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> The dollar is insanely strong right now This is a bigger story that isn’t being told properly often. The recent BRICS currency move is about them panicking o

> The dollar is insanely strong right now This is a bigger story that isn’t being told properly often. The recent BRICS currency move is about them panicking over increasing dollar global dominance. Checking recently I can’t find any major currency that is up against the dollar over last 10 years. US productivity is running away from the rest of the planet is another variable and with rapid on shoring of numerous industries, especially semiconductors, there is a possibility that US economic dominance is about to go into hyperdrive. That version is something the media never mentions.

justinzollars 4y ago
> US economic dominance is about to go into hyperdrive Our biggest export is dollars. We accept ship loads of consumer goods and in exchange send the ships back empty. What a deal.
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  I have a hunch that’s exactly what it looked like for all past economic empires, no?
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    Which empires are those?
    - alchemist1e9 4y ago
      Roman, Ottoman, British to name a few.
  - justinzollars 4y ago
    Its actually a sweet deal. But yes. Spot on.
- fauxpause_ 4y ago
  Sometimes full of trash
- pjc50 4y ago
  This is in a thread about how people cannot afford MacBooks, which count as a "US export" because they are priced in dollars that go back to the US eventually.
andrekandre 4y ago
> there is a possibility that US economic dominance is about to go into hyperdrive. thats a very interesting perspective considering most talk is about a "looming" downturn/recession...
- spamizbad 4y ago
  I think the 2009 recession for the US, and our anemic response to it, created a huge swath of perma-bears across the political spectrum who have predicted the US economy will collapse every year since 2011. Like a broken clock I’m sure they’ll eventually be correct.
  - gorjusborg 4y ago
    > the 2009 recession for the US, and our anemic response to it From dictionary.com: anemic: a lack of power, vigor, vitality, or colorfulness Interesting that you'd characterize the response to 2008 financial crisis as 'lack(ing) power'. The response was unprecedented in scale and scope, at least in terms of intervention from the Federal Reserve. The bail-out of the automakers was also controversial due to its size and lack of precendent. Or, are you referring to a lack of regulatory response?
    - throw0101a 4y ago
      > The response was unprecedented in scale and scope, at least in terms of intervention from the Federal Reserve. The bail-out of the automakers was also controversial due to its size and lack of precendent. And all of that was anemic compared to what was needed. From January 2009: > I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.” * https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/stimulus-arithmetic-wonkish-but-important/ https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0... The Fed's actions help on the 'back end' of things in the financial sector, but not on the 'front end' of things with regards to the real economy and jobs. Obama had a long slog to get unemployment down because of the lack of stimulus.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Outside of Peter Zeihan, I'm also utterly surprised that no one even brings up the demographics debate. Everyone has been so indoctrinated on the "we have too many people" propaganda that they haven't even realized how fast birth rates have dropped across the globe (and they're dropping even faster now). The demographics of Europe, China, Japan and S. Korea are all terminal at this point. Outside of UK, France, and to some extent, Germany, most of these countries don't even have an immigrant culture to make up for the shortfall. America, meanwhile, has decent native birth rate AND a culture that's always willing to accommodate new people.
- piva00 4y ago
  > Outside of UK, France, and to some extent, Germany, most of these countries don't even have an immigrant culture to make up for the shortfall. Not really true, for example: Sweden has been doing above EU average on both immigration and higher birth rates (for its development level) to account for the shortfall, it's not that clear cut in Europe as a whole.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    Fair, but Sweden's population is just too small to make any meaningful impact on Europe as a whole.
    - piva00 4y ago
      But that's moving the goalposts, Europe has a bunch of countries with small populations, Sweden is 16th in population from 40+ countries. Aside from Germany, Italy, the UK, France, Spain and Poland all the other countries will hover +- ~10 million people compared to Sweden. It's smack in the median of population size in Europe.
      - spaceman_2020 4y ago
        In all fairness, Sweden isn't exactly doing remarkably well either. It's fertility rate is still well below replacement level. It's still in terminal decline. Just a tad slower than its peers.
TMWNN 4y ago
>This is a bigger story that isn’t being told properly often. The recent BRICS currency move is about them panicking over increasing dollar global dominance. I figured out a while ago that anyone who mentions the "petrodollar" in a geopolitical context knows knothing about geopolitics. Bonus idiocy points if "BRICS" is mentioned in a way that implies any kind of formal collectivity, as opposed to a catchy nickname Goldman Sachs created 20 years ago for certain large emerging economies.
- ReptileMan 4y ago
  And it seems that all of those large emerging economies have one thing in common - they would love weaker USA.
- prottog 4y ago
