What is Digg?195 Comments
- BESTenemy, on 10/10/2007, -5/+56 For the economy that produces more than it consumes and exports more than it imports lower currency value is good, as it makes it more competitive in the international market. For the country such as US that imports a lot more than it exports and increasingly outsources its production capacities to the third world countries, the decline of currency and runaway inflation are deadly.
Remember that the Great Depression was engineered and executed internally with the help of our central bank. The situation that we're in right now is not localized. Our currency is a global trade item. With every fall, more of it will leave foreign banks hit ours resonating even stronger. This depression we have no control over. As for the recession that I hear about, it's not something to worry about just yet, cause we haven't even started going into the depression. Unemployment rates are low. When they rise. When people end up on the street, that'll be the depression.
In 30's we had World War 2 around the corner. We had factories, textile plants, plenty of natural resources and allies, that would soon become international consumers. What's in store for us this time? We aren't in the same boat. We have no domestic industry left... at least not at the level where it could support our population if we were to seal the borders. Much of our strength comes out of the petrodollar and any currency can take its place, as long as there is an agreement between the producers and suppliers. China's almost ready to surpass us in term of demands for resources. Developing nation with a growing appetite for energy. Producing nations will form alliances around it, to satisfy the demands while getting the best deals.
We will survive. We'll make it through. We'll be fine. Meanwhile, some other nation might take the #1 spot... it's perfectly normal. Roman Empire saw its end, and Britain ain't what it was once. We're next. We're not going anywhere. Just stepping down from our pedestal, brought down by own greed and irresponsibility. Our endless wealth has spoiled us. - OBKenobi, on 10/10/2007, -13/+53You haven't seen anything yet. The US government has chosen a path of self-destruction.
Perhaps not chosen, perhaps it is out of their hands at this point... - omegaredIX, on 10/10/2007, -10/+47Learn the Constitution. Help rebuild it. The American Government system is corrupt and outside of its Legal boundaries granted by THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES!
http://www.digg.com/politics/Constitution_101_the_ ... - DirtySnachez, on 10/10/2007, -6/+32They didn't choose self-destruction, they chose to try and control every aspect of private citizens lives, and it got too big and corrupt and now its collapsing in on itself.
My prof made a very good point in saying the ultimate difference between *EVERY* socio-political system (eg, Capitalism, Communisim etc) is really only the length of time it takes for basic human-natured greed to eat it away within.
The native Americans and Australian Aboringies, and pre-western Africans did not have a need for "Big Government & Corporations" and they survived just fine for 30k odd years. Once they found themselves under the rule of White Governments, their societies fell to ***** and their ability to live free was taken away.
Maybe they we're onto something. Maybe we aren't. It scares most people to think their entire lifestyle and view of 'normality' is nothing more than a game of chance.
Please ma wash it all away. - geekchic, on 10/10/2007, -5/+29Unfortunalty, as a Brit who gets rather a large chunk of his income in dollars, I am also suffering thanks to the exchange rate.
- Tiak, on 10/10/2007, -12/+35From the article: "But for American workers on the assembly lines at places such as Boeing or Caterpillar, it means their employers' products will be more in demand."
Am I the only one who reads this as "Most people will be having to work harder for what is ultimately less pay"?... - reubencm, on 10/10/2007, -1/+19its good if your a foreigner who likes to shop on ebay!
- Elliuotatar, on 10/10/2007, -4/+22Fell to a level not seen since 1997? Dear god! I lived through that era! It was terrible! We were forced to eat leftovers! Woe is us!
- hiphoc, on 10/10/2007, -4/+21Ok, low dollar bad. Yes, products from the 2.5 factories we have left will be in more demand. But will the workers be paid more money? No. Also when the dollar drops the money you have in the bank and your paycheck lose purchasing power. To put it plainly you have been robbed. The only people who benefit are the millionaires on TV telling how great a weak dollar is. They are right also, its good for people who are rich, not for those who are poor.
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.
-Alan Greenspan - IllBeBack, on 10/10/2007, -3/+19Maybe this will slow down the outsourcing of tech labor to foreign countries a bit. That would be a good thing in my opinion.
- chsbrgr, on 10/10/2007, -0/+15I read as: bulldozers may become more affordable than BMW's
- roodammy44, on 10/10/2007, -6/+19Copyright laws that america pass do not apply over the globe.
To be honest, if they were enforced everywhere I don't think the amount of money going to america would go up a great deal.
Do you think chinese can pay $20 for some film?
