Posted on 11/27/2004 9:49:36 PM PST by Sarah
A Dollar Warning America can't devalue its way to prosperity. Sunday, November 28, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST President Bush has let everyone know he intends to pursue an ambitious second-term agenda. But if he wants to know what could spoil his plans even before his second Inaugural, he might consider the market reaction to his Administration's weak dollar complacency.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
heads up for those interested!
ditto
Stocks and bonds both tanked the week before Thanksgiving, as the dollar fell again and oil and gold jumped, the latter to its highest level ($449 an ounce) since 1987. Investors may recall that was the last time we had a dollar crisis, as well as a little stock-market episode known as Black Monday. The markets rallied Monday, as the dollar firmed and oil dropped. But we hope the point has been driven home that investors don't bet on countries that debase their currencies.
All the more so when the nation's leading policy makers seem blasé, not to say clueless, about the matter. Treasury Secretary John Snow has been roaming the world saying that he favors a "strong dollar" policy even as he lobbies for a weaker dollar against Asian currencies. Investors who observe what Mr. Snow does tend to discount what he says.
ping
And.
Where do you think the $ is going in the next month or two ?
In my opinion, there is substantial inflation going on even though it is claimed otherwise. I'm in the process of building a new home and common material costs have increased dramatically over the last few years. Steel has increased something like 60% in just the last year. Lumber has more than doubled in the last four years I believe. Virtually everything else has been the same trend.
Andrew Jackson is rolling over in his grave. And to add insult to injury, they threw his picture on a 20 dollar federal reserve note.
Nobody wants to hear it. They're too busy arguing over what Greenspan's latest fart smelled like.
ping
The business of America is Business.
It took almost 200 years to build our great republic, THE REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and it took only 8 years to destroy the beacon of free world (8 years of Bill Clinton)
Yes but how much of that lumber comes back to the US as furniture ?
Although China is consuming a greater share of the world's lumber, steel and cement, they are not directly receiving these mat'ls from us. Domestic lumber mills have closed recently, but not due to environmentalists. The mills that have closed have done so due to inefficiencies in production. Newer mills have a greater production capacity with fewer employees. New mills are slated to come on over the next few months. One mill closed for a short time due to its inability to log in an economical proximity to the mill. That was, arguably, caused by environmentalists. Lumber did almost double in price this year but it wasn't due to the Chinese. Believe it or not it was due to Iraq. The gov't shipped an incredible amount of lumber and plywood to Iraq in the summer of 2003, thus drying up the domestic supply and driving up the price. China gets most of it lumber as logs from South America. Their laws only allow for the importation of raw mat'ls. We compete with the Chinese for steel and cement on the int'l market since our domestic production cannot keep up with demand.
I remember that. I also remember that if you had the guts to buy on Tues. or Weds., you would have been financially rewarded beyond your wildest dreams. I also remember that despite many financial experts predicting the crash would cause a depression, the real economy went booming right along.
Still a weak currency is not a good thing. If your currency is too strong, it is easy to weaken it. If your currency is too weak, it takes bitter medicine to strengthen it.
On the previous article posted on this topic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1289411/posts
most think it hasn't hit bottom yet!
Your steel and lumber examples are odd, they aren't blameable on the week dollar, as they're American industries, no?
I'm no fan of Clinton, but how exactly is it his fault that the dollar is weak?
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