The Dollar
I'm sick of hearing all this doom and gloom about how high our dollar is compared to the US dollar. Yeah, we've hit an alltime high, but are any of these stories bothering to compare to other currencies? Take a look at THIS, and tell me that we've got a major problem.
OK, sure, the US is one of the major markets for our meat and so on, but still, I'm pretty sure that mos of our stuff goes to Europe. Shouldn't we be hearing the other side of the story, about how high the Euro is? Yeah, over the last year, we've been increasing against the Euro as well, but not as much.
I think it's common knowledge that the US$ is pretty fucked. It's an oil based currency, and because they've pissed off a lot of OPEC, I assume that a lot of oil rich nations don't want their dollar. Plus the fact that oil is getting scarce means that the dollar's gonna do weird things
So, instead of concentrating on the US$, shouldn't we be looking at the currency that is going to be the one that matters in 10 years time, at least as much as we do the US$? Also, the reserve bank's policy of increasing interest rates is only increasing the attractiveness of our dollar, seeing as a bunch of sneaky fucks can borrow money at a really low rate from a country like japan, just stick it in a savings account or whatever here, and come out with pure profit. What Govt REALLY needs to do is close off the legal loophole that allows that, maybe by putting a SHITLOAD of capital gains tax on that sort of thing (though that would discourage legitimate overseas investors), or bringing the interest rate back down to somewhere usable.
OK, sure, the US is one of the major markets for our meat and so on, but still, I'm pretty sure that mos of our stuff goes to Europe. Shouldn't we be hearing the other side of the story, about how high the Euro is? Yeah, over the last year, we've been increasing against the Euro as well, but not as much.
I think it's common knowledge that the US$ is pretty fucked. It's an oil based currency, and because they've pissed off a lot of OPEC, I assume that a lot of oil rich nations don't want their dollar. Plus the fact that oil is getting scarce means that the dollar's gonna do weird things
So, instead of concentrating on the US$, shouldn't we be looking at the currency that is going to be the one that matters in 10 years time, at least as much as we do the US$? Also, the reserve bank's policy of increasing interest rates is only increasing the attractiveness of our dollar, seeing as a bunch of sneaky fucks can borrow money at a really low rate from a country like japan, just stick it in a savings account or whatever here, and come out with pure profit. What Govt REALLY needs to do is close off the legal loophole that allows that, maybe by putting a SHITLOAD of capital gains tax on that sort of thing (though that would discourage legitimate overseas investors), or bringing the interest rate back down to somewhere usable.