Whaaat I lived in 1500 AD, you must mean the other one.
Posted on 11/02/2007 5:23:12 AM PDT by Thorin
The euro, worth 83 cents in the early George W. Bush years, is at $1.45.
The British pound is back up over $2, the highest level since the Carter era. The Canadian dollar, which used to be worth 65 cents, is worth more than the U.S. dollar for the first time in half a century.
Oil is over $90 a barrel. Gold, down to $260 an ounce not so long ago, has hit $800.
Have gold, silver, oil, the euro, the pound and the Canadian dollar all suddenly soared in value in just a few years?
Nope. The dollar has plummeted in value, more so in Bush's term than during any comparable period of U.S. history. Indeed, Bush is presiding over a worldwide abandonment of the American dollar.
Is it all Bush's fault? Nope.
The dollar is plunging because America has been living beyond her means, borrowing $2 billion a day from foreign nations to maintain her standard of living and to sustain the American Imperium.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
The $400 annual payment is worth 260 Euros. This is an incentive to buy the "discounted" bond? LOL!
It gets really complex,
A 4% coupon is a 4% coupon. Not that complex.
It's REPORTED as income of 260 Euros. If it never gets converted from dollars to Euros, it's still $400 to the bond holder (at least for now).
Remember -- a European investor today is not making decisions based on the assumption that the U.S. dollar is (or ever will be) completely worthless . . . he's betting that the U.S. dollar is going to go up, down, up, down, etc. over different intervals in the future. And he's making investment decisions accordingly.
At least for now, 260 Euros is equal to $400 dollars. So what? No benefit to the bond holder.
Remember -- a European investor today is not making decisions based on the assumption that the U.S. dollar is (or ever will be) completely worthless . . . he's betting that the U.S. dollar is going to go up, down, up, down, etc. over different intervals in the future. And he's making investment decisions accordingly.
Agreed. And that's why the discounted bond, isn't.
what? this is your answer? what does this mean to you?
Perhaps. In the meantime, you still have all the water and canned goods you stashed for y2K, right?
It is and has been, I just checked. It was over four to a dollar three years ago, three to a dollar a year ago, two and a half today.
Lower demand.
- Real GDP grew at a strong 3.9 percent in the third quarter of 2007. The economy has now experienced six years of uninterrupted growth, averaging 2.8 percent a year since 2001.
- Real after-tax per capita personal income has risen by 12.7 percent – an average of over $3,800 per person – since President Bush took office.
- Real wages rose 1.2 percent over the 12 months that ended in September. This rise is faster than the average rate during the 1990s.
- Since the first quarter of 2001, productivity growth has averaged 2.6 percent per year. This growth is well above average productivity growth in the 1990s, 1980s, and 1970s.
- The deficit today is at 1.2 percent of GDP, well below the 40-year average. Economic growth contributed to a 6.7 percent rise in tax receipts in FY 2007, following an increase of 11.8 percent in FY 2006.
Please see my comment above. That’s a lot of pizza you need to begin demagoguing right away.
We are getting ready to repeat the economic fallout and eventual, but slow, recovery of the Vietnam war years.
The similarities are striking - skyrocketing energy costs, precious metal prices rising precipitously, huge jumps in food prices.
The current low inflation rate published by the federal government is laughably inaccurate as anyone who has to purchase energy and food can see.
Keeping interest rates artificially low masks the true impact of this spending and only postpones the recovery.
Even America cannot spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of borrowed money on a multi-year war without any economic repercussions.
We did it in the Vietnam era and it took years after the war ended for the economy to recover and we are doing it again.
this is not criticism or argument about the war it is just an observation of the economic impact of overspending without any corresponding belt tightening on the home front.
Overspending 1.2% of GDP, not exactly the 2.9% of GDP at the height of Vietnam or the 6.0% of GDP during Reagan's defense buildup.
The fed reserve has money/prints money. They give say $10 billion to citi for ‘mortage back securities’ at 5% interest for 30 days. At 30 days later, Citi pays back the $10 billion cash + 5% interest on 30 days. While it is a temporary monetary injection, it’s removed in 30 days or less. It’s usually 7 days or less but the Fed increased it to 30 in August when the sh!t hit the fan.
Median net worth is not skewed by people like Bill Gates. Median net worth is more skewed by the people that live off the gov't dole to the negative. MEAN net worth is skewed by Buffett/Gates.
Back to math class for you.
Whaaat I lived in 1500 AD, you must mean the other one.
The 2007 Budget Deficit is running at $190 billion.
The 2007 Trade Deficit is running at $760 billion.
Learn the difference and maybe you won't make a fool of yourself again, at least not in exactly the same manner.
Do you think we need to borrow to "finance" the trade deficit?
Yep, sad how the public schools have failed us when it mattered—not that I expect anything less. I know I personally learned far more while I homeschooled than I did while I was in public school.
Only to the degree that US debt is balancing the equation. Like mortgage debt that fueled the ‘nonexistent’ bubble.
Budget debt or private debt?
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