Why is the American dollar so weak as of late ?

Question

1.00 EUR = 1.38184 USD


1.00 GBP = 2.06363 USD


1.00 CAD = 0.955404 USD



---------------------

For the past 20 yrs or so the Cdn dollar has been trading at 62 -69 cents on the dollar

There has been no massive boom here - it is the US dollar that is falling not the Cdn dollar catching up

Now the difference - is a nickel - and that 5 cents is taken up by the money traders fee's so in reality - it is trading at par from a consumers point of view -

What happened here

Answer 1

14 billion trade deficit every month.

4 billion dollars a month on Iraq

tax cuts for the wealthiest 20%

Lotsa money going out, not a lot coming in. But the treasury can print more money to pay its bills. more dollars less value per dollar. Thank GOD we elwcted some fiscal conservatives to run the white house and congress 8 years ago when the budget was balanced.

Answer 2

Its a mix of things.
The USD saw a big drop during Katrina that didnt fully rebound.
Interest rate corrections over almost a decade have not done any favors for people wanting to store their money in USD's.
And of course deficit spending doesnt help at all either.
The Yen has been kicking the Euro and the GBP around lately though.

Part of this is cyclical though. The Euro/USD rate spiked in 1995 at about 1.4350 .. significantly higher than it was now.

Guess we will see what happens.

Answer 3

That's what hapens when you have extreme trade deficits--in this case due primarily to a "freebie" policy that allows China to dump goods (including contaminated food) made using slave labor on the American market--while blocking American imports

and

Our growing dependency on foreigh oil.

Good job, Chimp!

Answer 4

Not sure, but I hope it keeps getting weaker against the yen because it's helping my butt over here in Japan. But that's just my selfish point of view.

Answer 5

Deficit spending AND trade deficits are to blame. Bush's deficits have broken new ground.

Answer 6

Because US owes a lot of money.

Answer 7

I dunno but I sure hope the Canadian dollar goes higher than the American one when I'm travelling down there this summer.

I can sure use the advantage.