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April 22, 2008
The Bush-Euro Correlation

New low for Bush, new high for the Euro.

Bush’s disapproval rating worst of any president in 70 years
Euro Surpasses $1.60 for First Time on ECB’s Inflation Outlook

There seems to be some correlation between these numbers.

See this Bush approval graph (a better one but Flash) and this currency graph (sorry, no time to plot these together).

But what is the interaction mechanism here?

Posted by b on April 22, 2008 at 17:52 UTC | Permalink
Comments

I always used to ask why the Dollar, linked to the free-market, low-regulation, low-tax US economy, was foundering against the euro, tied to the overregulated, overtaxed, sluggish European social market economy.
Perhaps its because those stodgy Europeans have made a reasonable effort not to print more currency than they have goods and services on offer to back it up.
And they make an effort to ensure that those people who have work are able to live off their wages, with affordable health care and decent social benefits.

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 22 2008 19:17 utc | 1

I hope you’re not looking for a mathematical relationship b.
The simple answer is that the hidden operators behind puppet GWB et al are successfully managing a program to squash the dollar. To me this has been obvious for quite a while now. It can’t be natural or a mistake. The squashing mechanisms aren’t very hard to design as long as the designer has plenty of time to implement them and let them work, and the power to force them into the system.
Both these time and power conditions have been met/created. The more important question is: why have media and academics refused (or found themselves unable)to challenge the program. I have heard/read almost nothing in the past ten years on this purposeful economic sabotage; only tangential stuff like the rich are getting richer, and all our industry is moving offshore, etc.
To one who assigns the fault to lax regulation or somesuch I would say hogwash, our overseers are really not stupid. And to those who see this $$ weakness as temporary, and an opportunity to game the system, bullshit to temporary; true on the face of it to gaming oppty. To those calling the shots though it is much more, and here I run out of steam because I cannot fathom their true objective.
(Perhaps) trying to put this question in rational human terms is why it hasn’t yet and may not be answered. To clearly see the crisis, its causes and its end point if there is one is like jumping into a volcano naked. Humans don’t do that willingly. Just way too scary.

Posted by: rapt | Apr 22 2008 19:58 utc | 2

The chart represents the reciprocal of dollar per euro.

Posted by: jlcg | Apr 22 2008 20:51 utc | 3

After WW2, the French and Germans finally worked it out. Instead of acquisition by war, why not by Economic Union and a Peace Dividend for the social issues.
That utopian model BTW, will not last another decade, unless the Europeans………….. forget Uncle Sam.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Apr 22 2008 20:57 utc | 4

Helter skelter.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080422/exxonmobil_alaska.html
At lease someone has balls.
Are you r-r-ready to r-r-rumble!

Posted by: Fig Newton | Apr 22 2008 22:03 utc | 5

@Fig Newton
Alaska rejects final Exxon plan for giant gas field

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 22 2008 22:13 utc | 6

I suspect that those who believe the devaluation of the us dollar is part of a deliberate strategy to make amerika’s rich richer, have put the cart before the horse. In other words the devaluation of the dollar is a result of a change in fundamentals brought about by current get richer strategies, not a deliberate choice. A side effect not entirely unforseen or entirely unwanted for those who carry enough US$$$ to sell them short but a side effect nevertheless.
The problem is simple really; amerika no longer produces enough of what the world wants and can no longer pay for what it needs from ‘foreigners’, therefore the ‘net value of amerika’ as represented by the comparative value of the US$ to other currencies, has fallen.
The are numerous other reasons too of course. For example the sub-prime scam whereby amerikan bankers tried to rip off their depositors and stick the bill to overseas interests has caused a number of those overseas interests to decide that if they must pay the billions of US$ demanded by the fraudsters, they may as well make it as cheap as possible by pushing down the $’s value thereby reducing the amount of euros, renminbi or yen it will cost them.
Lastly the reserve currency issue. Most large contracts for commodities are negotiated in amerikan dollars. As we are all too aware the basic price of commodities across the board has risen by around 100% in 12 months (grain and most foodstuffs, oil and other energy forms, even fucking cheese has gone up by 120% in a year). One of the best ways to mitigate these price rises is if the value of the $ drops so that once again the actual amount paid in real money ie euros renminbi or yen, is much less.
For those of us living outside amerika there is a certain karmic symmetry to this, after all it was amerika’s decision to unilaterally and illegally invade Iraq which kicked off the inflation spiral by creating insecurity of oil supply.
Of course what comes next won’t effect the decision-makers in amerika but it will destroy the lives of a great many citizens whose worst crimes were taking their eye off the ball, or imagining that they were somehow different or better than other humans.
On the other hand what comes next for amerika will also come for many european countries a little later. Mostly apart from england (one of the first) they have been thus far able to stave off the ‘neo-con economic purification’ partly because the intergration of former warsaw pact states into the EC has allowed some control over the pace of change while ensuring that the profits have still been made and taken in euros.
But eventually they will hit the same obstacle as every other nation which produces goods requiring labour intensive processes and who are trying to compete with other producers whose labour comes far cheaper.
It just aint possible! It doesn’t matter whether the health system is private or socialised, or whether the pension scheme is funded or unfunded, in the end the cost of those benefits must be paid and ends up as a production cost somewhere. In the belief system which defines humans as economic units, such costs exist only to be pruned and since they can’t be pruned fast enough without upsetting the no longer economic units, it will be done slowly. Doing it slowly means in the end a nation or group of nations like the EC lives beyond it’s means.
The euro will drop until the standard of living of europeans is equivalent to the standard of living of it’s major trading partners (ie China and Nafta’d amerika). This is an inescapable truth of ‘globalisation’ as practised by neo-cons.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Apr 22 2008 22:39 utc | 7

