Talk:The almighty dollar

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[edit] Uh, people...

I might like to point out that a low dollar exchange rate, within reason, is actually a pretty good thing for the US and bad especially for us Europeans, because it makes the American exports cheaper and ours more expensive. So the schadenfreude here seems a bit misplaced somehow. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 18:34, 23 December 2007 (EST)

AK, it's a little more complicated than that - yes, for those parts of the US economy that are based on export, the low dollar is a great deal. For people buying oil from the Middle East and Japanese cars, not so much. And as the article alludes, the fact that America's own foreign debt is counted in a steadily-shrinking currency might make the nations that hold the debt nervous - which could lead to them pulling the rug out from under the American economy. PFoster 18:38, 23 December 2007 (EST)

Exactly. Also, if it weakens enough, losing status as a world reserve currency (oil sold in dollars) coudl flood the market as countries switch to euros. For instance, I manufacture and do some export sales. But even if they tripled, it wouldn't offset how much heating oil now costs me. Maybe I should convert to euros ;) There is also the issue that the US runs trade deficits - a low dollar might help that, but for it to work we need to build stuff the world wants again.

By the way, is "euro" supposed to be capitalized? human ^{there is no cabal} 18:49, 23 December 2007 (EST)

Better yet use an official Euro sign: €. CЯacke® 18:59, 23 December 2007 (EST)

Yeah, but in text that can be ugly - example: "the $ is losing ground to the € in Zimbabwe." Did you answer me, by capping it in your reply? human^{ly possible} 19:15, 23 December 2007 (EST)

Even though it's derived from a common noun, "euro," like all other currencies, takes a lower-case. PFoster 19:19, 23 December 2007 (EST)

You menat proper noun I think, but, anyway, thanks, I'll go fix where I capped it! human ^troll 19:21, 23 December 2007 (EST)

And you meant "meant," too, I imagine :-) Sorry for the mix-up.PFoster 19:37, 23 December 2007 (EST)

I can see why the oil imports would be a problem, but otherwise the US does not immediately strike me as having huge imports of raw materials, so wouldn't the positive effect on exports surpass the negative one on imports? As for anyone (I assume especially China?) pulling the rug, since the US economy is still by far the largest in the world, surely that would hurt them as much as it would anyone else? --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 19:07, 23 December 2007 (EST)

It's confusing, because while on the one hand the US is, as you say, "too big to fail", we are also acting almost as a third world nation - EG, we export raw materials to China, then import finished goods. The question I worry about is, could China afford to wreck the free world's economy, and simply survive as a relatively self-contained economy (with what, 1.2 billion consumers?)? At some point they may have industrialized enough to do this - they could sell stuff to each other instead of us.

Also, the process might not be that "abrupt" - dollar worries could slowly erode other nation's faith in it, slowly eroding the strength of the US economy (isn't it only a matter of time before the EU is bigger, and perhaps even ahead per capita?) relative to others. It might start small, with smaller deals, perhaps between smaller countries with unstable currencies, being done in euros instead of dollars.

But don't worry, we'll wreck the world economy if we need to to maintain our dominance! human ^{why is there a weird line through the "h" in my username?} 19:15, 23 December 2007 (EST)

Frankly, I doubt China would do such a thing. As I see it, it seems that there exists a sort of tacit agreement that Beijing keeps up the economic growth, while the people mostly keep quiet about political reform and civil liberties in return. If that growth were to slow down or even stop, China would probably come apart at the seams, so it wouldn't make any sense for them to do anything to harm their best export market. But then again, if they can't export as much because of a weak dollar, that would lower growth as well, of course... --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 19:47, 23 December 2007 (EST)

[edit] by the way

This article was a bit of a shambles earlier today, reading like a series of disjointed thoughts, with very few sentences. So I rewrote a bunch of it, but it still needs help. The schadenfreude thing is a bit non sequitur (Who is experiencing it? Why?). And the section about it being god, etc. is just plain weird. human ^waste 19:24, 23 December 2007 (EST)