[rmrm]

and yet the dollar is not substantially weakened vs other currencies, it is quite strong. This isn't a dollar specific phenomenon at all.

It seems a more appropriate statement would be destruction of all currencies purchasing power. Which leads me to wonder - what is the impact of that exactly?

Should the dollar be allowed to strengthen greatly (relatively to basket of all other currencies), is that what people are proposing? Can we guess at what the dollar based economy might do in that instance?

[toephu2]

"is quite strong"...yes currently, but the decline has already begun against major currencies, e.g. JPY: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=JPY&view=1Y Also checkout the dollar index: http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy

[rmrm]

My point is that other currencies are not static. All the world economies are jockeying to have relatively weak currencies, in order to attempt to spur inflation and ease their debt loads. It's all relative. The US is not in some particularly bad spot, certainly Japan and Europe finance ministers would trade places with ours any day of the week. We have a remarkably strong economy (and everything else, really) in comparison (which is all that matters).