In article <alpine.OSX.0.9999.0710201303330.2378@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Jeffrey Goldberg <nobody@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> In <1i6bhyk.rm3o361mkepdcN%dempson@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, David Empson
> wrote:
>
> > John Bennett <john439@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> >> The $A has risen against $US lately, I'm surprised to hear that
> >> $NZ went down.
> >
> > The NZ dollar rose rapidly against both the US and Australian
> > dollars, then dropped back down somewhat. The iMac arrived at a
> > point near the currency's recent peak.
>
> These short term changes don't really matter except for tourists and
> currency traders. The long term pattern does matter, and I think
> that the USD has even further to fall. So far this hasn't really hit
> US consumers yet. I don't fully understand why, but partially it is
> because petroleum is priced in USD so the US is ****elded in that
> respect from drops in the USD. Still the combination of very high
> public debt and extraordinary consumer debt is going to hit sometime.
> The only question is how quickly and how hard.
The bottom probably isn't going to fall out so much as soften into
quicksand. The subprime mortgage problem has started to bite and will
bite much, much deeper. The Republicans- ever happy to rip off the
future to pay for today's excesses- have floated a plan to let people
ruin their retirement savings to make their mortgage payments; yeah,
that'll look like it was a great idea in 2025. Bless good old Norm
Coleman and his uncanny ability to make bad situations worse. :-P
Fiscal insanity since 2001 in Congress and the White House will hamper
the economy for the next 50 years, but that's by design- enrich cronies
now and screw the poor later by making sure there's no money for social
programs thanks to servicing the debt. Double bonus points! Well,
somebody's getting serviced and it's those of us in the lower half of
the income range who will end up holding our ankles. Personal credit
card debt is IMHO the most insidious economic problem (which was just
announced to be, what, $1 trillion or something like that? No wonder
the government is so fubar'd, Joe and Jane Everidge can't do basic math
either). The credit card industry saw this coming and got favorable
changes to the bankruptcy laws enacted. Most of the electorate figured
"so what, I'm fiscally responsible and it'll never happen to me." That
was before the subprime ARM kicked in and they lost their health
insurance...
Basically, my fellow Americans, you've been thrown to the wolves and
you're on your own. Good luck to you.
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