Dollar coming back!

[eeyore]

1 USD = 1.0669 CAD (Nightly Business Report 8/8/08). Montreal lap dances are now on sale! Well, every little bit helps...

[Guest Conway]

If only we could gain against the real. I'd be back at LaGoa in a second. My first trip there, almost three years ago, the exchange rate was 2.61 real to the dollar. My second, eight months later was 2.2 real to the dollar. Today, it is a sad 1.61.

[Lucky]

My dollars all appear to have been fans of Thomas Wolfe. They believe they can't come back!

[BiBottomBoy]

The dollar is certainly coming back. A month ago One Euro was worth $1.64. Today it's worth $1.48 - which means my rent went down about $80 this month, which is a good thing, since I'm paid in dollars but have to pay my bills in Euros.

I suspect, however, that it's artificial. Making the dollar stronger makes oil and gasoline cheaper for Americans.

So, while the Bush people have never before cared about a strong dollar (and, in fact, preferred a weaker one for a while because it made our exports cheap) they are now artificially making the dollar stronger.

The reason - because they know that McCain has no shot in hell at winning the election if people are still freaking the fuck out about gas prices.

But, if gas suddenly seems cheap come October the GOP's chances go up quite a bit.

That said, the second McCain wins (if he wins) they'd go back to not giving a fuck about the dollar and let it collapse again.

[Guest Conway]

The dollar is certainly coming back. A month ago One Euro was worth $1.64. Today it's worth $1.48 - which means my rent went down about $80 this month, which is a good thing, since I'm paid in dollars but have to pay my bills in Euros.

I suspect, however, that it's artificial. Making the dollar stronger makes oil and gasoline cheaper for Americans.

So, while the Bush people have never before cared about a strong dollar (and, in fact, preferred a weaker one for a while because it made our exports cheap) they are now artificially making the dollar stronger.

The reason - because they know that McCain has no shot in hell at winning the election if people are still freaking the fuck out about gas prices.

But, if gas suddenly seems cheap come October the GOP's chances go up quite a bit.

That said, the second McCain wins (if he wins) they'd go back to not giving a fuck about the dollar and let it collapse again.

Wow. And I thought falling oil prices were a result of reduced demand and increased production by OPEC.

[BiBottomBoy]

Wow. And I thought falling oil prices were a result of reduced demand and increased production by OPEC.

I think that's what people would like you to believe, but it's no accident that three months before the election when energy prices are a huge source of voter discontent that suddenly oil prices are falling - and the easiest way to make oil prices fall is to increase the value of the dollar, since oil prices are pegged on a dollar index.

So, it's a GOP tactic - although it's the only GOP tactic I approve of.

The French natives were rioting and burning shit in town two months ago because of fuel prices and I'm glad that's stopped. And food/rent/vodka/xanax/cat food and stuff is suddenly much cheaper for me (same price in euros but less money leaves my American bank account when I purchase it.)

The whole reduced demand thing is a fairy tale. Sure, there might be reduced demand in the United States, but that's by far overtaken by the huge increase in oil demands in India, China and other emerging nations.

To be blunt, America just doesn't have enough people in it for our reduced demand to have much of an impact against the increased demand by a billion Chinese and hundreds of millions of Indians.

What we are capable of doing is pressuring Western Central banks and large hedge funds to temporarily stop shorting the dollar and to instead buy up short term dollar futures, which give the dollar a temporary lift and lowers the price of oil per barrel.