Replies

Sorry; I was unclear in my question (although I appreciate the answers, of course). I'm not into trading currencies. What I mean to ask is, is it generally a good thing for the U.S. economy for the dollar to be strong, or a bad thing? Or is that a variable, too? Or are they totally unrelated?

Thanks again for your patience with someone who really doesn't understand all this monetary stuff at all.

Brandon -- Good thing? Bad thing? My thoughts on that can be found at:

DOLLAR CREATES POLITICAL UNREST IN EU COUNTRIES
Posted by SAJ to Claire Voyant
On News/Activism 05/23/2003 8:38 AM PDT #11 of 18

It's really too bad that many people believe that currencies are more complex than they actually are. Schools simply don't teach the basics of money and foreign exchange, which is by itself both hilarious and tragic, because we all use money or money surrogates essentially every day of our lives.

Two things to remember, that might help a bit. 1) Currencies are PAIRS -- there is no such thing as the value of a dollar (or USD as we call it), there is only the value of USD versus some other currency, EUR, GBP, JPY, CHF (Swiss Franc), or whichever. 2) Currencies are in many senses just like fruits at the grocer's; sometimes the price of oranges is low relative to the price of cherries, but, when cherries are in full season and the supply has risen, the reverse is generally true. Therefore, in theory anyway, one could make a nice little profit by anticipating this shift in the relative value of the two items. Same thing in currencies, really, except that in the one case a trader will be watching the size of the cherry crop, and in the other the size of the dollar 'crop', i.e. GDP, money supply, and similar measures.

Hope that's of some use to you, and FReegards!