March 12, 2005, Survival of the Specie?
That would be referring to our rapidly depreciating legal tender, the yankee dollar. This week's visit to our comrades at Pravda gives us this story on the decline of the dollar as against the euro, the ruble, and you name it, as various Asian central banks (especially those of the nations that house our new labor force, India and China) are shifting dollar holdings into euros.
Most interesting is that virtually all of the weakness in the dollar has occurred since 2001. That of course was when that destruction of the American economy became the principle goal of the American government, for some reason that continues to elude many of us, including m'self (thanks to Avedon for that masterpiece).
You see, the European Central Bank has made balanced budget targets and that sort of thing pretty much a de regeur part of being in the Euro-zone. The result has been a pretty robust European economy, even though their people have 5 week vacations, 35 hour work weeks, actual health and education and pension benefits, public transportation and that sort of thing, along with regulations and high taxes, and generally a pretty good standard of living for all. We, instead, are hell-bent on giving a tax break to our wealthy, who were already BY FAR the least taxed people in the Western world. We also have an unbelievable trade deficit primarily the result of imported oil, while we make it ever more of a priority to consume more oil, instead of conserving it. We're also shifting to "a service economy", which, you may properly read as "McDonalds and Walmart".
The price of all of this is, of course, our eventual social destruction, preceded, of course, by the worthlessness of our currency, caused mostly by endless and unnecessary government deficits (again, a one year spending increase freeze coupled with a rollback of the Bush tax cuts reduces our budget deficit from around 4-5% GDP to 1%... simple as that, but we won't do it, and naturally, not even Dems are talking about anything like that.)
All this is curious, no?
Comments
A small nit, but I think Germany's unemployment rate is pretty far above ours right now.
Other than that, yes, the American middle class is being run into the ground, and 51% of them seem to like it. God knows why.
Posted by Linkmeister at March 13, 2005 12:44 AM
Say what you will the dollar still goes a long way overseas.
Posted by Paul at March 13, 2005 7:08 AM
Do you suppose Al Qaeda supporters play post hoc ergo propter hoc with the same zeal Bush supporters do? Because in 2001 Al Qaeda set out to destroy the US economy . . .
Posted by Jim Henley at March 13, 2005 8:58 AM
And Airbus outsells Boeing and Dyson is now the No.1 upright vacuum cleaner in the US. Yep,I'd be worried but as Linkmeister suggests we've got our worries too notably the speed at which jobs, white collar and all, are heading east. But you're right without fiscal discipline at all levels of society we'll all swirl down the pan.
Posted by euro-ron at March 13, 2005 12:44 PM
Hey TD, what gives with writing about something that actually affects everyone? You're supposed to be distracted, like your fellow Democrats, on side issues like abortion and gay rights. Cut it out or they'll sick Karl Rove on you.
Posted by Hassan Bar Sinister at March 13, 2005 4:30 PM