Bad housing news for besieged dollar

[medbiller777]

The dollar fell to a record low against a basket of currencies Thursday as weak housing data stoked concerns over the health of the US economy.

Figures showed US new home sales plunged 8.3 per cent in August to their lowest level since December 1997 and well below analysts’ forecasts.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/de7337ee-6cdd-11dc-ab19-0000779fd2ac.html

[Issachar]

And to think .... all of this could have been avoided with wisdom. :)

If it weren't for the fed/gov't money creation machine .... errr ... should say, currency creation machine ... prices would have risen to what the market could bear, topped out, adjusted down a bit perhaps .... BUT NOOoo ... man just had to get his greedly little fingers in there and gum up the works. Will he learn? No.

Issachar

[Cameron]

Issac, I believe we will soon see "cyber money" that will simply be a series of computer entries for debits and credits.

Then we can close the printing presses and just have a universal cyber money system that can be adjusted electronically without creating new currency.

But to make it work properly, a type of mark may have to be placed on every person so the computer terminals in all of the stores and cyber banks can make a proper ID and debit or credit your account as needs be.

[JenGC]

Issac, I believe we will soon see "cyber money" that will simply be a series of computer entries for debits and credits.

Then we can close the printing presses and just have a universal cyber money system that can be adjusted electronically without creating new currency.

But to make it work properly, a type of mark may have to be placed on every person so the computer terminals in all of the stores and cyber banks can make a proper ID and debit or credit your account as needs be.

First off, that sets the stage for the mark and having all transactions be "cyber money" with the chip.

Also, I work for a printing company. Granted I am a web developer making it possible for banks to have customers access their bill online, that is besides the point. hehehe

I hope to not be here after a while anyway. :) I am looking for ya Jesus! Are we there yet? :yeah

[hmmmm]

Concern over the US economy is very good news, for those who don't want to see it running gung ho, into another war in the Middle East.

[Issachar]

... I believe we will soon see "cyber money" that will simply be a series of computer entries for debits and credits.

Then we can close the printing presses and just have a universal cyber money system that can be adjusted electronically without creating new currency. This is true and in fact, we are mostly there. Of around 16 trillion dollars per year that is the US economy, only about 600 to 800 billion is actual currency in the form of paper money and coin. The rest is ones and zeroes on some hard drives in Fort Knox. (The Fort Knox part is just kidding around. :) ) When I speak of the fed creating money out of thin air and "running the printing presses", that's not literal. The "money" that the fed makes up is done on 'puters. Their inflation of the money supply doesn't have anything to do with whether or not the money is currency or electronic. It's all still used as "money" in our fiat system.

Issachar

[SumSam]

From TIME: Why the Dollar Is a 98-lb. Weakling (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1666266,00.html)

Spend some time in the hotels, restaurants and even newsstands of Western Europe these days, and as an American you understand pretty quickly that you're poorer than you once were. To be precise, you're 40% poorer--to go by the dollar-euro exchange rate--than you were six years ago...

The last sentence really got me!

These days, China and the other countries participating in what some have called Bretton Woods II export so much more to the U.S. than they import, they find themselves with hundreds of billions of dollars that they don't know what to do with. Up to now they've been content to recycle most of them by buying Treasury bills and other U.S. securities. The U.S. has enjoyed the low interest rates that have resulted, while China, the gulf states and Japan haven't wanted to face the consequence that by selling dollars, they would decrease the value of their remaining dollar holdings.

This is an arrangement that can't go on forever. It should unravel; that's the way of economic change and progress. But there's no plan in place to make it happen in an orderly fashion. The fear that the ensuing adjustment might be even more chaotic than in the 1970s probably explains most of the dollar's recent decline. It's not that we Americans have gotten a lot poorer. It's that we might be about to.

I hope we are doing enough to make people aware of the impending crisis that will dramatically reduce American spending power in world markets. I wonder what will be the fate of Walmart and its ilk.

On the flip side, we can hope that US corporates once again eye their homeland as a competitive manufacturing base for cutting edge technologies in all industries! :thumb

[lilbitsyspider]

Concern over the US economy is very good news, for those who don't want to see it running gung ho, into another war in the Middle East.

Great I'm giddy.:candle