Funny to see this old thread revisited. The dollar did briefly surge over the past year and a half, and now it's again very low against the Euro and some (but not all) foreign currencies.

The previous post is even more amusing in that it suggests that certain countries -- like oil producing ones -- are unhappy having their products priced in dollars. This is certifiably insane, at least as it pertains to oil. Right now, oil is at bizarrely high levels (for a deep recession with a massive oil glut) solely because it IS priced in dollars! Namely, speculators are using it as a hedge against the dollar. Everyone on Wall St. sees this almost every day. If you didn't price oil in dollars, it would likely be worth a heck of a lot less in whatever currency you wanted to quote it in.

Indeed, the control that speculators currently have over the currency market is scary. Like oil, there is really no way anymore to FUNDAMENTALLY predict currency prices. If I was running an import/export business this would drive me nuts, as I would have no way of knowing whether -- say six months from now -- my business would be sustainable.

I do think the countries with weak currencies (namely the US and China) benefit at the expense of countries whose currencies are overvalued -- which is now pretty much everyone in Europe with the notable exception of the UK. It makes exporting goods SO much easier. It leaves Europe to wallow in its uncompetitiveness. Indeed, the only real benefit to Europeans is the ability to take cheap vacations abroad. Do it while you can!