  > anyone who mentions the "petrodollar" in a geopolitical context knows knothing about geopolitics I'm curious about this. The petrodollar is clearly a real phenomenon and policy decision. You might say that it's the replacement for when the dollar was backed by gold; instead of being convertible into gold, it's now the currency that's de facto required to purchase oil (which is basically liquid gold), as well as being the currency of the world's foremost military that protects the trade of oil.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    What "petrodollar" refers to is the fact that oil producing countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia) have a vast surplus of oil revenue far in excess of their cost of production or ability to do anything internally useful with it. This means they have an extra stash of dollars that they need to do something with--and that stash of dollars is the petrodollar. It is a real phenomenon. The problem is... it just doesn't have much relevance to geopolitics. The people who try to link it to such imagine that the US has a major foreign policy plank in upholding the use of dollars to price oil, to the point of starting wars purely to do so, despite such proponents not being able to offer a shred of evidence that any US official cared about this, or even being able to articulate what the supposed benefits the US receives from such pricing is.
  - 4y ago
baq 4y ago
There is no alternative. Good that media doesn't report it because there's nothing to report. The dollar is not going away anytime soon. A good comparison I got from twitter is Amazon credit. If you get $50, yeah it's fine, you'll spend it. If you get $5000 of it, you'll look very, very closely into all options to get your dollars back.
golergka 4y ago
> Checking recently I can’t find any major currency that is up against the dollar over last 10 years. New Israeli shekel is really, really close — 3.56 to 3.62 both now and 10 years ago.
- 1980phipsi 4y ago
  Israel's GDP is like a fortieth of the US, but they have had a really solid economy over the past ten years, which helps their currency.
jsnell 4y ago
> Checking recently I can’t find any major currency that is up against the dollar over last 10 years. CHF, but not by much.
pjc50 4y ago
Too many people are just replaying inflation discourse from the 1930s and 1970s over and over again in their head, talking up the imminent collapse of the dollar, without actually taking a look around.
- donkeyd 4y ago
  There's a lot of crypto shills that want to scare people into thinking fiat will inevitably fail, so people buy their imaginary currency.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    The "shills" are not wrong. Every single currency that ever existed went to zero. The USD will be no exception. Honestly, BTC will be no exception either.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Every single currency that ever existed went to zero False, and you give two examples that disprove the claim: > The USD will be no exception. Honestly, BTC will be no exception either. See, that’s two that have not gone to zero (there ate lots more), but which you merely conjecture will.
      - lowkey 4y ago
        The US dollar has lost 99% of its purchasing power since the creation of the Federal Reserve. The minimum wage in the US in 1964 was $1.25/hour. Notably those five quarters were 90% silver worth about $20 US today. The British Pound Sterling originally referred to £1 being exchangeable for 1 pound of sterling silver or 1/270th of it’s original value. It’s technically true that they haven’t gone to literally zero, but I would hazard to say it is close enough.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      "Everything fails eventually" isn't what the "shills" are talking about.
Arubis 4y ago
If you're one of the upper-tier non-US nationalities concerned about a strengthening dollar, that sets up some behavioral and policy incentives that could have destabilizing effects. Like, Russia's purported election interference and general political destabilizing activity starts to sound like a (ethically awful but) economically sensible move. In the extreme, the US falling into a civil war would ease that pressure on BRICS etc.
0xDEF 4y ago
>The recent BRICS currency It's important to not paint BRICS as an actual political entity. It literally started as an investment term made up by Goldman Sachs. Especially India has its own problems with China and China's Israel (Pakistan).
reaperducer 4y ago
That version is something the media never mentions. I've seen it a number of times since last summer. Perhaps you're reading the wrong media.
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  I must be then because all I ever read is that China will beat the US eventually and the dollar is being challenged. The raw numbers say the opposite best I can tell.
jcfrei 4y ago
You seem to be conflating some issues here: On one hand the strong dollar has held back the US economy because it made it less competitive with lets say German exports (which are sold in euro). On the other hand the strong dollar has been great for the US consumer (cheaper to import stuff) and for the government: Easier to refinance their debt and buy stuff (raw materials, etc.) abroad. From an economic perspective BRICS (which on a net basis are exporting nations) should really be worried about more dollar weakness. However I think the recent moves away from the dollar are not due to macro economic reasons but due to political ones instead. The confrontation between Russia and the West made these states realize that having dollars (or euros) can quickly turn into a liability: If they do something the US or EU doesn't like then their funds will just be frozen.