If they were enforced then local competitors would spring up to fill the void. - felman87, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14So this means that foreign goods will cost more here but our goods will cost less overseas?
- Hardiel, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12My daughter lives in Europe and my child suppport is killing me since it's calculated in Euros. I'm paying 40% more.
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11It means they're big exporters and their foreign sales will appear cheaper to the buyer but earn the same for them.
- insanebrain, on 10/10/2007, -4/+15NEWS FLASH : If you don't know what your talking about .. then shut the ***** up !
- kazamx, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12As a brit who needs to spend alot of time in the US, this is fantastic. Feel bad for you though mate
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10The only problem is that compared to the other societies that have been on top, China is the worst that we've had in a long time, in terms of how they treat their people. All empires treated their colonies pretty poorly, but few treated their own people as poorly as China does.
- Matrixsta, on 10/10/2007, -4/+13Step 1: Drink all beer
Step 2: Recycle all cans
Step 3: Profit! - ne0shell, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10You can bet inflation is going to go through the freaking roof. I already see it at the grocery store and the gas pump.
As for American labor - yeah whatever, we have little to no manufacturing left - we can't all work in the tech industry and I really don't look for ward to being the next wave of "India / Pakistan" tech worker making 50% less than everyone else. The best and brightest will leave this country to work overseas....... - gak001, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8There is actually international copyright law. If you have ever watched a DVD, you might have noticed in addition to the FBI anti-piracy warning, there is also one from Interpol.
- yodaj007, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Eliminate the Fed. The constitution gives Congress control of our money, not a private bank.
- euphemizeme, on 10/10/2007, -6/+13NEWS FLASH: you're
- nelio, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7We would assume so, but heck, most of them won't ship outside of the US...
- ne0shell, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9Laugh it up ***** - this is being done on purpose and when they're done with us it'll be Europe next. They have to eliminate America in order to bring in global govt.
- dcherryholmes, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6It's not stealing, it's copyright infringement. Both are crimes, but they are substantially different things.
- ChildeRoland420, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Most bulldozers are "more affordable than BMW's" if you consider that the bulldozer has potential to produce profit whereas the BMW just depreciates.
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8Why do people bother to comment when they're just going to post the same robotic response and not read the article?
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Nobody has savings because nobody can. If you try to save money, the value just evaporates.
- bjornski, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Actually, his digg history doesn't show that he's a Paulbot.
But he's right.
I loathe EnRon Paul. But he's right about that issue. The "Federal" reserve must be scrapped. The World Bank and IMF also. Private, for-profit companies should not have the control over a countries economy through control of the mint. That is a duty of the government, not of a for-profit company. - crunchyeyeball, on 10/10/2007, -5/+10Frankly, given the absurdity of the US patent system, I'm not in the least bit surprised that the rest of the world is in no hurry to sign up to a similar system.
Given the type of "hardworking and entrepreneurial Americans" who come up with such ground-breaking innovations as the One-Click patent or the Eolas web-browser patent which cost Microsoft a cool $521 Million, is it any wonder the Chinese just shrug their shoulders and get on with producing cheap goods that people actually want to buy, while American companies seem to be hiring lawyers instead of engineers? - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5We will be like India - where you can pay for a servant, because domestic labor is cheap, but cars, computers or anything that is a globally traded commodity is very expensive.
- BohicaTwentyTwo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Offshore outsourcing will be replaced by near shoring. Everyone is tired of talking to "Steve"(Jothi) and "Bill"(Sandeep) from Mumbai anyway. Send your tech jobs down south, we work just as cheep and we speak English, sorta.
- ishtari, on 10/10/2007, -6/+11Christian science monitor, now there is an oxymoron!
- matthew.paul, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6This especially sucks being an American living/studying in Europe. Day to day it only makes a slight difference, but over a year its really going to start adding up.
- lemur, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7IT MAKES US PO'
FO' RIZZLE - DarkPrincess74, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6The thing is most large companies don't innovate. They buy little companies that come up with new ideas then they become theirs. Certainly this isn't always true for certain companies but the majority of corporations don't have much innovation due to the way corporations are actually structured.
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Always one retard that doesn't know what the christian science monitor is and does a stupid knee jerk on the name.
- BESTenemy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4You are correct. The war did not resolve the problem, but it made it possible for us to get away with it without restructuring. It has allowed us to accumulate gold by financing Churchill's military campaign. We have accumulated the resource that was necessary to solidify the currency, instead we mismanaged that wealth later. The dollar was supposed to be as good as gold, but when France took advantage of our slowdown in early 70's, it turned out that the debt, by that time, had long surpassed the saving and Nixon was forced to declare default.
