Posted on 08/31/2005 12:38:24 AM PDT by Travis McGee
Thats it... I'm converting all my dollars to beer.
Beer does not last very long. Convert them into vodka - it is a very durable and attractive mean of exchange. During WWII in Europe it could buy you more stuff than gold could. Even hungry people were willing to part with their food. :)
Do all that... and there would be untold prosperity for generations to come. Keep going the way we are going and those doomsday scenarios become certainties. Half measures are better than nothing, but are only stop gap at best.
That is not a good thing.
"By conducting free and open trade with a totalitarian country that pegs its currency to the USD"
not to quibble but i believe China floated its currency recently. Here take a looksie
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4703477.stm
Growth diverges across EU economies (Euro Zone)
The Business Online ^ | August 28, 2005 | Allister Heath
THE performance of the euro zone's 15 economies is continuing to diverge, fuelling fresh fears for the future of the single currency, a top French bank will warn this week.
There are still no signs of the convergence in economic growth long forecast by advocates of the single currency, according to a report by Societe Generale's Paris economists. Instead, the growth differentials among euro-zone members continue to widen, putting intense pressure on the European Central Bank's one-size-fits-all interest rates.
Since 2001, the gap in private consumption between member countries has surged to almost 15% between the best and worst performers, according to Societe Generale. Greece and Spain have had robust private consumption, whereas Germany and the Netherlands have seen consumer spending stagnate during the past four years.
Only five euro-zone members will have run out of spare capacity this year, led by Greece, Finland, Spain, Belgium and Ireland. The others are all underperforming and still have unused resources such as labour and capital.
The five best performing countries are at increasing risk of overheating, the bank said, because interest rates are below the appropriate level for these economies.
Veronique Riches-Flores, economist at Societe Generale, said: "This situation raises obvious concerns over the potential impact of such discrepancies on economic developments. The exceptional spread in output gaps between the different euro-zone partners is not sustainable without creating, at some point, some inevitable distortions."
Growth in the euro zone should be confirmed at 0.3% quarter-on-quarter and 1.2% year-on-year for the second quarter, down from 0.5% and 1.4% in the first, and back to its lowest since end-2003.
And Soros believes he is the only person who knows how to correct this "overshoot", right? What is an "overshoot" anyway?
Not just the rest of the world, but the neo-cons. Most of these guys are just playing games with money, they don't create anything or generate any wealth.
Having a hard enough time wrapping my brain around our current catastrophe, Katrina. I just can't get worked up about anymore gloom & doom right now or I'll have to go do something constructive like suicide bomb some terrorists.
ping
Probably not the "only" person. Anyway I would NOT put this fox in charge of the hen house.
What is an "overshoot" anyway?
His private technical term. He has developed methods of exploiting "overshoots" for his personal gain.
bump for later
Reads like one of those "buy gold" commercials.
Buy FAX
This is being eroded by outsourcing engineering, isn't it?
The arguments against the service economy are full of holes. One of my clients is in the recycle industry, he provides a service and 22 jobs, is that bad? Have you seen all the playgrounds that have recycled rubber as the base of the ground? What is so bad about those jobs?
Full of holes? Depends on how much of a fan of zero sum economics you are and how much socialism/fascism you approve of.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling.
Red6
First of all, keep in mind that imports and exports comprise a mere 15% of the U.S. economy. That's the tail. The rest of the beast is our 85% internal domestic economy.
Now, understanding that imports and exports are taht tiny 15% of our GDP, keep in mind that the "value" of the Dollar inside the U.S. is constant (save for minor variances in inflation or deflation). For instance, you don't get your weekly paycheck and ask "How much would this paycheck buy in Hong Kong today."
Granted, the value of the Dollar matters to our importers and exporters. The "value" of the Dollar determines how much we can buy and sell abroad.
A lower Dollar benefits our exporters; American exports become cheaper to our foreign customers. A higher Dollar benefits American importers (e.g. Wal-Mart).
Typically, about 9.5% of our GDP is spent on imports, whereas we get about 5.5% of our GDP from our exports...but a rising or falling Dollar will eventually change those import/export ratios.
A higher Dollar raises the amount we import over time (these changes in currency values take a long time to filter down to actual changes in purchasing).
In contrast, a lower Dollar raises the amount that we export.
Because the U.S. economy is so large (by far the largest, most vibrant economy in all of world history), these changes make only minor impacts in the U.S.
...but they make ENORMOUS differences to small export nations (e.g. Taiwan, Thailand, Phillipines). Heck, trade with the U.S. is more than 10% of China's entire GDP!
So if India, China, Europe, Japan, and other nations all dumped Dollars, American exports would soar, American imports would plummet, and foreign export nations would all suffer economic crashes.
Throw me into that briar patch.
Time will tell!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.