No One Believes US Dollar Rhetoric and it’s Hurting Your Wallet

10/08/09 Stockholm, Sweden – US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has been regularly trumpeting his commitment to a strong dollar. The problem is… no one anywhere believes him.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the portion of global currency reserves held in dollars is now at its lowest level in about ten years. The daily barrage of reports from foreign nations dissatisfied with the dollar only adds to its diminished appeal.

Worst of all, the weakening dollar is not just hurting exchange-rate sensitive Americans abroad. Even at home the net worth of the average American has shrunk by almost $40,000 since 2007, and in global rankings of quality of life the US has dropped 7 places – it’s now 13th – from two years ago.

Even The Economist’s famed Big Mac Index shows that since last year Americans are paying the same price for McDonald’s burgers, as compared to Europeans who’ve seen a 13 percent discount in their Big Macs over the same time period.

Bloomberg has an extensive piece today that fleshes out all these details and more. It’s worth taking a look to better understand the dollar’s collapse.

Rocky Vega

Rocky Vega is a regular contributor to The Daily Reckoning. Previously, he was founding publisher of UrbanTurf and RFID Update, which he operated from Brazil, Chile, and Puerto Rico, and associate publisher of FierceFinance. He specialized in direct marketing at MBI, facilitated MIT Sloan School of Management programs, and has been featured on CBS. Vega graduated with honors from Harvard University, where he was on the board of Let’s Go Publications and directed business programs involving McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Harvard Business School faculty. He is also enrolled at the Stockholm School of Economics.

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