Money Beat

Hey Eric and Brandon?
If unions are the scapegoat for jobs going over-seas due to high wages...would you care to move to India or China and work for oh say....twelve dollars a day?

Eric and Brandon are right, and I say that as someone who comes from a union-family. Unions have outlived their purpose and by putting worker needs ahead of productivity, they severely cripple business. This country now has good worker-protection laws, minimum wage requirements and other regulations that protect employees - making unions unnecessary. By the way,unions are hanging on by the skin of their teeth, and it makes me mighty nervous when they cozy up to one political party - in this case the Democratic party. This election will be a key one for the future of unions.

The dollar is weakening for a couple of reasons. First, its only intrinsic value is rooted in the "full faith and credit" of the government, which happens to have $100 trillion in unfunded obligations right now. Second, the idiots at the Treasury and the central bank (Federal Reserve) are counterfeiting money so fast: the money supply is growing by a 15% annual rate. (See www.shadowstats.com\alternate_data for a chart). The injection of newly created money into the economy at arbitrary points and times distorts creates a distorted capital structure. Like with all fiat currencies, ours will sooner or later collapse and become valueless, except perhaps as tinder or toilet paper. The dollar has lost over 95% of its value since the Fed was created.

"This country has ...minimum wage requirements...that protect employees" Not at all momobella. Companies who cannot afford to pay the minimum wage will do without workers or will hire under the table (e.g. illegal immigrants), or will charge more for their products to compensate for their being forced to pay more wages. Minimum wage is the same as price fixing and it's a form of communism that prevents two people from freely entering into contracts to exchange a certain amount of labor for a certain amount of money.

"why would we spend billion of dollars building a wall on our Mexican border" - Because we want to give low-skilled jobs to American workers, allowing them to earn minimum wage, driving the prices of goods up, and harming average Americans. It will also deplete our labor pool. It's yet another way to slit our wrists economically.

This article isn't meant to shape US markets, just talk about a small market highlight with a little tongue in cheek. You dumped on this girl like she was burning babies. The bimbo and woman talk was way out of line.

The Zimbabweans love their weak dollar!

what the hell aare you guys thinking its not good for the US to have a weak dollar it hurts us but the rich people suck everyone elses money up and dont give a damn and would rather help themselves

WE ARE STRONG DOLLAR AND WILL BE FOREVER. EVEN AFTER WERE NUKED. SO BUY MBI AND AMBAC NOW!also htm/ fre are hott stocks for anyone with a .....

Hmm, I don't agree...a weak dollar may help the export industries she cited, but overall it is responsible for exacerbating the credit crisis we are having and lowering the real value of wages. Our spending power decreases as this happens, and basic staples like food and gas (especially since most oil is imported and still would be even if we drilled more oil offshore in the hurricane-infested waters of the south and southeast). Moreover, what has always given the U.S. economy its redeeming economic strength across the generations hasn't been manufacturing alone but the ease with which new technologies and new industries were able to start and flourish in an environment where liberal thought and enterprise were secure. What I'm saying is, what we SHOULD be doing is executing an economic strategy that encourages new technology and encourages first movers in new industries...if the dollar is weakening, less foreign investment will flood into new startups to encourage their development as the value of those investments will fall or at least be lessened if the weak dollar undermines the comparative gains from the rising stocks of such firms. What this export emphasis is, really, is the U.S. trying to take over China's role in the world (which we can't do unless we devalue the dollar so much that our labor is cheaper than theirs). In that situation, only heavy industry benefits but most average citizens become dirt poor (their wages buy very little) and innovation withers on the vine, since no one wants to work in a textile mill or a factory building obsolete cars all their lives when you can go to a different country and be rewarded for your education by getting research grants and startup money for new firms, incentives that also have been becoming scarce with the Administration's "strategy."

The US imports OIL. Lots and lots of oil. When the dollar is weak, oil shoots up. So what, if we export more stuff?

A lot of this stuff was raw materials and commodities. The weak dollar means foreigners are buying up all of America. Make the dollar super-weak, we can sell our babies, too.

**I left something out of my earlier comment, so to correct: basic staples like food and gas (oil) will go up drastically, and just like Elaine said, other imported goods will too as the trend continues, especially the raw materials we don't export but import for our own industries.

Why do you think we are paying more for
gas, a weak dollar. Go abroad, nobody wants the dollar anymore. The dollar is
now the Americam Peso.

Bottom line:
Ron Paul says a weak dollar is bad, and he has always told us the truth. Enough said.