Unfortunately, the economy is deceptively poor through no fault of the president. W will be fortunate not to end up his second four years as Hoover II. Why would foreign investors want to hold US bonds in a rising interest rate market in concert with the dollar in a death spiral?
"Why would foreign investors want to hold US bonds in a rising interest rate market in concert with the dollar in a death spiral?"
I don't know what this death spiral business is you are talking about. Even the MSM is saying the dollar won't likely slide low enough to cause a big problem. In fact, they say a low dollar is good for American business. Even the loathsome NYT is saying that it's not all that bad:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1288752/posts
For starters, US Bonds are virtually risk free. They balance out a mixed portfolio beautifully. Anyone over the age of 50 would be crazy NOT to anchor their longterm portion with US Bonds.
Always remember to look at the long term returns.
Unfortunately, the economy is deceptively poor through no fault of the president. W will be fortunate not to end up his second four years as Hoover II. Why would foreign investors want to hold US bonds in a rising interest rate market in concert with the dollar in a death spiral?
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the dollar has tacked down to where it was in 1993. It is currently overinflated because the orient including both the japanese and the chinese and all the small players there keep their currencies artificially low to help their trade. they now hold dollars like the US once held gold. they can't just sell all their dollars because even incremental sales of dollars for what ever pushes the dollar way way down and the value of what's left vanishes. They can see that every time they sell dollars the effect is to push the value of the dollar down. The dollar is sinking anyway.
That said the US demand for money is so great that greenspan has warned he will have to raise interest rates in order to make us money interesting --in a declining currency market--to foreign bondholders.
We have been here before. The time was 1987. I don't know whether that will come later next year or later in 2006.
Well, the economy is poor through the fault of GWB (and yes, I'm a conservative, and yes, I voted for him.)
The drop of the dollar by 40% against the socialist economy-derived Euro is largely attribultable to the fact the market thinks "we're living beyond our means"-- in other words, we're going into too much debt.
It happens on a personal level. We shouldn't be suprised when it happens a national level, when we adopt a fiscally liberal spending policy as GWB has.