ripskii

A Crude 10 Year Perspective: The DJIA, Oil and Gold

You should add the dollar vs. a basket of other currencies to your table for comparison. I suspect it would reflect a % value decline similar to oil and gold. I note that all U.S. politicians say a strong dollar is good for the country and then promptly vote for policies that weaken it. The theory behind devaluation of one's currency is that it will lead to greater exports due to their lower cost and reduced imports because of higher costs, thus improving the trade balance. Unfortunately our need for oil doesn't fit into this model very well and other than agriculture products what are we exporting?. Oil and gold will continue to thrive as long as we pursue our present path.

We need to immediately ramp of our use of domestic gas for transport fuel as you suggest to reduce our trade deficit and improve our energy security. We also should immediately push forward on advanced fast nuclear power generation to provide base load electrical capacity and also solve our long term nuclear waste storage problem. Other counties are working on this technology (Japan, Russia, China etc.) so we won't be a leader in this for export either if we don't move forward soon. More good paying U.S. high tech jobs are at stake too.