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With US debt mounting, the collapse of the us currency is inevitable. When? I don't know, I just know that it's inevitable. I am surprised it has remained this strong for this long.:o
My apologies for commenting and running, but I'm off to play chess for the weekend in Elora.:D
Commentary on monday, In the meantime,.........always look on the bright side of life, (whistle,whistle)
With US debt mounting, the collapse of the us currency is inevitable. When? I don't know, I just know that it's inevitable. I am surprised it has remained this strong for this long.:o
My apologies for commenting and running, but I'm off to play chess for the weekend in Elora.:D
Commentary on monday, In the meantime,.........always look on the bright side of life, (whistle,whistle)
Hey Bob, while you're in Elora, take a stab at the chess and math puzzle I posted. It's a mini version of your old nemesis, "The Insane Project"!
Which, when I post my solution, I'll be commenting on what the Insane Project attempted to do. You'll see what I mean next week.
US currency collapse? Hmmmm... how about Dec 20 2012? That gives everybody 1 day to let it sink in! :)
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
With US debt mounting, the collapse of the us currency is inevitable. When? I don't know, I just know that it's inevitable. I am surprised it has remained this strong for this long.:o
Would you define what constitutes a "collapse" in the context of what you have written?
Are you talking, say, U.S. $5. to buy 1 Canadian dollar or 1 Euro or 1 British pound?
Will the Americans be able to afford to buy our softwood lumber?
Will the CFC be bailing out the U.S.? Enquiring minds and all that. :)
Would you define what constitutes a "collapse" in the context of what you have written?
Are you talking, say, U.S. $5. to buy 1 Canadian dollar or 1 Euro or 1 British pound?
Will the Americans be able to afford to buy our softwood lumber?
Will the CFC be bailing out the U.S.? Enquiring minds and all that. :)
Good question, what level constitutes "collapse"? I would say anything >30% drop could be called a collapse. But then against what currency? Euros, Yen, Cdn$, some combination?
What am I predicting? Don't know yet. Need to do some research, crunch the numbers, throw some darts, drink some beer, draw a graph that looks like a hockey stick, and meditate. Employ all the tools of the prognosticator, then take a wild guess!:D
Funny. The Libertarian types in the US (e.g. Ron Paul, Peter Schiff) were pointing this out for at least the last five years. No one listened. People spending and people borrowing for consumption does *not* lead to economic growth. The only things that do that are investing and saving (i.e. letting others invest your money).
People believed that real estate would never go down. How is that even possible? Sure, the land itself might go up, but a house is like pretty much any other physical good - it is going to decay with usage and eventually becomes worthless. That is, unless you keep pumping money into it. But in that case the increase in value of the home doesn't seem to compensate for the inputs.
In sum:
Americans thought they were richer than they were because the market wrongly evaluated the price of real estate.
They bought more house than they could really afford on the theory that since real estate cannot go down, they would make more and more money safely.
The borrowed from what equity they had in order to consume (not to save or invest).
Consumption doesn't lead to economic growth.
The government stimulated the economy (and my guess will do it again and again) to "jump start" the economy. This will work for a short while (see: Cash for Clunkers) but when the artificial props are finished, the result is merely an economic blip that actually makes people poorer (see: Cash for Clunkers).
All this stimulus is only going to devalue the US dollar. It's why I dumped my holdings roughly six months ago.
Two morals of the story:
1) If you are going to buy a house, consider getting the best (i.e potentially desirable) land but the cheapest serviceable physical house.
2) Government stimulus causes more problems than it solves. Sure, the government stimulated *spending*. But overspending is what caused the problem in the first place! What they should be doing (if they want to meddle in the economy) is raising interest rates to stimulate *saving*.
"Tom is a well known racist, and like most of them he won't admit it, possibly even to himself." - Ed Seedhouse, October 4, 2020.
Good question, what level constitutes "collapse"? I would say anything >30% drop could be called a collapse. But then against what currency? Euros, Yen, Cdn$, some combination?
How about against an ounce of Gold? I've heard lots of numbers as to what it will all come to: $2000 (American) an ounce, $3000, even $5000 or more.
The next "stimulus payment" to the American consumer might have to be in Gold bars!
