Difficult to see your point or which institutions could possibly be worth falling so far behind.

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 :thumbsup

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