buying stuff in the USA vs Canada

Nigel Burnett notes:

Hang in there. The USD is skidding like a hog on ice.

Charlie Self "Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good." H. L. Mencken

Makes me think that you can afford a van payment just to x-border shop!

A few years ago, right after the Euro came out, I wanted to see one. I traded dollars for Euros with a guy in Finland. $10 for 10 ?, plus I threw in a $2 for the hell of it, because it would probably be the only US $2 bill in all of Finland.

I NEVER imagined I would come out on top of that deal. At the time, my 10 ? note was worth about $9.80. Now it's worth about $13.

That's depressing.

That's the cycle of business. Remember a number of years ago how the Japanese Yen kept increasing relative to the dollar and how they were going to eat our lunch? Looking at the European economy and widespread nanny-state approach to regulating business, it isn't likely that the increase we are seeing in the Euro is sustainable (given that the US doesn't do something stupid). Now, in the long-run, we probably should be more concerned about China, both economically and militarily.

Why? All the "buy USA" people should be rejoicing. US - made goods will now be relatively cheaper than foreign goods. No more export incentives required - for a while.

The slide will stop when interested overseas parties realize that their domestic market is too small to support their industrial base. Since we have an industrial base smaller than our appetite, we'll probably end up buying less. I think environmentalism will pretty much prevent reexpansion.

It's not as if there's anyth>

It's a complex situation, but the largest problem is that the U.S. central bank keeps churning out the dollars with no increase in underlying real wealth....and price inflation is just catching up. I would not count on any longterm improvement with the record spending by the Bush administration. When OPEC decides to switch currencies, the dollar will plummet....and as you point out, China could easily ruin us at their whim. Once foreign entities decide that they are getting no return on purchase of T bills, the game is over. I'd buy whatever tools I could afford now before the major price increases. (at least if I were a U.S. resident)

Living in Ottawa and not having anyone really in the states to have stuff shipped to, I sometimes wonder if someone opened a store in NY state just over the border (maybe an hours drive from here), they might do real well. Or at least a place to have stuff shipped and maybe provide you with brokerage services to buy stuff from "sale in US only" stuff.

PK