Why has the U.S. dollar fallen so sharply in the past few years?

Question

I should have phrased the question different; Why had demand for U.S. currency dropped so much in the past few years? Our economy is not weak, and our country is not unstable.

Answer 1

Maybe it is to condition us to more readily accept the possibility of trading in our dollars for a new currency.

The Amero Dollar?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53350

Answer 2

The US dollar is based on a "Fiat" money system. This means that its only value is what people place in it. "Fiat" means "faith," so in essence, the US dollar is built on faith.

What this means is that the value of the dollar is controlled by how it is traded on a market. If the people in the market have less faith in it, they value it less, sell it for less (against other currencies), and will only buy it for less.

Such small occurences as the President dipping in the public polls can effect the monetary value of the dollar. If people think the country is weak or has poor leadership, they value the money less.

The problem is that the weakness of the US economy and the lack of confidence in the US in general has hurt the faith in our money. Our value has dropped because people trust the stability of our country and by extension our currency less.

EDIT

Is our economy weak? No, but it seems that way. The media and others are fond of making news to get ratings, so they point out how different things look now from some of the explosive growth in the past. Things like that shoot us in our own foot for the sake of ratings.

Is our country less stable? No. We are less popular now on the world stage, so international monetary traders value us less. Our government has lower opinion ratings, which makes it seem less stable to traders. We are entering election time here and that makes us seem less stable, so there will be some fun with the currency.

Answer 3

Because wer're at war in Iraq.