Is the Collapse of the American Dollar the Biggest Secret Right Now?

[Bullet1987]

It amazes me how effective the MSM has been in completely blacking out this story to the public. Is this the REAL fight behind healthcare reform? Are Obama and certain Democrats trying to soften the blow that the fall of the dollar will definitely bring? If so, why are Republicans fighting against this? I know why corporate interests are. They're the major reason the fall is taking place. More conspiratorial-minded people would say they've known this was going to happen for a long time now. If Obama is trying to soften the blow, then why aren't he and the White House...really ANY Democrat even talking about this? If you've been following along, the dollar has all but recently been dropped. The EU and China are talking about pooling their respective currencies together and eventually going to a one world currency (which unfortunently people like Alex Jones have been talking about for a few years now). These recent developments have pushed me into investing in silver, although I may be a little late to the game...but I'm jumping on the bandwagon while there's still room left.

What will the fall of the dollar mean for us Americans? Firstly, I think it may directly force us to permanently draw down our numbers overseas. We have hundreds of bases all over the world, and most Americans don't even know what they're used for and by whom. Is this part of the reason for its secrecy? They don't want the American people to know just how bad things are, so they can continue to carry on with their foreign activities without public attack? This would likely force military affairs to become more clouded and secretive than they are now. Or possibly expand PMCs (private military contrators) like the groups formerly known as Blackwater. Or maybe it's about maintaining the illusion of American superiorty and greatness. I think some good can come out of what looks to be the waning hours of the era of American imperialism. It all depends on who's in charge.

There are tons of videos on youtube about this. I may post some up in the video section. But I'm going to begin to do a lot of research on this subject. Since I can't count on the US media to talk about it.

[TomCADem]

1. Paul Krugman's Column Responds To These Fears Nicely

In today's NY Times column.

[grantcart]

2. Your premise, I assume, is that a weak dollar is bad>

Weak currencies have a great deal of benefit, primary in expanding exports and tourism.

[NoSheep]

3. No. I don't think it is much of a secret. Probably also not the problem some perceive it to be.

[Bullet1987]

4. Maybe not top secret...but also played down too

[NoSheep]

5. I just heard a piece on NPR today about it. I guess I thought the issue was fairly out in the open.

[Subdivisions]

6. Although I agree that we should be concerned, very concerned, it's

not as bad as it could be and has been recently.



As you can see, it dropped as low as 71 in the spring of 2008. So, we have a bit to go yet to get below that.

From what I understand from my own research, 50 is catastrophe and systemic collapse. We'll see.

[IndianaGreen]

7. We will have to convert our dollars into euros or yuans to purchase oil

We won't be able to print dollars whenever we need more money.

The costs of energy will skyrocket.

The end of the dollar's dominance as the exchange currency has been known to a lot of people for quite sometime.

[mkultra]

8. whats with the all capitalized in the title?

just curious.

[depakid]

9. Question begging if I ever heard it...

on top of conspiracy theory.

[bhikkhu]

10. There's no conspiracy of silence - there's just no "tipping point"

or no - bang, its happened. The dollar has been teetering back and forth since the US became a debtor nation, which has been decades now. I read plenty of doom and gloom back in the 80's. There's no real media interest now any more than there was then - its just moves too slow to be very interesting to talk about. Like talking about a recession - recall that they aren't able to say if its an official recession until six months or so after it happens?

Economics reporting talks about trends and possibilities, and no one credible really wants to go out on a limb predicting our downfall (particularly day after day and year after year as it keeps not happening).

And none of that is secret or hushed up. China has had more US dollar reserves than it wants for a long time, and everyone knows it. The same with other Asian countries. The shift of the oil trade to a Euro standard has been discussed and moved towards for many years also. Everybody knows we spend too much on military bases overseas, and that its almost a form of foreign aid. If we had to close some bases to save money, that would be a great thing in my book.

The fall of the dollar would mean a whole lot more to Asian countries than it would mean to us: their dollar holdings would become worthless, while our debts would become insignificant. Then, however, our credit would be bad and no one would lend us money. Which means we can't go into debt so easily - a good thing. Also, our goods would be dirt cheap on the international market, while foreign goods would be prohibitively expensive here. Everybody would buy our stuff and the balance of trade would swing to our favor...etc, etc...

[Beacool]

11. I don't think so. I've heard and read about it.

It doesn't portend anything good for the economy. For one thing it will increase the price of oil, which is now priced in dollars. It will affect us in many ways. I was reading an article in the NYT about the owner of a deli in the Bronx's Little Italy. He says that he's barely breaking even due to the currency disparity between the dollar and the Euro. He's paying much more than a year ago for the goods that he imports for his shop, such as olives, prosciutto, etc.

:-(

[davidpdx]

12. The dollar has gone down 22% against the Korean Won

over the last 7 months (1550 to around 1170). Waiting to see what it will do next. It had been up as high as 1600 at one point. When I went home in June of 2007 it was around 940 won to the dollar.

This last Summer when I went on vacation the dollar was pretty strong still so I had to use the money I had in the US already. It's really slipping now though.

[HamdenRice]

13. The financial crisis had the effect of boosting the dollar to historic highs

So you are looking at this out of context. One of the fortunate things that happened during the crisis was that contrary to what some expected, international investment pools fled to the safety of the dollar at the height of the crisis. This enabled the federal government to get money virtually interest free for the stimulus.

The dollar is simply falling back to its range of the last few years. As Subdivisions's chart posted above, shows, the dollar reached unsustainable highs at the peak of the crisis:



It's now at 2007 levels.

As for the Korean currency, keep in mind that it is a volatile currency that was probably very low during the crisis and its gains reflect coming back to normal.