The dollar's nosedive: a problem for the whole world

[Skybird]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...520700,00.html
Some quotes, but better read the whole text with details in context.

The dollar's dominance holds great appeal for Americans. They can continuously print green bills and sell them abroad without driving up inflation in their own country. They can go into debt to pay for things like the Iraq war or enjoy the benefits of tax cuts. This attitude has led to a record US national debt of $5 trillion.
At the same time, Americans have enjoyed the luxury of consuming more than they produce. The balance of trade deficit has been growing for years -- from roughly $80 billion in 1990 to a projected level of more than $700 billion in 2007. This is more than 5 percent of the country's GDP.
America paid for its economic boom in recent years by borrowing money. Its current double deficit is the monetary evidence that the world's biggest economy has been living beyond its means for years.
(...)
The dollar's plunge in the last 10 weeks is a sign that America's pact with East Asia has become fragile. The Asians have become far less willing to buy dollars and Treasury bills. As the countries of the Far East become increasingly impatient with the United States, they have begun shifting their reserves to euros.
Lenders are unwilling to simply look on as the value of their US Treasury bills drops; they have already lost billions upon billions in recent weeks. The dollar's share of worldwide currency reserves has shrunk from 80 percent in the 1970s to about 65 percent today. China, Russia and Malaysia have already partially uncoupled their currencies from the dollar, and Kuwait plans to follow suit in May 2008. Many oil producers are now distancing themselves from the US currency, both for economic and ideological reasons.
(...)
"When I see the label 'Made in China,' part of me says: good for China. But another part feels a rush of sentimentality, because I've lost something without exactly knowing what it is."
The experts know what it is. What America has lost is nothing less than a substantial share of its production base. The industrial economy left the country's shores and the service economy arrived, but it is incapable of filling the gap.
The impressive growth figures the US economy has been achieving for years offer nothing but the illusion of a prospering economy. This growth is based primarily on Americans' rising consumer spending, which in turn is paid for in large part with credit or the sale of assets. To put it simply, the Americans are eating their past for breakfast and devouring their future for dinner.
The savings rate is practically nonexistent. US foreign debt grew by about $1 billion a day in 2006, and it now exceeds $2.5 trillion. Private American households now owe about $13 trillion to lenders at home and abroad. Thirty-six percent of this debt was created within the last five years. Americans can no longer afford much of the present.

The only thing that has doubled in the seven years of the Bush administration is the country's military budget. By comparison, the average US family income has stagnated in the last decade or so.
(...)
America today is a country largely deprived of its industrial core. Today's American factories are located across the border in Mexico or Asia. Their products may be "Conceived in America," "Sold in America" or "Designed in America," but the term "Made in America" seems to have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

IBM moved its PC production to the Far East long ago. Apple's iPod is produced in iPod City, a Chinese factory town that is home to more than 120,000 low-wage workers. Even clothing manufacturer Land's End, which sells its customers a piece of down-home America along with its clothing, produces its wares in China's industrial Pearl River Delta.
A large share of the toys, food products, furniture and cars being produced today come from Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China. Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Safeway, three of the country's major shopping chains, are practically satellites of the Asian export industry. According to Lou Dobbs, one of CNN's top journalists, America is in the process of outsourcing itself. Presidential candidate John Edwards routinely condemns the "shipping out of American jobs."
US industry today isn't even capable of satisfying the demands of the country's consumers. The once proud industrial nation is little more than a skeleton of its former self. Nowadays the production chain, from suppliers to production facilities to service personnel, spans the globe. The world economy is booming and the profits of US corporations are exploding, but American workers have been left out in the cold.