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  > On one hand the strong dollar has held back the US economy because it made it less competitive with lets say German exports (which are sold in euro) Due to higher US productivity even with the strong currency the cost of production for goods is significantly lower for same quality. US companies are generally gaining market shares in all high value goods. > On the other hand the strong dollar has been great for the US consumer (cheaper to import stuff) This allows higher quality of life at lower price. I’d like to point out that EU member gdp per capita are worse than the poorest US states. This is surprising to me as well, but true. > From an economic perspective BRICS (which on a net basis are exporting nations) should really be worried about more dollar weakness. How is that true? I’m not following. They need dollars to buy imports and with strong dollar it’s harder to buy imports for same exports. Take Turkey as prime example currently. > If they do something the US or EU doesn't like then their funds will just be frozen. I agree that is a big concern for them. However I don’t think a currency pact using Yuan will help much. They really want to give that same power to the Chinese? who have even less due process. This is actually a big reason I’m bullish on Bitcoin it’s probably a better reserve in long run.
  - jcfrei 4y ago
    > How is that true? I’m not following. They need dollars to buy imports and with strong dollar it’s harder to buy imports for same exports. Take Turkey as prime example currently. On a net basis they are exporters. Meaning (again on a net basis) dollars flow into these countries and goods flow out. If the dollar is strong then companies exporting from the US are more expensive then comparable exports from other countries (which can sell for a lower dollar amount and still pay their staff, raw materials). If the dollar is weak then companies exporting from the US are comparably cheaper. The US is usually a net importer because due to a strong dollar (and high wages) it's just cheaper to import stuff from abroad.
agumonkey 4y ago
I run into people that are thinking the opposite. Maybe they're too contrarian but they think this is the start of a rebalance toward china / brics / non western countries.
- astrange 4y ago
  Thinking "BRICS" exists is a red flag for contrarianism. China and India are literally in a shooting war at their border. The term was invented by Goldman Sachs. It's not an alliance.
  - lalhadudki 4y ago
    Not quite shooting. They are actually not given guns so they have to fist it out. Just a little bit of theater for those provinces. To think that would stop them from commercing with each other is wishful thinking
    - astrange 4y ago
      Huh, I knew there had been actual deaths but not that it was hand to hand combat…
      - type0 4y ago
        Sticks and stones...
nemo44x 4y ago
> there is a possibility that US economic dominance is about to go into hyperdrive. The USA is an impressive beast in this regard. It just never fails to lead and now with AI it's simply light years ahead of the nearest competitor. There's literally thousands of AI startups here - it's just amazing. Lots of people like to opine on the downfall of American hegemony and global financial and cultural dominance but I'm a believer in the lesser traveled idea that the American Empire hasn't even begun yet. All of Western and Central Europe, Israel, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, parts of South America, and a few other places are already vassal states of America as it is. I expect more to become over the coming decades.
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  Exactly. I see it like you do. I have yet to see quantitative numbers that suggest a downfall for the American empire. The discussion always turns to hyper political issues and problems, like race or guns, or healthcare systems. Yet if we look at more practical questions like productivity, innovation, efficiency, energy, food, … etc. What downfall? It looks like it is growing and I agree there is a possibility that the American Empire is only just starting, not ending.
  - telotortium 4y ago
    Transition from the republic to the empire
    - alchemist1e9 4y ago
      Good point and likely what is happening.
      - telotortium 4y ago
        Or as Niccolo Soldo puts it, "Turbo America".
lalhadudki 4y ago
Come on, at least the Mexican peso has appreciated considerably this last year. Swiss francs, BTC.
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  Thank you for pointing out the Mexican peso strength, they have definitely been able to turn it around. Isn’t that actually a bit due to their strong US ties? Swissie and BTC make sense as safe havens for the sanctions and seizure risks of USD. I do expect those to continue to strengthen.
  - InvaderFizz 4y ago
    Strong US ties, high interest rates, currency of choice until recently for the carry trade, and a large oil exporter. Large moves in the peso are largely tied to the price of oil. The past year it's gone from almost 21 to the dollar to nearly 18. Certainly sucks for me losing 15% on the conversation rate along with the general inflation that has happened. My food bill in Mexico is up like 40% over the past six months in dollar terms.
kristianp 4y ago
The dollar's strength has much to do with the US leading the world in interest rate rises. Its not "dominance about to go into hyperdrive", it should slow the economy by hurting domestic spending and exports.
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  Except it was also strong when interest rates were almost zero?
babypuncher 4y ago
Doom and gloom stories generate clicks. So they'd rather focus on the inflation we are experiencing rather than point out how much better we are doing right now than literally everyone else.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
BRICS currency? What a laugh... Brazilian president actually wanted to create a common south american coin, replacing the real with currency common to Venezuela and Argentina. These are the idiots "moving" against increased USD dominance.
ask_b123 4y ago
> This is a bigger story that isn’t being told properly often. It really isn't! I actually thought that the dollar was doing very badly because it has been going down in price in comparison to my local currency for the last 9 months or so (around 15%) (back to 2016-2018 levels). And such a decrease hadn't happened in more than a decade.

