The French knife the $

[Mega]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7728048.stm
"The $ is No LONGER the only currencey"

(Sorry but i got a headache & i can't spell tonight).
Mike

[Master Shake]

Re: The French knife the $

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7728048.stm
"The $ is No LONGER the only currencey"

(Sorry but i got a headache & i can't spell tonight).
Mike

"French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the strength of the euro was making it more attractive than before. "

Strength of the Euro???!!

[hayekvindicated]

Re: The French knife the $

The Euro may be toast before the Dollar disappears.

[Starving Steve]

Re: The French knife the $

Do you realize what the dollar becoming a peso means? Think about your savings, your income, your entitlements, your bonds, your stoxx, your house equity, and everything you have. And to compound the pain, think about what hyper-inflation might do the cost of everything you need to live.

Common sense would suggest that a trip to the toilet for the dollar would mean revolution in America. However, wherever hyper-inflation has occurred, such as in Latin America, history says otherwise: People just accept the hyper-inflation and go on with their lives.

A look at Zimbabwe to-day, and still there is no revolution. Starvation yes, but revolution, not yet.

[cakins]

Re: The French knife the $

The euro is a schizoid piece of crap. Too much economic "diversity" there for a shared currency. Many analysts say the Germans and Nordics pay for everything, and everyone else benefits. After my time in "everyone else" Ireland in 2002 (family reasons), and watching how good the Euro was for them (in addition to their own housing bubble), I'm quite inclined to agree.

But, no matter. It's all fiat floating garbage. Tangibles are the place to be, in spite of this insane dollar bounce. "I'm not crazy. The world is crazy, and I'm sane."

We may be in for an interesting weekend. Lots of p*ssed off nations are meeting for a revised Bretton Woods. What will come out?

[aa]

Re: The French knife the $

Common sense would suggest that a trip to the toilet for the dollar would mean revolution in America. However, wherever hyper-inflation has occurred, such as in Latin America, history says otherwise: People just accept the hyper-inflation and go on with their lives.

Common sense would also suggest that since the US has the largest and most powerful armed forces in the world there is no possibility of a revolution against the government.

[tsetsefly]

Re: The French knife the $

Do you realize what the dollar becoming a peso means? Think about your savings, your income, your entitlements, your bonds, your stoxx, your house equity, and everything you have. And to compound the pain, think about what hyper-inflation might do the cost of everything you need to live.

Common sense would suggest that a trip to the toilet for the dollar would mean revolution in America. However, wherever hyper-inflation has occurred, such as in Latin America, history says otherwise: People just accept the hyper-inflation and go on with their lives.

A look at Zimbabwe to-day, and still there is no revolution. Starvation yes, but revolution, not yet.

better yet, the free market will be blamed for the hyper inflation.

[Aussie]

Re: The French knife the $

Common sense would also suggest that since the US has the largest and most powerful armed forces in the world there is no possibility of a revolution against the government.

Do you remember what happened to Russia in 1990?

Improbable as it may seem, under certain circumstances, sometimes the tents can fold quicker than anyone could have imagined . . .

[bpr]

Re: The French knife the $

Do you remember what happened to Russia in 1990?

Improbable as it may seem, under certain circumstances, sometimes the tents can fold quicker than anyone could have imagined . . .

Yeltsin's Russia is running in the back of my mind every day. It's like we're creating our own class of Oligarchs. I'd like to see them all jailed, from Bush and Cheney, through Paulson right down to Fuld.

Khodorkovsky in jail is little recompense for the damage done there.

[*T*]

Re: The French knife the $

I note that most of the Euro critics live in the dollar bloc.

[Starving Steve]

Re: The French knife the $

better yet, the free market will be blamed for the hyper inflation.

I think a strong case can be made against the free market at this point:

If the free market works, why isn't it working? Why, do we have the inflation, unemployment, stagnation, and economic panic, and ALL at the same time?