one possible suggestion for America would be to ease off on the ideological tip and begin to recognize that culture & language are very importantly the key vehicles of values & virtues through generations. In other words, forget all this stuff about imposing Eurocentrism on the rest of the world.
America could put more effort into challenging its own failings (i.e. health-care and Katrina and the exporting the peoples livelihoods) instead of glorifying its own epic-ness and moral superiorities. And where the language & culture intersects should not bode fear (Spanish, Ebonics), over the opportunity to engage the other culture & language again as the vehicle for values & virtues. All cultures & languages (except the corporatist culture & language) aspire to more-or-less the same values & virtues, though they may go about it in very different ways. Likewise an America that respects & commits to protecting the yearning to express selfs in their culture & language — the Kurds, the Armenians, the Jews, the Palestinians, the Somali, the Eritrean, the Oromo, the Quebecs, the Pashtun, the Darfur, the Balochistan … Again, culture & language is the vehicle for the values it conveys.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Apr 23 2008 1:53 utc | 8

Well at least someone has been doing their economics reading.
Globalization means, for those below the salt from the 1% cronalia of Laputa,
your son will be a numbers runner, your daughter a street walker. What else?
Just look at England for your precedent, either the Industrial Revolution, or
the Irish Republican Era, before globalization bailed them out of the pubs.
The totality of global GDP’s, divided by the 1/5th part, as global competition
drives out and kills off the less-competitive, is $14,000,000,000,000. The rich
skim off 33%, the governments skim off 33% and religion, in various forms, 15%.
That leaves 12% for all of us, about $1,680,000,000,000, more or less. There are
6,800,000,000 humans on earth, more or less. 33% of them will never have more
than they can scratch, and can be left out of our proforma. Then 4,400,000,000.
$1,680,000,000,000 divided by 4,400,000,000 is $381 a year, about $1 a day.
The price of a 2000-calorie survival diet already exceeds that globalized income.
Those who’re still eating high on the hog, might want to cut back, but they won’t.
Those still able to find work might want to eat less, spend less, set more aside.
But they won’t. The fastest growing economic sector globally is tax dole welfare,
white collar welfare, white labcoat welfare, mercenary welfare, corporate welfare.
It follows then, unequivocally, this is a Final Global Welfare War to the Death.
He who dies with the most welfare vouchers, pemmican jerky and tobacco plugs wins!
Hoo-ahh!

A Portrait of the Global Economy

A Portrait of Your Future Benefactor

It’ll take a couple hundred years to devolve back to the Dark Ages.
You can relax. American Idle is on!! Go!! Go!! Run along now!!

Posted by: Tiny Tim | Apr 23 2008 2:09 utc | 9

I think that instead of trying to work backwards from our macro perceptions of what is up with the US politically or culturally, it makes more sense to accumulate facts about the mechanisms involved.
The subprime mess is ultimately due to the inability of the US workforce to pay off its loans, which is in turn a result of a global labor market and refusing to allow it to dictate a reduced lifestyle. When people are under economic stress like near-foreclosure, they resent any and all leaders. The Fed decided to issue as many dollars as it takes to help the investors avoid losing too much money on the loans, but not in ways that actually directly help people pay off the loans.
Dollars issued. Workforce still under stress. Sounds like that would explain the polls and inflation.
I think the bailout plan means that the banks will ultimately get to seize the houses, and the losses will be borne by the Fed rather than its member banks. The Fed will deduct the loss from its interest payment to the Treasury, and that will ultimately be made up for in taxes. The investors have their cake and eat it too. The workforce will lose their homes, and pay for a good chunk of them all over again via taxes anyway, with interest. They will be expected to work harder to accomplish that, while also dealing with resource scarcity and ongoing wage erosion. Some will work harder, some will get really pissed off. For them, we have the new police state – some of the pissed off will identify with it, and others will be its prey. A sad end if I’m right.

