The euro has broken the 1.50-dollar mark for the first time ever in the wake of lackluster US economic reports that renewed fears the American economy could be falling into a recession.
The dollar fell to a record low against the single European currency in electronic trading in New York as traders continued assessing the latest economic readings.
An influential survey, released earlier Tuesday, on US consumer sentiment during February delivered fresh ammunition to market forecasters who are predicting a recession…
The survey showed the confidence of American consumers had slumped to its lowest level since November 1993, with the exception of polling conducted as US forces toppled the government of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein five years ago.
Want some really fuzzy logic from whomever you’re voting for, this November?
Ask how this event balances alongside the market prices for oil – and the fact that sooner or later the bulk of oil futures will be in euros rather than dollars?
The USD is the stock of the USA.
And the world is selling.
Yet, no one seems to care in the USA.
This is yet another thing W has screwed up on his watch.
I wish W was a stock and I could have shorted him.
The Sterling was the standard for a long time.
Then it stopped.
So too it will be for the US and its a good thing.
About time the US had some wind taken from its sails. Humbles it. knock it down a peg or too so it gets focused on doing better instead of towing the line.
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Have a trip to USA has never been so cheap. American economy, keep the good work.
I would laugh but my wallet hurts to much.
Another mistake from the neocons and any centrists or (fake) economists that support them is that the dollar should be weak. WRONG. Look what it’s cost us now. It’s dug us deeper into an economic hole we’ll have a hard time getting out of.
Basically, with only a few minor negatives, the dollar should always be strong versus all other currencies in the world, no exceptions. Then, we can use that value to get our economy out of trouble when needed. But with the dollar constantly weak, we can’t do it at all.
We’re on the course for a depression if this isn’t stopped short now, if it’s not to late already.
I remember some money expert saying, a while ago, that the Euro’s value is being artificially maintained high. I wish I could remember what the exact reason was…
It’s because you (probably) don’t get a stupid godvertisement on a Euro. That makes them much more valuable. The godvertisement cheapens the dollar.
(OK, I’m joking … mostly)
God, I’m going to hate growing ALL of my own food…
The other thing is that this exchange rate is neither good for Europe.
We could be cleaning up on tourism if it was for the War on Terra!™
And we could be doing well in imports but under BOTH the Clinton and Bush administration we moved all our manufacturing overseas.
The above, of course, should say “exports” but it has been so long since we had those you can understand the mis-type.
Which is why gas is getting more expensive when paid for with US dollars.
I used to make fun of Canadians because their politicians had allowed policies that weakened their currency until it took something like $1.32C to equal $1.00US, but now the shoe is on the other foot — $1.00C is equal to $1.01US. The reason is the same — stupid, perhaps insane fiscal policy. Inflation is allowed to reduce corporate debt, thus cheating those holding the paper; inadequate tax revenue coupled with uncontrolled spending, leading to the largest public debt in the history of the world. The US now owes an amount rapidly heading toward TEN TRILLION DOLLARS, or more than the worth of our entire economy over the course of five years.
It’s clear now that Bush, Cheney and their neocon pals are trying to turn the US into Haiti, where the top 200 families own basically everything and the bottom 99.99 percent of the population have basically nothing, with an average annual income of about $240.
It’s going to take more than a decade to crawl back out of this hole. Assuming we even get to try….
In the middle 90’s I had a chance to invest in euro’s. I almost did it just to diversify but I thought–Gee, the European Community==fighting with England over adoption of Euro, fighting with Turkey about being admitted, fighting with French Muslim automatic citizenship and access to welfare system, fighting with Portugal regarding olive supports and on and on. I didn’t think the GOUSA with its problems would perform worse than EU. I didn’t see BushieBoy on the horizon I guess. I also didn’t think about Microsoft until it was beyond obvious either. I guess thats why i read alot instead of make lots of money?
The United States has finally become the new Soviet Union. A broken, worthless state full of nukes and pollution. Russia on the other hand is doing pretty well now, they decided the Soviet idealogy wasn’t doing so hot so they drop kicked it. I wonder if we can finally drop-kick the GOP after their 8 years of incredibly incompetent leadership.