December 12, 2006

Dollar Bye Bye?

Der Spiegel in Europe asks something that you should be asking yourself too.

Is an end of an era looming in the foreign exchange markets? The dollar has been depreciating against the euro for weeks. Currency experts and the German government don't yet see this as cause for alarm. The US currency's role as a lead currency isn't as important as it used to be, they say.


The importance here, for us Americans, is that the US ROLE AS BEING THE OWNER OF THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT WORLD CURRENCY IS NEARING THE END. Since it "isn't as important as it used to be.

Consider what the reasons for the dollar not being as important are:

Another reason is that the dollar zone is no longer as important for German exports as it was only a few decades ago. Leaving aside exceptions such as the auto industry, other regions of the world have long since become more important to the German economy than the United States, where Germany now sells less than one-tenth of its exports. Germany exports more than 40 percent of its goods and services to other countries within the euro zone, 13 percent to eastern Europe and nine percent to Asia. The turbulence surrounding the dollar has had virtually no effect on German exports to neighboring European countries. Most of the EU's new members have tied their currencies to the euro, and exchange rate risks evaporated for western Europe with the introduction of the euro.

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