Posted by: boxcar mike | Apr 23 2008 2:24 utc | 10

Debs is dead: great post!
I am one of those you mentioned who mistakingly (i hope) sees the dollar’s devaluation as a strategy, but not just to make the rich richer. The problem is i don’t think the problem is simple, which is why, like many young americans, i am susceptible to leaps of paranoia.
johny_b_cool: i really wish Amerika could put more effort into challenging it’s own failings, but honestly i’m not holding my breath. as a product of Amerika’s corporate suburban soulless blackhole culture if you can call it that, i can say, from personal experience, how challenging it can be to break from the programming. maybe it’s just that i’ve moved from one obnoxious american reality tunnel to a different one, but at this point i’m even willing to see the subsidizing of biofuels like ethanol as having the intended side effect of exacerbating global starvation.

Posted by: Lizard | Apr 23 2008 2:35 utc | 11

Of course what comes next won’t effect the decision-makers in amerika but it will destroy the lives of a great many citizens whose worst crimes were taking their eye off the ball, or imagining that they were somehow different or better than other humans.
Or who were poor from the begining; and your point about these actions not effecting the decision makers is what kills me about all this. It’s extraordinary easy for these elite fucks to play with someone else’s money, e.g., the tax payers money. But insult to injury, is that they are so well buffered from their stupid actions that they suffer nothing. Have no consequences and it’s no sweat off their noses, what what do they care. In a civilized society this would be a crime.
I lost out on a potential date, encounter, connection, what have you, with a cute and attractive girl the other day at Barnes & Noble ™, being single at present, and spring approaching, well, you can imagine, biology takes over…lol, but I digress, While perusing the massive magazine section, one zine had a photograph contest of impressive Montana back county photo’s.
This particular one had a young girl carrying her basset hound in her back pack, while holding on to a hiking stick, it was cute as all get out.
Miss thing next to me inquired what I was laughing at, which struck up a natural rapport, that no sooner turned sour. As I continued looking at the magazines, and picked out zines such as ‘Montana Quarterly’, ‘Mountain Living’: style, life and home, Big Sky Journal etc… which for all intent purposes, should be called, Lifestyles of the Rich and famous and fuck everything else… as I looked at some of these massive sq footage houses/ranches and custom bath/spa/sauna rooms with their spectacular views on prime property with quaint little creeks running through them, (one even had a stream coming through the living room of the house, I shit you not) on ponds or lakes in or on national forests, I became appalled and it showed, by my facial expressions I guess.
About that time, ms. hawtness asked me what I was looking at with such distaste and I showed her the layout and spread of this opulent ranch house, and long story short, made the statement that while very nice, even if I had that kind of money, It would be obscene to me morally, to live like that while others live in such monstrous conditions of poverty.
Well, right about then I knew I had lost whatever spark there may have been, as she rolled her eyes, and Immediately, slapped down her zine of some artsy celebrity gossip magazine with a thud, and — like a expert marshal artist– or something, whipped her cell phone open like a switchblade, in a gang rumble, punched a key whipped her phone to her ear and walked away talking loudly to someone, or maybe no one who knows… it sure as hell wasn’t me… I looked and noticed she had left her latte behind, and said something to the effect of, “Hey, your coffee”, and she looks back with a displeased look on her face, phone stuck to her ear like an appendage, and said, “I’m done with it, thanks” in a not so sweet voice…
So ended my little book store hook up…lol

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 23 2008 3:01 utc | 12

Uncle: these face-to-face interactions with our fellow citizens can go south quickly. If i had a devalued amerikan dollar every time i killed a conversation with the wrong comment, maybe i could buy that obscenely large house with a babbling brook meandering idyllically through its foyer.
At the same time i think your story illustrates how some of the animosity towards Amerika is fueled by our insistence not to be disgusted with ourselves. Just the other day i read a local article about how much food is thrown away at our University’s main cafeteria: 3,100 lbs. IN ONE WEEK! apparently students commonly load up their trays with multiple entrees, to test what they like and throw away the rest. The solution: eliminate trays, so students can only take one plate at a time.
Meanwhile there are haitians who can’t afford mudcakes.