What am I predicting? Don't know yet. Need to do some research, crunch the numbers, throw some darts, drink some beer, draw a graph that looks like a hockey stick, and meditate. Employ all the tools of the prognosticator, then take a wild guess!:D
I hope while you're doing all that, you don't accidentally make an animal species go extinct (your wayward dart fatally strikes the last surviving female Mongolian Platypus)....
That would destroy Carl Bilodeau's predictions, to which I am clinging like a life raft.
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
Good question, what level constitutes "collapse"? I would say anything >30% drop could be called a collapse. But then against what currency? Euros, Yen, Cdn$, some combination?
What am I predicting? Don't know yet. Need to do some research, crunch the numbers, throw some darts, drink some beer, draw a graph that looks like a hockey stick, and meditate. Employ all the tools of the prognosticator, then take a wild guess!:D
Let's say against the Canadian dollar, for one. We'd be around $1.25 per U.S. dollar.
I can recall when our dollar was under 60 cents U.S. It was costing us around $1.70 to buy a U.S. dollar. Our imports from the U.S. were more expensive but our goods were more in demand because of our pricing power. We could sell cheaper. Our companies which ship goods into the U.S. and report earnings in Canadian dollars were showing higher profits due to foreign exchange gains.
If you put the shoe on the other foot, the Americans would have a big advantage over us with a lower dollar. Also, they would be paying down debt in greatly devalued dollars. A point I have been making is to borrow in todays hard dollars and repay in tomorrows soft dollars.
Canadian goods would become less desirable to the Americans. It would become less desirable for them to manufacture in Canada where exchange rates would push up the final cost of the item. How advantageous is it to build autos in Canada with the dollar so high? Could the lumber and paper industry compete? They paper industry is having a hard time competing now. One company has decided to permanently close the mill in Kitimat, B.C. I'm guessing more will follow. That with the Canadian dollar still lower than the U.S. dollar.
Of course, the price of energy has to be addressed as so much is imported by the U.S. From what I've been reading the U.S. has increased their natural gas reserves by some 30% due to new technologies which allows them to tap into shale gas. I suspect there would be a shift away from oil to natural gas in industry, commercial and residential, wherever possible. Getting away from using Bunker C (No. 6 and No. 5) grade oils and replacing them with domestic natural gas.
You might think this is a hard task. It's not. I forget the dates but sometime in the 1970's I think it was, many industries, apartment buildings, etc. were changing from oil to natural gas. There was a hugh switchover in the Toronto and surrounding area. I know because I put the billing intruments on the gas installations. I used to go with the contractors who were piping in the gas and I was looking after the metering and billing instruments. Some days I'd do as many as 3 conversions. Some days none. The boilers could use either natural gas or oil when the conversion was done. There were 3 other guys doing what I was doing to give you an idea of the scale.
Homes were also changing over as well but I didn't do houses. These days as people replace gas furnaces it's usually with the high efficiency furnaces which burn less. That helps to drive demand down and the price with it.
I think it's incorrect to assume that a lower U.S. dollar would hurt much more than their pride to any great extent.
All this assumes the U.S. would not raise their interest rates or use other measures to try to support their currency.
You do realize the U.S. is 60 percent or more of the world currency?
With US debt mounting, the collapse of the us currency is inevitable. When? I don't know, I just know that it's inevitable. I am surprised it has remained this strong for this long.:o
My apologies for commenting and running, but I'm off to play chess for the weekend in Elora.:D
Commentary on monday, In the meantime,.........always look on the bright side of life, (whistle,whistle)
If any country runs massive trade deficits and has massive budget deficits, something will have to 'adjust' eventually. Yes this generally means that the dollar will drop in value. The #1 way to increase your standard of living is to increase GDP. Its too bad that they are only using these deficits for personal consumption instead of investments.
The problem with their trade deficits is that what this generally means is that the rest of the world is pouring money into the US... investing in the US. They will only do this as long as they think they will get something for their investment. How long will investors do this? This can't go on for too much longer.
Budget deficits are also a major problem... YEARS ago I was reading about how there was going to be major problems when the boomer generation retires. It is predicted that the US will spend more on health care per GDP than they did on the military during the height of the cold war in the 50's. Even if they axed all military spending (fat chance of that) it still wouldn't make up the cash needed for their current level of coverage! imagine how much will be needed under Obama's plan. Thats not even including government retirement plans. Scary.