Yet once again, instead of taking the issue of accumulated debt seriously, we have discovered a new bailout - the OPEC, the weapons in exchange for petrodollar economy with Saudi royal family. Again, we have allowed ourselves to become even more irresponsible with our debt, getting yet another "credit card" to pay off the ones that were already maxed out.
At this point in history, a global bank rush is almost necessary for restoration of accountability. Before the FED individual banks played with the odds and when too many people came to take out their savings, turned out the banks didn't have the money. Individual institutions would flop, but the system as whole remained and adjusted itself accordingly. Today we have a central bank system and the customer is every other nation trading petrodollars. If they come in to demand valuables for their buck, they'll discover the obvious - there is more American cash in circulation than there are assets to back it up with. Oil is an asset, but we are not controlling the oil. We don't own it. We leverage the producers, but they still have the deciding vote.
Let's say, China dumps half of its trillion dollar reserve for Euro. That causes panic and many others start doing the same. Before China can get rid of the other half, it is already worthless and no one wants to accept it. At the same time, the Euros that China manages to buy instantly rise in demand and in value. So, by buying only half and seeing the value of fresh new asset double, they loose nothing. At the same time it is not only the consumers that are concerned with preservation of their currency reserves, but the suppliers also - the very same Saudis, Iranians etc. They get weapons from the US, but they also conduct local trade. They import food, clothing, housing materials etc. They hold dollar reserves as well and they use them. If their dollar investment falls, think they're going to simply take it? No! They'll demand compensation, that we won't be able to provide. We're already sponsoring them extensively. If they choose to re-define OPEC and switch to Euro, that will be the absolute end of dollar, and with economy completely destabilized we won't be able to go to another war and take the control of oil by force (like we did in Iraq).
The reason we choose preemption is because we don't have much choice at this point. We can't restore our balance, so we act on impulse. We can't take chances, we can't take risks. All we're doing is buying ourselves time, but over and over again, we're not using that time to fix the problem. We're making it worse.
You know what, although being against socialism, I sort of, regret we don't have a life-long presidential term. When an administration is only in the office for 4 to 8 years, it has no incentive to deliver on its promises. The troubles are next guy's problem. If the president knew that he was going to deal with all the consequences of his actions or meet the punishment, he'd care a lot more. We lack responsibility every which way, economic, political, social etc. We're screwed... - donsherio, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8That....sucks
Wooo Canada!!! - tororosso, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Step 1: Drink all beer
Step 2: ?????
Step 3: Profit! - jlhoben, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Reform the Fed.
- draney5, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5I am in the military stationed in Europe, so my "over-inflated" paycheck is turning in to peanuts! I have to pay 120 Euro a month for the internet alone.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4No, because it used to be 130 yen. The absolute value of the currency unit doesn't matter, it's the change of the value. If some country, say Italy (as it used to have a ridiculously low value currency) has a Lira where 1 million lira is worth about 10 dollars, it doesn't matter, but it does matter if a year later, 1 million lira is worth $20.
- bratpack8, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4If you think a falling dollar is good for the economy, you may have a job op at the Federal Reserve. They like that kind of thinking over there.
- vinwal, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Watch this truly enlightening documentary on why we are in this predicament. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560 ... It is a long documentary, but again truly enlightening.
- tengutech, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4The AU$ is equal to about US$0.86. Much better than worth US$0.60 a few years ago. Makes shopping online more affordable.
The down side to this is that prices for much of the bulk export (things like farm produce & livestock) is done in US$ in contracts, it being a 'stable' exchange currency. Which means our farmers also get less money when our dollar goes up in value. - breadbin, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Why will your goods cost less? If your US dollars are worth less the only way your prices would go down is if the raw material and labour costs go down. I would expect the opposite to be true. I'm no economist, so I stand to be corrected.
- breadbin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4And Americans will queue up to buy the Chinese knock-offs. Whose to blame? Surely those Chinese companies are simply responding to demand. Isn't capitalism and free trade great?
- digghasnoethics, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Its quite funny with the assumption that a falling US exchange rate will allow US goods to be 'more competitive' on the world market (thus making it "a good thing"). Just compare the amount paid to the average US worker with the amount paid to the average Far East worker. Do you seriously think that even a halving of the dollar rate will make the US worker competitive?
The dollar devaluation is bad news for everyone except those with dollar debts and euro earnings/savings. -
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