Posted by: Lizard | Apr 23 2008 4:35 utc | 13

Now comes EU Water Framework Directive, ratcheting down even the amount
of ammonia a chicken farmer can release (from his chickens, of course : ),
and in the US, equally draconian new water quality regulations that will
largely outlaw septic tanks, unless they’re retrofitted with wastewater
treatment modules costing $10,000’s, which, of course, will drop the value
of rural real estate, and trigger another wave of mortgage credit crises,
since most small farmers are long since tenant sharecroppers, not owners.
Where’s all the bazillions for environmental remediation going to come
from, that one investment advisor says is the biggest money-making con
potential this century? That’s saying alot, given BushCon’s heady start.
Which, by the way, boxcar mike, that subprime mess is ultimately due to
the ineffable greed of the US real estate and mortage banking industry
that created ARM’s at a time of historically low (effectively negative)
prime lending rates, knowing full well, as “professionals”, ARM resets,
Interest Only’s and Cash Back’s were the quickest way to enslave the US
workforce, and lock in commissions in the millions and tens
of millions, just for pushing a 160-page mortgage document under some
J6P’s nose, promising him that vacation of a lifetime, and a new Camaro,
while in many, many cases, victimizing elders who already owned their homes,
were living on a fixed incomes, and are now dispossessed, and evicted.
Wall Street knew exactly what it was doing, and repackaged that fraud into
corporate paper then leveraged up off that again, forging the shackles poor
citizens of the US:EU will wear for centuries, if you understand the
immutable laws of usury and compound interest, against a flat wage scale.
If not for Bush’s own ineffable greed for oil, and willingness to wage a
war of one hundred years to get his hands on it, Wall Street might have
gotten away with their quiet strategy of turning US into sharecroppers
and wage slaves. Write-downs aside, that they were able to work swaps
with Treasury for their radioactive waste, should have every US taxpayer
flaying themselves with chains, nailed-studded planks and razor blades.
That our ultimate “choice” in November may end up being between Grampa McCain
and Gramma Hillary , both BushCon’s, both NeoZi’s, both the kind of “I’m done
with it, thanks” neo-liberals who would throw all the J6P’s and Farmer Fred’s
under the bus, should have the whole country out marching in counterclockwise swastikas, and pledging fealty to anyone with a government pension program,
which, of course, the majority of Americans now already are.
When the wind blows, there is nobody home, just a screen door beating on
the faded clapboard siding, banging randomly, like a typical day in hell.

Posted by: Elliot Pavea | Apr 23 2008 6:10 utc | 14

“But insult to injury, is that they are so well buffered from their stupid actions that they suffer nothing. Have no consequences and it’s no sweat off their noses, what what do they care. In a civilized society this would be a crime.”
That’s why the guillotine was invented, you know.
I’m always amused when I read people saying “well, revolutions just replace a greedy elite by another one”, but still, the mere fact that from time to time some of the bastards are shot down and punished, even by other bastards, is in itself a good thing. Of course it would be better to have some reform or revolution that doesn’t give power to some oligarchy of psychipaths and greedy idiots. But in my opinion, the mere punishment of the precedent criminal elite is good in itself. At least, there’s a turnover at the top, and some other classes have a shot at leading the pack, which is a tiniest bit better than having at the top the same bunch of inbred morons from the dawn of men to eternity.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Apr 23 2008 8:05 utc | 15

#15 to #14,
there will be blood.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 23 2008 8:39 utc | 16