This idea that the free market works is like listening to Bob Brinker on ABC radio on the weekend: Everything is lovely in his great spiel ---until you look at the performance of his stock portfolio and yours. Then the truth hits you in the eyes.

Wouldn't some regulation of free markets have produced a better result than what we have now?

How about price controls? Wouldn't price controls have produced better results in some markets such as housing than we now have?

Government can bring prices down in some markets. For example, in housing, government can land bank and dump land onto inflated urban land markets to bring prices down. In energy, government can organize and build atomic power plants--- call it a Manhattan Project for the 21st Century--- to bring energy prices down.

Govn't can also screw-up things, and that can happen just as easily. But de-regulated free markets have proved to be no solution at all to economic downturn. In fact, free markets appear to invite booms and busts of biblical proportions.

Sure govn't is going to cause the inflation to get out of this mess. That is understood. BUT LOOK AT WHO CAUSED THIS MESS: WALL STREET AND FREE MARKETS.

[grizam303]

Re: The French knife the $

Common sense would also suggest that since the US has the largest and most powerful armed forces in the world there is no possibility of a revolution against the government.

You have to remember that people make up the armed forces, people like you and me. A lot of these people are very patriotic, and if they are shown that their government is an enemy of the US Constitution, I would expect a substantial portion, if not the majority of the military, would defect almost overnight.

[hayekvindicated]

Re: The French knife the $

I think a strong case can be made against the free market at this point:

If the free market works, why isn't it working? Why, do we have the inflation, unemployment, stagnation, and economic panic, and ALL at the same time?

This idea that the free market works is like listening to Bob Brinker on ABC radio on the weekend: Everything is lovely in his great spiel ---until you look at the performance of his stock portfolio and yours. Then the truth hits you in the eyes.

Wouldn't some regulation of free markets have produced a better result than what we have now?

How about price controls? Wouldn't price controls have produced better results in some markets such as housing than we now have?

Government can bring prices down in some markets. For example, in housing, government can land bank and dump land onto inflated urban land markets to bring prices down. In energy, government can organize and build atomic power plants--- call it a Manhattan Project for the 21st Century--- to bring energy prices down.

Govn't can also screw-up things, and that can happen just as easily. But de-regulated free markets have proved to be no solution at all to economic downturn. In fact, free markets appear to invite booms and busts of biblical proportions.

Sure govn't is going to cause the inflation to get out of this mess. That is understood. BUT LOOK AT WHO CAUSED THIS MESS: WALL STREET AND FREE MARKETS.

Price controls work? Since when?

[Serge_Tomiko]

Re: The French knife the $

Price controls work? Since when?

Come to New York City and see what price controls on rent have done to the city. A 50-year housing shortage. Crumbling buildings. Hundreds of thousands of tenants whose rent doesn't even cover operating costs. The near outright refusal of any developer to building a large rental apartment building without government subsidies. Insanely high rental rates. Places like my home borough of Brooklyn where barely anything has been constructed since the LAST depression, even though most houses cost around a $1,000,000 or more and the borough has 2.5 million people.

Most Americans don't have the opportunity to see the real effects of price controls, but you can see it in New York City everywhere you go.

[c1ue]

Re: The French knife the $

I don't disagree a price control can distort actual behavior.

But here in California, rent control is the only way to counteract the real estate inflation induced by Proposition 13.

So for every $300/month rent controlled 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath flat in the best part of town, there is a $4M Zestimated home 3 blocks over where the owner is paying $2000/year in property tax - 0.05%.

Both are distortions - what is less well understood is both must be removed in order for the market to again reapproach realism.

But of course, once either one is instituted and remains for any significant length of time, removal is infinitely more difficult and causes more pain.

In the former example, an 87 year old lady living on $800 social security a month get tossed out on the street from her home of 22 years.

In the latter example, a 92 year old man who bought the place in 1949 would have to start paying an extra $46K per year.