justinzollars 4y ago

> US economic dominance is about to go into hyperdrive Our biggest export is dollars. We accept ship loads of consumer goods and in exchange send the ships back empty. What a deal.

alchemist1e9 4y ago
I have a hunch that’s exactly what it looked like for all past economic empires, no?
- edgyquant 4y ago
  Which empires are those?
  - alchemist1e9 4y ago
    Roman, Ottoman, British to name a few.
- justinzollars 4y ago
  Its actually a sweet deal. But yes. Spot on.
fauxpause_ 4y ago
Sometimes full of trash
pjc50 4y ago
This is in a thread about how people cannot afford MacBooks, which count as a "US export" because they are priced in dollars that go back to the US eventually.

andrekandre 4y ago

> there is a possibility that US economic dominance is about to go into hyperdrive. thats a very interesting perspective considering most talk is about a "looming" downturn/recession...

spamizbad 4y ago
I think the 2009 recession for the US, and our anemic response to it, created a huge swath of perma-bears across the political spectrum who have predicted the US economy will collapse every year since 2011. Like a broken clock I’m sure they’ll eventually be correct.
- gorjusborg 4y ago
  > the 2009 recession for the US, and our anemic response to it From dictionary.com: anemic: a lack of power, vigor, vitality, or colorfulness Interesting that you'd characterize the response to 2008 financial crisis as 'lack(ing) power'. The response was unprecedented in scale and scope, at least in terms of intervention from the Federal Reserve. The bail-out of the automakers was also controversial due to its size and lack of precendent. Or, are you referring to a lack of regulatory response?
  - throw0101a 4y ago
    > The response was unprecedented in scale and scope, at least in terms of intervention from the Federal Reserve. The bail-out of the automakers was also controversial due to its size and lack of precendent. And all of that was anemic compared to what was needed. From January 2009: > I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.” * https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/stimulus-arithmetic-wonkish-but-important/ https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0... The Fed's actions help on the 'back end' of things in the financial sector, but not on the 'front end' of things with regards to the real economy and jobs. Obama had a long slog to get unemployment down because of the lack of stimulus.

