Making Sense of the Dollar

After 9/11 George Bush determined to take care of business.  Without getting into too much detail you should recall that France, Germany and a few other countries were not supportive in Iraq and thus irked enough people in the U.S. to cause them to boycott imports from those countries.  In response to poor support from our good allies who we usually stand up for very well, financially and in defense, George Bush chose not to prevent the dollar from falling in value on the foreign markets.  This in turn allowed American goods to become cheaper and goods and services of those allies to become more expensive in the U.S.

Why would George Bush’s administration do that?  It gave us economic strength and strained the other countries.  It was a way of raising tariffs in a sense without creating new tariffs in fact.  There are other advantages such as the weaker international dollar reduced our adjusted cost of paying off international deficits.  It increased our ability to export goods and created a positive environment for U.S. business abroad and definitely gave us a better competitive stance regarding China.

Now, because the dollar was allowed to fall in the international markets, and because we are exporting more, and our services are more in demand, we are in a much better position than we would have been in during this economic debacle which our bankers, hedge funds, brokers, and commodity traders have leveraged us into.

As you read news headlines, and if your only source of information is the news media, then you are not likely to know or understand these things.  You are missing a huge part of the picture and are bound to be trapped by the same frustrations as the rest of the crowd who believe that George Bush has done terrible things to this country.  If you will do your homework by reading, really reading, and then try to understand the meaning of things and why they are done (follow the money trail) you will understand things much more clearly and will be better off in deciding what to do with your own wealth.  If you can’t find the information or don’t understand it, then talk to your Financial Advisor.  If your advisor does not understand either, then find a new one!