American economics and the USD

This whole post started with the following post on MyMoneyBlog.
Hedging Against The Dollar: Opening A Foreign Currency Bank Account vs. Buying A Currency ETF » My Money Blog

Look guys, I've mentioned this before and there are some great links already posted. The US economy has some serious issues and barring a massive war to claim vast booty and slaves, the purchasing power of the dollar will decline.

What does this mean? It means that means that more Chinese people will be able to afford the 10th generation iPod and less American people will be able to afford the same iPod. Peter Schiff pretty much nails it: as the value of the USD goes down and goods become relatively more expensive, other buyers with stronger currencies will swoop in and buy those goods.

Why is this happening? That's very complex, but here's a very simple explanation: You are fat and in debt. (same thing) You import more goods than you export and you've been doing it for years. You bring in 10 bananas each worth a dime but you're only bringing 90 cents to the deal. You then give out an IOU for the other 10 cents.

This basically means that you owe people lots of money (40% of the US national debt is foreign-held), but people aren't going to just take cash, b/c the value of that cash keeps dropping. They want stuff. They want oil, gold, food, they want services (skilled american workers), etc.

Cash is just trust. The US handed out a bunch of IOUs for cash, but they're not worth anything if nobody can cash them in for stuff. Of course, the world has been accumulating these IOUs, but they haven't been able to cash in b/c all of the American stuff is so expensive. But that's part and parcel with the whole import/export thing. For USD $100 I can buy 2 Russian programmers for 3 days or I can buy one american programmer for one hour. I can buy one bottle of "American pharmaceutical" or 10 bottles of "Indian Pharmaceutical" (both made from the same stuff).

Nobody wants to buy American stuff b/c it's too expensive; but everyone has these American IOUs that they want to cash in. Of course, everyone's in on the deal now and nobody thinks that these American IOUs are any good. So the solution is simple: the American economy will suffer until they can start paying off the debts and letting people cash in their IOUs. Again, money is just trust. It's pieces of paper or computer bytes with promises attached. The world does not trust the American economy, it does not trust that the American IOUs are worth anything. Until the dollar drops to the point where other countries can "get their money's worth" when they cash in the IOUs, then the dollar will continue to drop.

Jonathan: you said: As long as I can still buy what I need with the dollar, I don’t care if it trade 3:1 with the Euro.

But this is what you're missing, if the Euro goes 3:1 you won't be able to buy what you need with your dollars. Your salary will be the same, but the cost of the iPod will double. Your food will be more expensive as foreign markets start buying your produce with the money you owe them.

Yeah, yeah, this is happening right now on a small scale, we call it inflation. But you've just seen minor inflation, almost a side effect of the reserve banking system. Underneath all of this, the citizens of the US (whose very birth certificates back the money that is printed) are in debt to the world and they continue to live beyond their means. The US consumes more energy and gas than it can produce, while hinging its entire economy on those very resources. US labour is too expensive for all but the western european countries and manufactured goods are likewise too expensive. The only thing the US can "afford" to export is the food, but nobody else really needs the food at American prices.

When the whole thing falls, then you'll see real inflation, gas & food will suddenly cost twice as much and you won't be making any more money. Once it's fallen, you won't be able to "buy what you need with your dollars", your purchasing power will be drastically reduced. This is the cost of globalization, the world is catching up and the US is at the top of the ladder, so the only place left to go is down.

The US is the richest country in the world living a lifestyle on credit. Take all of these "credit card debt ruined my life" stories and scale that out to a whole country. That's what going to happen to the US. We're already seeing record foreclosures which means that people are being forced to sell their biggest asset/investment, in some cases their only real investment. People are skipping vacations to make extra money, they have their kids working at 16, then 15, then 13 & 12 just to keep up the pace. Elderly people are coming back to work greeter jobs at Wal-Mart and the workforce continues to churn harder and harder to keep up.

These are not the signs of prosperity, prosperous people work less not more. These are the signs of a people stretched too thin and ready to pop.