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Outside of Peter Zeihan, I'm also utterly surprised that no one even brings up the demographics debate. Everyone has been so indoctrinated on the "we have too many people" propaganda that they haven't even realized how fast birth rates have dropped across the globe (and they're dropping even faster now). The demographics of Europe, China, Japan and S. Korea are all terminal at this point. Outside of UK, France, and to some extent, Germany, most of these countries don't even have an immigrant culture to make up for the shortfall. America, meanwhile, has decent native birth rate AND a culture that's always willing to accommodate new people.

piva00 4y ago
> Outside of UK, France, and to some extent, Germany, most of these countries don't even have an immigrant culture to make up for the shortfall. Not really true, for example: Sweden has been doing above EU average on both immigration and higher birth rates (for its development level) to account for the shortfall, it's not that clear cut in Europe as a whole.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Fair, but Sweden's population is just too small to make any meaningful impact on Europe as a whole.
  - piva00 4y ago
    But that's moving the goalposts, Europe has a bunch of countries with small populations, Sweden is 16th in population from 40+ countries. Aside from Germany, Italy, the UK, France, Spain and Poland all the other countries will hover +- ~10 million people compared to Sweden. It's smack in the median of population size in Europe.
    - spaceman_2020 4y ago
      In all fairness, Sweden isn't exactly doing remarkably well either. It's fertility rate is still well below replacement level. It's still in terminal decline. Just a tad slower than its peers.

TMWNN 4y ago

>This is a bigger story that isn’t being told properly often. The recent BRICS currency move is about them panicking over increasing dollar global dominance. I figured out a while ago that anyone who mentions the "petrodollar" in a geopolitical context knows knothing about geopolitics. Bonus idiocy points if "BRICS" is mentioned in a way that implies any kind of formal collectivity, as opposed to a catchy nickname Goldman Sachs created 20 years ago for certain large emerging economies.

ReptileMan 4y ago
And it seems that all of those large emerging economies have one thing in common - they would love weaker USA.
prottog 4y ago
> anyone who mentions the "petrodollar" in a geopolitical context knows knothing about geopolitics I'm curious about this. The petrodollar is clearly a real phenomenon and policy decision. You might say that it's the replacement for when the dollar was backed by gold; instead of being convertible into gold, it's now the currency that's de facto required to purchase oil (which is basically liquid gold), as well as being the currency of the world's foremost military that protects the trade of oil.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  What "petrodollar" refers to is the fact that oil producing countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia) have a vast surplus of oil revenue far in excess of their cost of production or ability to do anything internally useful with it. This means they have an extra stash of dollars that they need to do something with--and that stash of dollars is the petrodollar. It is a real phenomenon. The problem is... it just doesn't have much relevance to geopolitics. The people who try to link it to such imagine that the US has a major foreign policy plank in upholding the use of dollars to price oil, to the point of starting wars purely to do so, despite such proponents not being able to offer a shred of evidence that any US official cared about this, or even being able to articulate what the supposed benefits the US receives from such pricing is.
- 4y ago

baq 4y ago

There is no alternative. Good that media doesn't report it because there's nothing to report. The dollar is not going away anytime soon. A good comparison I got from twitter is Amazon credit. If you get $50, yeah it's fine, you'll spend it. If you get $5000 of it, you'll look very, very closely into all options to get your dollars back.

golergka 4y ago

> Checking recently I can’t find any major currency that is up against the dollar over last 10 years. New Israeli shekel is really, really close — 3.56 to 3.62 both now and 10 years ago.

