A falling Dollar is basically like leaving the WTO.

[denem]

Foreign suppliers can put discriminatory surcharges on things the US really needs, like oil and rare earth minerals. The Government can put tariffs on the rest

But one thing is different.

US exporters can be whacked around the heat head by any country that has a grievance or three, and can piss IP up against the wall.

Still, arms should continue to sell pretty well.

[denem]

1. Crickets?

[Hannah Bell]

2. what?

[AnnieBW]

3. Well, maybe I won't go to England this summer...

Hubby and I were planning to go to England this summer. If the exchange rate still sucks rocks, we might not.

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. well no, it's not a 'discrimintatory surcharge' if the price is the same...

in whatever the local currency is adjusted for the exchange rate; this is how floating exchange rates work. Expecting that things won't cost more relatively when a freely floating currency declines in value is just absurd.

[denem]

5. Well 1974 and 1978 may be ancient history

but I doubt you would argue that as the price of oil rose from $3/barrel in 1973 to $30 in 1980, the US economy was knocked flat. And yes an embargo is discriminatory.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. An embargo is by definition not a surcharge

do you have any idea what you're talking about? Because it doesn't really sound like it. The US went off the de facto gold standard with the end of the Bretton Woods system, the US dollar floated on the market with other currencies, and there was also the Iranian revolution and the Iran/Iraq war affecting oil supply and thus market price; that doesn't make for "discriminatory surcharge".

[Statistical]

7. Did you just randomly combine some words; sort of an economic madlib? n/t