Another Dubya policy success(?)

First things first—I don’t pretend to know a thing about economics.  I signed up for a macroeconomics course once, in the spring semester of 1970; Kent State ended the course prematurely, and I happily accepted the “Pass” that my school gave for all courses that term.  Never tried econ again.

As I watched the US stock markets take still another tumble today, on the third anniversary of the NASDAQ’s all-time high, I happened to hear a news report that mentioned that the euro is currently valued at somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.10.  Somehow, that tidbit of information triggered something in my brain, which spurred me into a bit of web-surfing.

You see, I have an ex-sister-in-law and ex-brother-in-law who are in the business of international tourism.  They run group ski tours to Austria, enviro-tours to Central America, stuff like that.  I learned that a not-insignificant part of their profitability actually arises from what can only be called currency speculation.  When groups pre-pay for their airfare, hotels, and so forth, the tour operators have a good bit of leeway, often several months, in deciding when to move those funds from US dollars into local currency.  That decision can spell the difference between black numbers and red numbers on their company’s bottom line.

I recollected that when I discussed such matters with my ex-in-laws about a year ago, the euro was hovering somewhere below a dollar, so I was surprised to hear that it’s now about 20% higher than it had been the last time I noticed it.  That got me to wondering just what’s been happening to the exchange rate between the currencies of the United States and its European partners under the economic policies of our current regime.

A bit of googling took me to OANDA.com, The Currency Site, where I found downloadable data on the dollar-euro exchange rate.  I obtained and graphed those numbers for the time period of January 20, 2001 - March 11, 2003 ... in other words, during the presidency of George Walker Bush.

Comments

Add in the threat of OPEC oil revenue being transferred to euros, and it gets even uglier . . .

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