The US has to make some very tough decisions... they are going to hit the wall soon.
Does any institution in Canada allow customers to speculate in currencies on a margin?
Does the daily clawback (supposedly for interest rate differences) by on-line forex sites make speculation worthwhile for a 15%medium term gain?
1) If you are going to buy a house, consider getting the best (i.e potentially desirable) land but the cheapest serviceable physical house.
2) Government stimulus causes more problems than it solves. Sure, the government stimulated *spending*. But overspending is what caused the problem in the first place! What they should be doing (if they want to meddle in the economy) is raising interest rates to stimulate *saving*.
But if the dollar is going to crash, an argument could be made that you spend your US$ now on physical goods that will retain their value instead, and in fact to borrow money to do so. If the US economy was going to see massive inflation in the next year, it would actually be a great idea to borrow money to purchase goods that will hold their relative value.
Of course, this discounts the social costs of economic collapse, but I'm well aware that Tom is ready for the social anarchy that would result.
But if the dollar is going to crash, an argument could be made that you spend your US$ now on physical goods that will retain their value instead, and in fact to borrow money to do so. If the US economy was going to see massive inflation in the next year, it would actually be a great idea to borrow money to purchase goods that will hold their relative value.
Yes. Buy in todays hard dollars and pay back in tomorrows soft (inflated) dollars.
But if the dollar is going to crash, an argument could be made that you spend your US$ now on physical goods that will retain their value instead, and in fact to borrow money to do so. If the US economy was going to see massive inflation in the next year, it would actually be a great idea to borrow money to purchase goods that will hold their relative value.
Of course, this discounts the social costs of economic collapse, but I'm well aware that Tom is ready for the social anarchy that would result.
Why would a house retain its value? It might retain its nominal value (e.g. you buy a house for $400,000 and it is still worth $400,000 in the dollars of five years later), but what if the $400,000 were worth only $200,000 or even less? In that case, I guess if you paid some small percentage down up front (a really small percentage ...) and you were sure that you could keep your income source, with at least nominal raises, or you had a big enough cash cushion to pay the house off if you lost that income source, and kept that cash in some foreign currency or in precious metals, it might be a good idea. Nevertheless, I think of housing as the same as any physical good. You buy it, it eventually deteriorates, and it becomes useless. Not the land of course, just the house itself.
At least buying a house would be better than say buying US Treasuries. I feel sorry for anyone who flees to the "safety" of an instrument that may end up yielding some hugely negative real return (as opposed to nominal return) in the years ahead. I just don't see how a government can provide service X, Y and Z, print money for it, and expect others to pay for their drunken spending. Governments are just like people - a whole lot of them want to live a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget. The end result is usually the same. ;-)
"Tom is a well known racist, and like most of them he won't admit it, possibly even to himself." - Ed Seedhouse, October 4, 2020.
Yes, the US Dollar will decline, albeit slowly over time. But I do think the US does have options so don't count them out yet. 1)A lower dollar will be a boon for US exports and GDP will rise. 2) They still hold the 'interest rate' card as a redoubt. Increases will crush the price of gold and cause the currency to rise, if they set it even at just 2 basis points higher than what it is at the moment. 3) If all else fails, and the the dollar sinks, this will allow the debt to be paid off cheaply in worhtless dollars. 4) Of course, if the common 'sheeple' complain, give them more porn, video games, and celebrity game/reality TV shows. 5)Worst case scenario - start more wars! why not they have always been good at that in the past.
The truth is that there is nothing really to replace the dollar as a reserve currency in the world as of yet. Japan has a worse public debt load than the US does so the Yen is out. No one really wants to store 'physical' gold as it does fluctuates too wildly. The Euro perhaps, in time, but it is still seen more as a a 'regional' currency. The Chinese won't sell their US debt because they need the US as much as the US needs them. The drug dealer doesn't want to kill the addict, after all. Chimerica...
No one knows, and we have to see what transpires. I admit, though, that it doesn't look good. Let's hope that the US economy doesn't collapse as it will take 50% of our economy down with it. We obviously need to establish new markets now with other countries an plan for this posssible eventuality...
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When will the US dollar crash and burn?
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