What Germans call structural change is in fact structural fracture in America, where it has turned many citizens into victims. The former industrial centers in the country's northeast are now referred to as the Rust Belt. Gary, in the state of Indiana, is one of the most glaring symbols of America's industrial decline.
(...)
All of this depresses America's currency, but a weak dollar also has its advantages. Some US corporations that may have outsourced jobs in the past, to Canada, for example, are now planning to bring production back to the United States. And thanks to the weak dollar, many companies that would otherwise have a hard time remaining competitive are achieving unexpected successes on the world market. One of them, the Terex Corporation, a manufacturer of construction equipment, was able to double its workforce at one of its plants to 3,000 workers, because exports, to Europe in particular, are booming.
These advantages could tempt US politicians to continue to look on as the dollar falls. But because the dollar is the reserve currency and not just any currency, all they are doing is exporting their problems to the rest of the world. Europe's export industry has already been affected.
(...)
Airbus, with its Power 8 restructuring program, is in the process of reducing its costs by €2 billion a year by 2010. This will mean the sale of 7 of the conglomerate's 16 European plants and the elimination of 10,000 jobs. But these steps were intended to keep the company competitive at an exchange rate of $1.35 per euro. But that was yesterday's exchange rate. Today one euro is worth almost $1.50.
(...)
The dollar will have fallen even farther and forecasts been thrown off kilter long before Airbus's cost-cutting measures have taken effect. Every cent by which the euro exceeds $1.35 costs the company €100 million in revenues. A rate of $1.50 a euro translates into losses of €1.5 billion for Airbus.
(...)
Some experts hope that an opposing movement will begin in the foreign currency markets, as it did more than three years ago, when the euro kept rising, and it was only a matter of time before it would reach the $1.40 mark and then the $1.50 mark, or even, as experts feared, would climb to $1.80.
But the exchange rate suddenly stopped climbing at $1.40, when speculators cashed in and unloaded their call options. The dollar recovered and the specter of a crash seemed to have been averted.
Now it's back. Nothing has really changed since then. The Americans -- the citizens and government alike -- continue to live beyond their means. And economists agree that as long as this continues, the tendency will be for the dollar to lose value.
But opinions are divided over what happens next. There are three possible scenarios. Which of them becomes reality will depend on whether the participants behave more or less rationally -- or whether panic breaks out.
(...)
there are serious doubts that the Americans are interested in a strong dollar in the first place.
Senior officials in the German Finance Ministry strongly suspect that the US policy -- as it was in the 1960s and 70s -- is systematically oriented toward reducing the value of the currency through higher inflation, thereby reducing the country's debt to the Chinese and other Asian nations. According to a high-ranking official in the Finance Ministry, exchange rates of $2 per euro are possible in the medium term, even if, as some conjecture, there is a short-term correction next year.
"From the US's perspective, there is little pressure to do anything about the weak dollar," says Michael Heise, chief economist with German insurance giant Allianz. "Pressure on the government and the Federal Reserve will only grow if there is a true crisis of confidence in the currency and the flow of capital begins to ebb as a result."
(...)
Because the Americans are apparently unwilling to take any steps against the weak dollar, there is growing support for the Europeans to take a more proactive approach and boost the US currency by buying dollars and selling euros on the currency markets. "The ECB (European Central Bank) must make it clear that it will not accept a continued rise of the euro and could even intervene," says Gustav Adolf Horn of the Düsseldorf-based Macroeconomic Policy Institute, a group with ties to trade unions.
However, interventions in the foreign currency market are usually effective only if all central banks cooperate, as happened seven years ago. Securities dealers are only impressed when they notice that all major players have joined forces. Then they no longer have the confidence to bet on a declining dollar. Those who speculate against the combined power of the central banks have rarely walked away as winners.
But the central banks and their governments are a long way from the necessary unanimity. The Americans, most of all, would not play along.
(...)
Besides, there is disagreement over whether interventions would even be effective in the current situation. Joachim Poss, the deputy head of the Social Democrats parliamentary group in the German parliament, believes "an attempt to bolster the dollar could dissipate all too quickly."
The reason being that there are enough countries that are simply waiting for the right opportunity to shift at least some of their dollar reserves to euros. If the ECB intervened against the dollar, there would be great temptation in these countries to take advantage of higher dollar prices to buy euros.
"Additional dollars would enter the markets again, which would fully or partially eliminate the intended stabilization," says Poss.

Rarely has the ECB been as powerless as it is today. It can do nothing against the weak dollar, nor can it perform its real task of protecting the intrinsic value of the euro. Inflation in Europe rose above the target level of 2 percent some time ago, which should have prompted the ECB to raise interest rates. But this would make the euro even more expensive against the dollar -- and do even more damage to the economy.

For this reason, many economists fear that the ECB can do nothing but follow the Fed's example and continue reducing interest rates. But this sort of monetary policy has its price: higher inflation.
This leaves politicians and central bankers with little choice but to take a helpless wait-and-see approach -- and hope that the end result will not be quite as bad as many fear.
Klaus-Peter Müller, the CEO of Germany's Commerzbank, also hopes that things will turn out better than anticipated. He expects the euro to fluctuate between $1.50 and $1.60 over the next 12 months, but adds that this is "not very optimistic."
But many observers take a completely opposite view of this outlook. They call it highly optimistic.

DIETMAR HAWRANEK, ALEXANDER JUNG, ARMIN MAHLER, CHRISTIAN REIERMANN, WOLFGANG REUTER, GABOR STEINGART, JANKO TIETZ
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

[STEED]

Meanwhile, the price of oil is reaching record highs. A few years ago, anyone who would have predicted a euro exchange rate of $1.50 and an oil price of close to $100 a barrel would have been ridiculed as a notorious pessimist and prophet of doom. Either of these two numbers alone would have seemed sufficient to force the global economy to its knees.
But now these two pieces of horrific news are appearing in tandem, and yet the world economy continues to grow.

Interesting comment as I am reading some books on the looming oil crisis that seems to be now kicking in slowly. It's a matter of watch this space and see what unfolds.

Thanks Skybird for that article.

[DeepIron]

Facinating article...

All of this depresses America's currency, but a weak dollar also has its advantages. Some US corporations that may have outsourced jobs in the past, to Canada, for example, are now planning to bring production back to the United States.

I hate seeing my 401K devalue due to the sliding dollar but glad to see this happening as it will eventually re-bolster our economy (and my 401K to some extent)...

