Chicken Little Rich Boy
The sky is falling! I mean, the dollar! Yes, the dollar is falling!
Yeah, the dollar is weak — almost one to one against the euro, and likely to slide further.
Good.
Yeah, a weak dollar is going to make that new cute little VW Passat more expensive. But it’s also going to make Fords a lot cheaper in France. And, believe me, France buys more Fords than we buy Citroens or Peugots.
So, exports go up, imports go down, Ross Perot gets his tiny little sheets sticky.
What it really means is that companies who exports their goods, will be able to export a lot more of them. And that means bigger (or at least real and maybe honest) corporate profits. Which means more jobs, and more wealth, which restores confidence and brings the dollar back up where it belongs.
Oh, sure, a real implosion could lead to serious trouble. We’ll certainly be paying more for oil, since its price is measured around the world in greenbacks. Lots of stuff at Sears or Wal-Mart will be more expensive for a while. But increasing exports while doing a little belt-tightening at home isn’t such a bad cure for what ails us — assuming Wall Street gets its accounting practices straightened out.
Let me leave you now with a few words of comfort. If the dollar slips an astounding 10 or 15 more cents against the euro, it’ll be back where it started when the euro was born three years ago.
I take it you are not going to Europe for your Honeymoon?
It also means that the yen is high against the dollar, despite the best efforts of the Bank of Japan — which means they won’t be able to rely on exports to address their general economic malaise and may — perish the thought — actually have to do some reforming.
Or not, and the economy will get worse and worse before the average Japanese voter gets fed up.
Either way it might be a good thing, so long as no ultra-nationalistic crackpots end up in positions of real power.
i hate economics. does this mean i have to go to europe to buy my jeep? or just wait? or neither? um, megan?
redsugar: I’ve got a Twingo with your name on it . . .
Wait a minute… If oil is priced in dollars, we won’t pay more for it if the dollar falls. The rest of the world will pay less, and we won’t get that advantage, but how would we be paying more?