Free Republic

There is a Green Lettuce revolt in Venezuela. Green lettuce is a slang term for the US Dollar and is discouraged by the Venezuela government. Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) — Venezuela’s bolivar plunged to a record low in unregulated trading after last week’s devaluation of the official rate failed to increase the supply of dollars. The currency weakened 10 percent to 22.36 bolivars per dollar today, according to Lechugaverde.com, a website that tracks the country’s currency in the black market. The bolivar has declined 18 percent in unregulated trading since President Hugo Chavez, who is recovering from cancer surgery in Cuba,...

Economics: Venezuela has devalued its currency, joining Iran, Argentina and others whose wars on math brought the same result. Some call this a "restorative." It's not. It's what happens when big government hits a wall. Venezuela's monster 47% devaluation from 4.3 to 6.3 bolivars to the dollar, reportedly ordered by President Hugo Chavez from his hospital bed in Cuba, marks the reckoning for his regime's big-spending ways in Venezuela's low-growth economy. It was about as predictable as a crash from a runaway train, given his mad-lunatic war on economics — his lethal combination of welfare spending, destruction of the private...

All eyes are on the Federal Reserve and their seemingly endless quantitative easing. For the most part, the massive liquidity surge has not manifested itself into South American-like inflation since our banks have most of the excess reserves still trapped in the banking system. Except for student loans, of course. This has resulted in a crashing of the M1 Money Multiplier and the M2 Money Velocity ratios signifying that the enormous increase in money supply in recent years isn’t translating into economic growth or lending. Depending on your measurement of inflation, the US has been spared South American inflation. Or...

Venezuela Devalues Its Currency Matthew BoeslerFebruary 8, 2013, 3:43 PMVenezuela just undertook a massive currency devaluation, re-pegging the bolivar to a value of 6.3 per U.S. dollar from its previous official exchange rate of 4.3 bolivars per dollar. The government also announced that it would shutter the Venezuelan currency exchange system known as SITME. Given the currency devaluation underway in other economies around the world right now – perhaps most notably in Japan – a few are calling this Venezuela's foray into the global "currency war" between countries trying to devalue their currencies in order to increase export competitiveness. However,...

It was the first devaluation to be announced by Chavez's government since 2010, and it brought down the official value of the bolivar by 46.5 percent against the dollar. By boosting the bolivar value of Venezuela's dollar-denominated oil sales, the change is expected to help alleviate a difficult budget outlook for the government, which has turned increasingly to borrowing to meet its spending obligations.

Via The Lede and Business Insider, which has an eye-popping graph showing what’s happening to the rial right now. We've all got debate fee-vah tonight but I want to put this on your radar screen in case things start to spiral in Tehran. The point of nuclear sanctions was to put Iran's economy in a vise so that public discontent would force the regime to either back down on uranium enrichment or risk destabilization from within. Here's a destabilizing tremor now: Clashes and at least one spontaneous protest erupted in Tehran on Wednesday over the plunging value of Iran’s currency,...

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- A top Argentine official denied on Friday that the government plans to devalue the peso amid rumors that drastic official actions are looming. "We are not going to take any explosive measures," Deputy Economy Minister Axel Kicillof said at a news conference. Argentina's economy is under pressure from rising inflation and slowing trade, and people have been increasingly trading their pesos for U.S. dollars to shelter their earnings.

So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (AP Photo) During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent. When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon,...

The politics of economics has again risen in the wake of the stock market's recent haircut. Economists and experts from both the right and the left are now falling all over themselves to "do something". Why the stock market is the universal signal, the hunter's bugle call to action, is not yet known. After all, the economic and financial problems of August 2011 have been largely unchanged since August 2007, and indications of these unresolved imbalances have been, and continue to be, numerous. What is troubling is this bipartisan political urge to "do something". In the space of a few...

By staff reporter Huo Kan and Washington correspondent Zhang Tao 08.01.2011 17:29 More Investors Ask, Why Not Short the Yuan? Crisis theorists and others are wagering that the Chinese currency will veer from its long appreciation path against the dollar Plenty of smart money is betting on the rise of the yuan, but some overseas foreign exchange investors are looking the other way. Contrarians range from hedge funds to wealth management firms, and they generally agree that the possibility of yuan devaluation against the U.S. dollar is at least slightly greater than market consensus. Chinese policymakers, meanwhile, are not rushing...