1980phipsi 4y ago
Israel's GDP is like a fortieth of the US, but they have had a really solid economy over the past ten years, which helps their currency.

jsnell 4y ago

> Checking recently I can’t find any major currency that is up against the dollar over last 10 years. CHF, but not by much.

pjc50 4y ago

Too many people are just replaying inflation discourse from the 1930s and 1970s over and over again in their head, talking up the imminent collapse of the dollar, without actually taking a look around.

donkeyd 4y ago
There's a lot of crypto shills that want to scare people into thinking fiat will inevitably fail, so people buy their imaginary currency.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  The "shills" are not wrong. Every single currency that ever existed went to zero. The USD will be no exception. Honestly, BTC will be no exception either.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Every single currency that ever existed went to zero False, and you give two examples that disprove the claim: > The USD will be no exception. Honestly, BTC will be no exception either. See, that’s two that have not gone to zero (there ate lots more), but which you merely conjecture will.
    - lowkey 4y ago
      The US dollar has lost 99% of its purchasing power since the creation of the Federal Reserve. The minimum wage in the US in 1964 was $1.25/hour. Notably those five quarters were 90% silver worth about $20 US today. The British Pound Sterling originally referred to £1 being exchangeable for 1 pound of sterling silver or 1/270th of it’s original value. It’s technically true that they haven’t gone to literally zero, but I would hazard to say it is close enough.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    "Everything fails eventually" isn't what the "shills" are talking about.

Arubis 4y ago

If you're one of the upper-tier non-US nationalities concerned about a strengthening dollar, that sets up some behavioral and policy incentives that could have destabilizing effects. Like, Russia's purported election interference and general political destabilizing activity starts to sound like a (ethically awful but) economically sensible move. In the extreme, the US falling into a civil war would ease that pressure on BRICS etc.

0xDEF 4y ago

>The recent BRICS currency It's important to not paint BRICS as an actual political entity. It literally started as an investment term made up by Goldman Sachs. Especially India has its own problems with China and China's Israel (Pakistan).

reaperducer 4y ago

That version is something the media never mentions. I've seen it a number of times since last summer. Perhaps you're reading the wrong media.

alchemist1e9 4y ago
I must be then because all I ever read is that China will beat the US eventually and the dollar is being challenged. The raw numbers say the opposite best I can tell.

jcfrei 4y ago

You seem to be conflating some issues here: On one hand the strong dollar has held back the US economy because it made it less competitive with lets say German exports (which are sold in euro). On the other hand the strong dollar has been great for the US consumer (cheaper to import stuff) and for the government: Easier to refinance their debt and buy stuff (raw materials, etc.) abroad. From an economic perspective BRICS (which on a net basis are exporting nations) should really be worried about more dollar weakness. However I think the recent moves away from the dollar are not due to macro economic reasons but due to political ones instead. The confrontation between Russia and the West made these states realize that having dollars (or euros) can quickly turn into a liability: If they do something the US or EU doesn't like then their funds will just be frozen.

alchemist1e9 4y ago
> On one hand the strong dollar has held back the US economy because it made it less competitive with lets say German exports (which are sold in euro) Due to higher US productivity even with the strong currency the cost of production for goods is significantly lower for same quality. US companies are generally gaining market shares in all high value goods. > On the other hand the strong dollar has been great for the US consumer (cheaper to import stuff) This allows higher quality of life at lower price. I’d like to point out that EU member gdp per capita are worse than the poorest US states. This is surprising to me as well, but true. > From an economic perspective BRICS (which on a net basis are exporting nations) should really be worried about more dollar weakness. How is that true? I’m not following. They need dollars to buy imports and with strong dollar it’s harder to buy imports for same exports. Take Turkey as prime example currently. > If they do something the US or EU doesn't like then their funds will just be frozen. I agree that is a big concern for them. However I don’t think a currency pact using Yuan will help much. They really want to give that same power to the Chinese? who have even less due process. This is actually a big reason I’m bullish on Bitcoin it’s probably a better reserve in long run.
- jcfrei 4y ago
  > How is that true? I’m not following. They need dollars to buy imports and with strong dollar it’s harder to buy imports for same exports. Take Turkey as prime example currently. On a net basis they are exporters. Meaning (again on a net basis) dollars flow into these countries and goods flow out. If the dollar is strong then companies exporting from the US are more expensive then comparable exports from other countries (which can sell for a lower dollar amount and still pay their staff, raw materials). If the dollar is weak then companies exporting from the US are comparably cheaper. The US is usually a net importer because due to a strong dollar (and high wages) it's just cheaper to import stuff from abroad.