[Yahoshua]

Better buy some personal gold reserves. They'll be more useful and flexible than greenbacks for awhile.

And yet some folks criticize the US for rejecting Kyoto.
If they think the US dollar is low now (btw it only hurts the euro) imagine if kyoto was ratified?

Economics 101 would help some folks.

[RamRod]

That's why my house is paid for and I drive a Prius. I guess the addage that wartime is good for the economy is out the window.

[AntEater]

Wastgate,
the Euro nations ALL signed Kyoto, and look at the Euro...
Actually if the Dollar were hurt by Kyoto, the US economy wouldn't be in the shambles it is.
The emissions of the US are not heavy industry, but private traffic and consumption.
The US's CO2 problem stems from Florida air conditioning, not from Pittsburg steel mills.
If the US still had a heavy industry that could have been hurt by Kyoto, it would also have something to export, hence a lesser trade deficit and a more stable dollar.
US companies own heavy industry, but this industry goes on the climate deficit of China or India.

[August]

Originally Posted by RamRod

I guess the adage that wartime is good for the economy is out the window.

You're right. At least the type of warfare, like WW2, that was hugely expensive in material In those days one needed a huge industrial effort just to keep the troops in guns, planes and ships. That isn't the case with the type of low level conflicts we see these days.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by AntEater

The emissions of the US are not heavy industry, but private traffic and consumption.
The US's CO2 problem stems from Florida air conditioning, not from Pittsburg steel mills.
If the US still had a heavy industry that could have been hurt by Kyoto, it would also have something to export, hence a lesser trade deficit and a more stable dollar.
US companies own heavy industry, but this industry goes on the climate deficit of China or India.

Funny how the US and China are almost inverted polluters. Chinese industry pollutes incredibly, but the general populace, given it's size, has a negligible impact. In the US, the major industries are quite clean and it's the energy inefficiency of private citizens that's pushing credulity.

[Gorduz]

Skybird forgot the most important quote:
"Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen, beautiful, blonde and apparently far from unintelligent, announced, through her manager and twin sister Patricia, that she prefers to be paid in euros instead of dollars in the future."

[SUBMAN1]

All of this is music to my ears. Do you realize how much business is up, even for my company, given that people are buying locally now to bolster our industrial base? With a high dollar, all this work would have gone to China. With the low dollar, our industries in the US are now buying from me to install in US INDUSTRY!!!! Not shipping it to China to build them up.

THis country is turning around because of this. Its the best thing to happen to the US in 20 years.

-S

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

All of this is music to my ears. Do you realize how much business is up, even for my company, given that people are buying locally now to bolster our industrial base? With a high dollar, all this work would have gone to China. With the low dollar, our industries in the US are now buying from me to install in US INDUSTRY!!!! Not shipping it to China to build them up.

THis country is turning around because of this. Its the best thing to happen to the US in 20 years.

-S

Yes, that is why it is concluded that the weak dollar is intentional. And again, all the rest of the world from china and it's loss of billions and billions in value from it'S dollar reserves, to european workers loosing their jobs from european industries moving out and into the dollar sphere, pay the bill for america. Effectively, America just exports it's problems. and the debts of American householfs - get financed from taxpayers in foreign countries. Great - why don't we just pay taxes to the US directly.

It is unreasonable to assume that others will accept to pay these bills forever and ever. They simply cannot afford it, and american promissory notes are nothign wolrth anymore. That is why they will give ip their dollar reserves (in fact already have made first movements into that direction). This will not only feed back onto America, but will mean a major recession and stockmarket breakdown worldwide.

So, in the end the whole world is brought into troubnpe becasdue one country does not do it's homework, and still insists on spending mroe than it can afford, and still carry on living on tick. Thank you, america - europeans probbaly will not have the spine to kick you for that economic crime. But Asia will - promised: they have learned their lesson from the late 80s to mid 90s. And as said: chiana simply cannot afford to loose billions and billions by simply keeping the american disease endlessly alive.

If an apple costs 1 taler, and you have three taler, how many apples can you buy? According to american economists, between 6 and 8, plus weapons and wars.

Mathematics are also just a relative thing, and "healthy reason" seem to be a contradiction in itself.

[SUBMAN1]

I have to disagree with you Skybird - from what you write above, it does indeed seem like America did it's homework. That seems to be the ideal scenario for any country trying to maintain a dominant position in the world. Seems to be the way things have been done by every major power the world has ever known. The only difference is, we won't attempt to force you to become America, and if we decide to take over your country, we have little interest in holding on to it. This is in stark contrast to every other major world power the world has ever known.

Welcome to the New Order! :p Quit complaining and enjoy the relatively free life you have already. This is not how thing would have been done 200 years ago. You would be assimilated and put into forced slavery. Your ancestors would consider todays world a Utopia.

-S

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

american disease

So we're a disease now eh?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

So we're a disease now eh?

the disease is: living beyond one's limits and beyond what one can afford - and let others pay the bill and come along with the damage. I know that I will be seen as an America-basher, but it simply is the truth that no other nations does that so excessively like the US. And why that does not earn you sympathies, must not be explained, I think.