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — A sharp devaluation of the Belarusian ruble has spread panic across the country, with people rushing on Wednesday to buy dollars, euros, toasters and canned goods — anything that will not lose its value as quickly as the national currency. Belarusians swept store shelves and queued for entire days at currency exchange offices in a desperate attempt to protect their savings from the country's sinking fortunes. President Alexander Lukashenko promised that the national currency will remain stable following the devaluation ordered a day earlier, but experts warned it will continue its nosedive if Russia doesn't provide...

LIVING THROUGH A CURRENCY DEVALUATION By Lonerangersilver May 19,2011 In 1976 I was managing an American subsidiary of a successful large US Company in Mexico. It had been a financial turnaround for our team. Cash flow had accumulated in our bank in Mexico and corporate didn’t want the money repatriated to the US. Although we had already paid a 35% income tax to the Mexican government, we would have to pay an additional 30% exit tax to repatriate the money. In addition, we would have to pay high fees for the peso/dollar exchange, in order to make the transfer. The...

Could the long dollar slide be over? For the better part of the past decade, and particularly in the last few months, the American dollar has been the 98-pound weakling of the foreign exchange world. It has lost value against almost every other global currency — not just the euro, pound and yen but even the Romanian new leu and the Latvian lats. Driven largely by the Federal Reserve’s policy of printing dollars to help spur a healthy economic recovery that remains stubbornly elusive, the dollar, weighed against a basket of other currencies, hit a 40-year low this month. But...

As the value of the dollar continues to decline, that legendary Honolulu police detective of yesteryear, Charlie Chan, is summoned to question several persons-of-interest. With his Number Three Son, Tommy, Chan enters the plush, mahogany paneled meeting room at the Department of the Treasury where several likely suspects await.  In the center of a conference table, inside a tamper-proof glass box, is a single dollar bill that appears to be smaller than normal. We listen in on the conversation: Vice President Joe Biden: Welcome to America, Charlie. I've heard so much about your restaurant in Honolulu. I love cashew...

What is gold really worth? In one sense, the answer is obvious. Gold is worth $1,515.10/oz, because that is what it is trading for in the market as of this writing. However, all this number means is that an ounce of gold has 1,515.1 times the market value of our current, undefined, “fiat” dollar. A deeper and more interesting question is, “What should gold be worth?” In other words, in terms of what quantity of gold would we define the dollar if we wanted to have a stable currency, a stable economy, and stable financial markets? This is not just...

A disappointment in Q1 was the relatively modest growth of US exports, confounding economists who might have assumed that the weak dollar would rectify that problem. As explained in his latest FX Focus, Citi's Steven Englander points out that the connection between a weak currency and strong exports is dicey at best. Here are the three main reasons why: 1) It may be small beer in the big picture. Productivity changes and the regulatory environment among other factors may in practice matter more than measured shifts. EM countries climbing up the quality ladder may matter more for growth in export...

If our leaders in Washington DC wanted to stop the decline of the dollar, they could. Easily. Therefore, if the dollar is falling — and it is — they want it to fall. The dollar is falling against most major currencies and this decline has been underway, with an occasional rally, for years. Also, as we have seen, the price points for oil, commodities and precious metals have been buoyed by the declining dollar.Here is a chart showing history of the dollar versus major currencies dating back to 1973: Source: Scott Grannis Scott Grannis made an excellent point in...

<p>The other day Paul O’Neill said that . . .</p> <p>Oh, wait. I suppose I ought to explain who Paul O’Neill is. A decade ago, he was President Bush’s first Treasury secretary. I have no very clear memory of him except that he toured Africa with Bono and they were photographed in matching tribal dress looking like Colonel Qaddafi’s Mini-Me twins at a Tripoli sleepover. Other than the dress-up fun, I’ve no idea why they were in Africa, but you paid for it, so I’m sure there was a good reason.</p>

Gold futures settled at a record Wednesday, getting a boost after the Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate at an historic low range and said rates will likely stay low for an “extended period.” The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday left its key interest rate at an historic low range of 0% to 0.25% and said its $600 billion bond-buying program would end as scheduled on June 30. The decisions were widely expected. Read more about the Fed decision. “The continued wording of exceptionally low rates for an extended period says it all,” Keith Springer, president...

We’ve always wondered why there is so much debate about the rate of inflation. It seems like such a simple thing to track. You go in the store. You buy a box of Wheaties. You write down the price. Next month, you do the same thing. What’s so hard about that? But what if the box is smaller next month? What if the Wheaties are twice as good? What if you can get the same enjoyment from a box of Wheatie-Puffs at half the price? What’s the real rate of inflation? It depends on how you figure it. The Labor...