sunnsea

The U.S. Dollar: Now at Parity with the Swiss Franc

It would be better if we pegged the USD to the Z dollar.


On Nov 26 09:04 AM Davewmart wrote:

> I believe that Bernanke still denies that his medium term objective
> is parity with the Zimbabwean dollar.....

Krugman: Why Britain's No-Euro Policy Is Helping Right Now

Krugman is only partly right. The U.S. is like a very large version of the Ireland...same low taxes, high spending, inflated property values...but I think it ends there. The country that we most resemble is Argentina in the 1999-2000 crisis. We stopped producing value-added products, privatised everything, and have a tiny wealthy elite that runs mostly everything.


On Apr 26 03:07 PM TWOfold wrote:
> Krugman is such a tool. He loves Britain for being able to print
> their own currency, yet compares the U.S. to Ireland, who is stuck
> on the Euro and can't.
>
> Paul Krugman is the living embodiment of the dumbing down of America...and
> since Europe gave him a Nobel Prize for his hatchet theory of international
> trade...one can say that Krugman likewise epitomizes the dumbing
> down of Europe, as well.
>
> Hey Krugman, Ireland can't print their own Euros! Now tell me again
> why Ireland's financial crisis is like the U.S...

Krugman: Why Britain's No-Euro Policy Is Helping Right Now

Britain helped create the property boom in Spain with its unregulated financial markets. Then, when these markets collapse, says its better not to be on the euro..of course not. The Euro is better regulated than either the dollar or the sterling. If it were all that bad it the Euro would be trading at less than parity with the dollar...even through this crisis it is stil trading at around $1.30. Brussels does not like playing games with the adolescents who run the London and New York markets. The EU is all about raising the standards on everything: manufacturing, construction, products, budgets. The US and Britain are all about lowering the standards to make a quick buck or quid on everything and the results show and all that has been accomplished is to inflate property prices and make China stronger.

Time to Take Profits on the Euro

Dual cit and Mr. Saxena:
American in Paris is correct. US is the sick man in this situation. Simply making assertions about Euro or American economy does not make them correct. We have $2 trillion in debt to China. Euroland virtually zero. They instead export products to China such machine tools, automobiles, subway and high speed rail technologies and equipment. They have a 20% VAT on all imported products.
We in the US have so far been unwilling to tax ourselves sufficiently to keep dollars within the US borders such as raising gasloine taxes. Thanks to corporate propaganda and its fomenting of "Tea Parties," the American (sheeplike) people do not understand how more taxes actually benefits them, especially on imported products like oil by keeping dollars available domestically for re-investment. So it has to keep borrowing, American in Paris states, to maintain their standard of living.



On Apr 12 10:43 AM dual cit wrote:

> Do your homework. You don have clue as to what you are talking about.
> Back it up with facts. You can't.

The Euro Exhibits Systemic Macro Weakness

Most European factories owned by small and medium sized businesses, have a high degree of automation already built in, labor costs are actually not that much a problem. Since we in the U.S. think we have nothing to learn from them or anyone else, we never visit these factories. Human beings are used for quality control, continually developing new designs and marketing. Machine tools continue to be made and exported to China, even though has 30% tariffs on imports. America forgot long ago what a machine tool is.
Euroland will have its problems but in the end they will survive and grow and we will just bumble along unless we begin to relearn, rethink and retool for global demand not just domestic US demand which had been satisfied by moving everything to China. Our recent growth was ficticious made up largely of AIG derivative "products." That's why the average person in the US never felt a part of the "growth" that was supposedly occuring in the last 8 years..or may be even the last 30.

Artificial U.S. Dollar Rally Is Coming to an End

The dollar rallied because hedge funds had to redeem their foreign investments and convert them into dollars to meet margin calls. That is coming to and end. The one thing Europe has going for it is that its products are in demand, they are exporters in a way that the US is not. They will earn back those strengthening Asian currencies because of their a) consumer priducts, which are superior to American and have cachet in Asia and b) their machine tool products which allow the Asian economies to turn out the cheaper goods that have no cachet. Germany, Italy and France alll turn out designer labels from clothes and shoes to cars that are widely sold in Asia and Germany and Italy sell machine tools to the same countries except Japan. Americans are totally clueless as to what it takes to compete in this market as they have been so interested in consuming themselves they have forgotten how to make high quality products that do have cachet. Asians don't want "Made in China" products. They want "Made in Italy."

In the Long Run, the Dollar Is Dead

40% of our so-called "trade with China" is simply American companies having their products made in China and shipped back here duty free. If we can stop this reduction in the standard of living of the US worker, then we can come out of this alright. Obama will need to institute tariff schedules that will stop this. This is the principal reason for the erosion of our incomes and ultimately the roots of the sub-prime mess, Japan is another story all together. This is an advanced industrial economy that makes, markets its own products. However, many US auto companies have components such as engines made in Japan. Even with high per hour rates and other costs, Japan is still competitive. How is this possible? Does anyone know enouigh to even ask them the right question? Why haven't US manufacturers pushed to have a single-payer health care system and get health care off their backs? OR are they so ideologically driven they can't bear the thought that a government health care program would actually be cheaper for everyone? The dollar, the yen and the Euro should be merged into a single-currency which would bring all the major industrial countries into alignment. Think of the millions that would be saved just in transaction fees and costs under a single-currency. After this is all over, Americans are going to have to learn how to produce and market products in America that can be exported world-wide with a cachet that makes them appealing. Then we will be on the road to real recovery.