Nobody mentioned Iraq and how it ties into the subprime mess. They lowered the rates to pay for war. They thought that Iraqi oil would make up for it. First they take Iraq then Iran and thus control the energy flows to the World. Now it has backfired with the World’s largest consumer of oil paying the highest price due to the falling dollar. Instead of the intended flow of wealth into American coffers the wealth is flowing in the opposite direction every time someone fills up their tank. Iraq has become a festering scab that is sowing the seeds of demise of American hegemony.
They have delivered Iraq into the anti American so called Shia crescent driving Iraq’s majority into the open arms of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. They were warned of this before they invaded even by their Arab allies. Some say that Iran and America are working together to split Iraq but that is a total misread of the Iraqi people. The sectarian Hakim does not represent the majority of Shia let alone Iraqis. They won their power in elections via Sistani refusing to take sides in the Shia power struggle and urged the population to vote for a number (#17 most feared giving their names out in public) that represented all the Shia parties collectively. Since the Sunni and some of Sadr’s followers boycotted the election Hakim won by default not popular support. Now that Hakim is attacking his own base in southern Iraq and Baghdad he has alienated his own people. The emergence of Sadr as a hero of the people is a turning point that will never recede.
The Sunni Arab World hates the sectarian government in Iraq for conducting the Sunni genocide but their choice for most popular Arab in the World is Nazrallah a Shia. The present killing of Shia in Iraq supported by that sectarian government will bring the Shia and Sunni together against the government. People make the mistake of thinking that Iran supports the break up of Iraq that Hakim espouses but that would in turn create an independant free Kuristan which would create much bigger problems for Iran and Turkey. Iran and Turkey bomb Iraq regularly trying to prevent this. Sadr is a nationalist and has no desire to break up Iraq. Why should he when Shia have the numbers to dominate Iraq politically through elections. It’s only a matter of time before the Sunni join him against the government that they both hate and kills both of their people. In plain english this means that Iraqi oil will stay off limits to Americans just as Saddam demanded. Those that think Iraqis will sign their oil over to Exxon haven’t been paying attention.
This effect is rife throughout the World as more countries join the rebellion. Iran has not been isolated as Russia, China, Pakistan, Switzerland and India line up for energy deals. Pakistan is refusing to kill their own people in the name of Bush’s WOT and are making peace with AL Queda. All the Arab countries snubbed Madame Torturer and refused to open Embassies in Baghdad or even to offer debt relief. South America is lining up with Chavez and creating their own banking and military defense systems. The might of China keeps rising as more and more countries turn away from the gunboat diplomacy of Bush. It’s simple really. If you want to play Robocop to the World you better be a good cop becuase nobody likes a dirty cop. The invasion of Iraq created these conditions and shovelling hundreds of billions of oil dollars into the pockets of America’s enemies is the result.

Posted by: Sam | Apr 23 2008 14:22 utc | 17

nice wrap up sam

Posted by: annie | Apr 23 2008 16:35 utc | 18

CluelessJoe, that’s never going to happen for the simple reason, that they have every man woman and child under surveillance and would squash any project like that, there would be no way to organize any type of event or resistance, be it peaceful or armed insurrection unless it were a spontaneous up rising.
Now that would be a whole other horse of a different color.
No, I think they, the (ptb) have the upper hand by mere psychology. They (these jackals) are willing to do what ever it takes to maintain power. And when I say whatever it takes, I mean to the very brink. They will tear the playhouse down before being brought to justice and the masses are to easily cowed and herded through psyops to put up a fight, and they know it.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 23 2008 17:16 utc | 19

You are all exactly right on the money – literally – but for the one that said we live lavish luxurious lifestyles – you are dead wrong. I’m a mom of two kids, live in an apartment, have a 14 year old car, no prospects of ever having a home of any kind, new vehicle and now it appears that my children are facing a future with limited to no prospects of ever having any form of freedom and there isn’t a damn thing i can do to stop this. I’ve been so worried trying to make sure my bills got paid that I ignored the news, didn’t have time to look at the news, was busy trying to raise a family and now that I’m seeing so many people being foreclosed and the weather all over this world and the devestation that is happening, I’ve been trying to get the media, my supposed senators, ANYONE to listen and to try to help – but Bush will not let go of the vicegrip he’s got on our lives and will not get the hell out of there and worry about his own country – he’s too busy trying to line his pockets with the money that the majority of us here have paid into a system that has been positioned to destroy us. I can’t go more than half an hour before i end up in tears thinking about what is happening and being unable to stop it. What is unfathomable to me is that Americans are the first to jump in to help with whatever we have – which lately isn’t much, yet we go to Myrnamar and give food, medicine, water, the very things that we will not have ourselves very shortly – then we go to China and do the same, yet apparently the European/MiddleEast and Asia have calculated on the machinations of one greedy, bastard President to strip us of our freedom and use that to place us in poverty in order to knock him down a peg. Our President staged an attack on our own country – killed thousands of our people by crashing our own planes for the specific intent of setting us up to approve his personal war to show his superiority – we didn’t know – didn’t believe someone we trusted could do such a thing – we thought we had an enemy that had attacked us in an unbelieveably brutal manner – our media fed us the story they were supposed to – our president played us for fools – and has been – he tells us everything is fine, don’t worry – so people go out and spend their money instead of putting it away (although to be honest it isn’t worth anything anymore anyway) he doesn’t give us the ability to invest in our rail systems, or “green” homes, solar technology, or tell us that the economy – not just our own, but that of the world is collapsing and we’re just hurrying towards our own demise – so when some of us start looking around and see where we’re heading – its too late- and now he’s sentenced us to die in hell – with the rest of the world applauding. it is truly heartbreaking that hatred of one man is going to result in teh detruction of a country in a cruel and unusual manner – just bomb the hell out of us – PLEASE – put us out of our misery – it would be a humane gesture.

Posted by: tefta | May 25 2008 1:54 utc | 20

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