carey_jim

Is the US Dollar Doomed?

The rhetorical question: "Is the dollar doomed or not?" begs the answer, yes or no and assumes that it is an important question.
The same is true of the question "are we, in fact experiencing a commodities bubble driven by irrational speculation, and what do we need to do about it?"

Asking the right questions is the most difficult thing. Answering the wrong questions is an irrelevant activity.

It is true that to understand the world we have to simplify it which is to say we have to "misunderstand" it. We call our "misunderstandings" our philosophies and our economic systems. They are, of course, merely approximations and sometimes grievous hallucinations.

Marxism failed because it couldn't get outside of its simplifications and stop answering irrelevant questions.

More important questions are: How do we convince people to:

Save more money for future needs.
Stop trying to get rich by gambling and speculating instead of working.
Stop trying to get rich by breaking laws.
Take care of their own health instead of breaking it down by smoking, being overweight and drinking too much alcohol and not exercising.
Insist on more energy efficient transportation.
Insist on sustainable food production.
Have compassion for people less fortunate than they are.
And finally, above all:
Stop waging war on each other?

Economics is not only about mathematical and philosophical abstractions such as efficient markets, and currency exchange rates, it is about all human behavior which is the basis for living together as social, interacting human beings.