agumonkey 4y ago

I run into people that are thinking the opposite. Maybe they're too contrarian but they think this is the start of a rebalance toward china / brics / non western countries.

astrange 4y ago
Thinking "BRICS" exists is a red flag for contrarianism. China and India are literally in a shooting war at their border. The term was invented by Goldman Sachs. It's not an alliance.
- lalhadudki 4y ago
  Not quite shooting. They are actually not given guns so they have to fist it out. Just a little bit of theater for those provinces. To think that would stop them from commercing with each other is wishful thinking
  - astrange 4y ago
    Huh, I knew there had been actual deaths but not that it was hand to hand combat…
    - type0 4y ago
      Sticks and stones...

nemo44x 4y ago

> there is a possibility that US economic dominance is about to go into hyperdrive. The USA is an impressive beast in this regard. It just never fails to lead and now with AI it's simply light years ahead of the nearest competitor. There's literally thousands of AI startups here - it's just amazing. Lots of people like to opine on the downfall of American hegemony and global financial and cultural dominance but I'm a believer in the lesser traveled idea that the American Empire hasn't even begun yet. All of Western and Central Europe, Israel, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, parts of South America, and a few other places are already vassal states of America as it is. I expect more to become over the coming decades.

alchemist1e9 4y ago
Exactly. I see it like you do. I have yet to see quantitative numbers that suggest a downfall for the American empire. The discussion always turns to hyper political issues and problems, like race or guns, or healthcare systems. Yet if we look at more practical questions like productivity, innovation, efficiency, energy, food, … etc. What downfall? It looks like it is growing and I agree there is a possibility that the American Empire is only just starting, not ending.
- telotortium 4y ago
  Transition from the republic to the empire
  - alchemist1e9 4y ago
    Good point and likely what is happening.
    - telotortium 4y ago
      Or as Niccolo Soldo puts it, "Turbo America".

lalhadudki 4y ago

Come on, at least the Mexican peso has appreciated considerably this last year. Swiss francs, BTC.

alchemist1e9 4y ago
Thank you for pointing out the Mexican peso strength, they have definitely been able to turn it around. Isn’t that actually a bit due to their strong US ties? Swissie and BTC make sense as safe havens for the sanctions and seizure risks of USD. I do expect those to continue to strengthen.
- InvaderFizz 4y ago
  Strong US ties, high interest rates, currency of choice until recently for the carry trade, and a large oil exporter. Large moves in the peso are largely tied to the price of oil. The past year it's gone from almost 21 to the dollar to nearly 18. Certainly sucks for me losing 15% on the conversation rate along with the general inflation that has happened. My food bill in Mexico is up like 40% over the past six months in dollar terms.

kristianp 4y ago

The dollar's strength has much to do with the US leading the world in interest rate rises. Its not "dominance about to go into hyperdrive", it should slow the economy by hurting domestic spending and exports.

alchemist1e9 4y ago
Except it was also strong when interest rates were almost zero?

babypuncher 4y ago

Doom and gloom stories generate clicks. So they'd rather focus on the inflation we are experiencing rather than point out how much better we are doing right now than literally everyone else.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

BRICS currency? What a laugh... Brazilian president actually wanted to create a common south american coin, replacing the real with currency common to Venezuela and Argentina. These are the idiots "moving" against increased USD dominance.

ask_b123 4y ago

> This is a bigger story that isn’t being told properly often. It really isn't! I actually thought that the dollar was doing very badly because it has been going down in price in comparison to my local currency for the last 9 months or so (around 15%) (back to 2016-2018 levels). And such a decrease hadn't happened in more than a decade.