[tie]

Originally Posted by stupendousman 

I disagree. You can spend ZERO cash and effect the markets. It doesn't even require any real investment. Selling "naked short" is one way. Being someone like a George Soros or Warren Buffett (and in this case, both lefties acted in unison) and making continued pronouncements about your investments and what you think has a HUGE effect on the markets. Again, if you think that one man using his own wealth and/or connections and reputation can't cause markets to go drastically up or down, you simply know nothing about how the markets work. At one time, Alan Greenspan could send the markets into a freefall by just wrinkling his brow the wrong way during a Fed announcement.

Your comparison to Greenspan is pretty ridiculous. Soros is nowhere close to Greenspan or Bernanke (or Bush, or...). Soros is a private investor. The latest currency falls were immediately after a Chinese official said that China would diversify its $1.4 trillion in foreign reserves (mostly US dollar). That's the kind of money and talk that moves markets (thousands of times Soros's wealth, and millions of times the amount of money that you have claimed Soros was spending). Soros has only tiny influence.

Basically, we've given a ton of evidence refuting your conspiracy theory, and you've come back with comparing Soros to Greenspan and "Seriously...you're just wrong." See, this is why I think my bringing up Iraq wasn't irrelevant at all.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Eug 

The good news for the US is the severe drop has halted, at least momentarily. They've gained back a bit in the past couple of days:

Nov. 13, 2007, 10:06 am

CAD: $1.04211
GBP: $2.06410
Euro: $1.45467
Yen: $0.00914
Yuan: $0.13492

BTW, the Japanese Yen seems to be doing very well in the last couple of days, for whatever reason.

The US$ is on a tear now. It's about time.

Nov. 15, 2007

CAD: $1.01511
GBP: $2.04348
Euro: $1.46190
Yen: $0.00907
Yuan: $0.13472

[PB2K]

besides no longer being able to afford travelling to europeyou seem to have an extra problem

[tie]

PB, why are you quoting Ahmadinejad? He is not an OPEC spokesman.

[PB2K]

i don't understand your question

[tie]

Sorry, probably just a misunderstanding. I don't understand your position either, since you only linked to the article.

[PB2K]

I see, well I don't understand how some can say a weak dollar doesn't hurt the country, because it seems like a bad situation from the way I get to see it. If the dollar falls even further maybe the current high rate of consumerspending won't help close all the gaps anymore.

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by PB2K 

I see, well I don't understand how some can say a weak dollar doesn't hurt the country, because it seems like a bad situation from the way I get to see it. If the dollar falls even further maybe the current high rate of consumerspending won't help close all the gaps anymore.

The weak dollar helps US corporations who sell their wares overseas because they end up being cheaper than their non-US counterparts. It also is good for people looking to attract foreign capital for investment (like, say, a government with a war to fund), because US investments are cheaper in comparison to equivalent non-US investments.

The problem, of course, is that then the dollar gets weaker, foreign imports get more expensive. Can you think of a particular foreign import that is particularly expensive right now, causing problems everywhere?

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Dork. 

Can you think of a particular foreign import that is particularly expensive right now, causing problems everywhere?

Not my Japanese fetish porn!

[PB2K]

I think it's oil, if it weren't important to the US then why does anyone care about the middle east?

[tie]

Gotta be digital cameras.

[PB2K]

heineken, grolsch..

[Sealobo]

Originally Posted by Dork. 

The weak dollar helps US corporations who sell their wares overseas because they end up being cheaper than their non-US counterparts. It also is good for people looking to attract foreign capital for investment (like, say, a government with a war to fund), because US investments are cheaper in comparison to equivalent non-US investments.

the dollar is cheap now, but it ain't attracting additional foreign investment because the dollar is ANTICIPATED to get even cheaper; if i can expect to buy the beaten up shares of Citigroup even cheaper next month, then why would i buy today? The US economy is fundamentally pinched by the twin-deficit and the US dollar has no good reason to appreciate any time soon. Not unless the government stop printing Benjamin on cotton but then where else can you guys come up with the money to financial your imports from the Chinese?

The problem, of course, is that then the dollar gets weaker, foreign imports get more expensive. Can you think of a particular foreign import that is particularly expensive right now, causing problems everywhere?

Yes, many cases at corporate level. Let's say certain automakers in Detroit will probably get a slimmer profit margin due to the more expensive OEM parts imported from europe and asia. If you added up all these imported inflationary pressure among all the US firms, you can imagine the scale of the problem. As a consumer you might not feel it immediately, but sooner or later it gets end to end.

[Eug]

Heh. Interesting weekly close... The Canadian dollar closed at EXACTLY $1 US. The Bank of Canada lists the CAD$ closing price as US$1.0000. And it lists the US$ closing price as CAD$1.0000. Go figure.

As of right now - Nov. 30, 2007:

CAD: $1.00005
GBP: $2.05639
Euro: $1.46957
Yen: $0.00900
Yuan: $0.13517

[Big Mac]

I think we've seen an end to the depreciation of the dollar short term. We're going to see oil correct markedly since it failed to break $100, and OPEC even thinks the price is too high. The Fed will not cut another 50 basis points because there's enough liquidity in the financial markets and the US stock markets have rebounded substantially.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Heh. Interesting weekly close... The Canadian dollar closed at EXACTLY $1 US. The Bank of Canada lists the CAD$ closing price as US$1.0000. And it lists the US$ closing price as CAD$1.0000. Go figure.

As of right now - Nov. 30, 2007:

CAD: $1.00005
GBP: $2.05639
Euro: $1.46957
Yen: $0.00900
Yuan: $0.13517

New Year's Eve, 2007:

CAD: $1.0016 (close)
GBP: $1.9861 (close)
Euro: $1.4585 (close)
Yen: $0.00895
Yuan: 0.1371



Not a good year for the US dollar, or the US economy in general.

[Judge_Fire]

An interesting economical measure to keep an eye on is if US based companies start moving their headquarters out. Availibility of money, taxation, personnel costs, standard of living... places like the Emirates and Shanghai, for example, are increasingly ambitious in this.

Any signs of that yet?

[Dork.]

Also, remember how the Sarbanes-Oxley act led quite a few public companies to go private, and provided incentive to other companies to stay private? Those private companies now are looking very cheap to foreign investors. I would expect quite a few of these companies to get bought out by foreign interests, and start sending profits overseas.

On another note, this past Friday was the first time I wasn't pissed off when I got Canadian money back in change after a purchase.

[hyteckit]

Sarbanes-Oxley sucks man. It probably reduce productivity by 30%.

[tie]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I think we've seen an end to the depreciation of the dollar short term. We're going to see oil correct markedly since it failed to break $100, and OPEC even thinks the price is too high. The Fed will not cut another 50 basis points because there's enough liquidity in the financial markets and the US stock markets have rebounded substantially.

And now oil has broken $100, the economy looks to be entering a recession, and the Fed looks like it will drop rates 50 basis points (in two steps, from where they were when you posted this prediction). Meanwhile, we are still borrowing to blow up the money in Iraq, with more than a year to go until Bush leaves office. I think the dollar is going to fall a bit more.