For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to put some of the money I earned in Russia in my US bank account rather than just change it all into Swedish kronor directly. I thought it was better not to have so much cash, etc.
When we got here the exchange rate was about 7.2 kronor to the dollar. It hit a high of 7.4 in early October, at which point I should have taken all my money out of the bank. But I waited. And the dollar started to sink. “It’s OK,” I thought. “It will go back up again.” But no, it got worse and worse. And I kept thinking, “should I take money out now or wait and see what happens?” I waited. This is what happened: the rate is currently 6.88. Aaaaaaaaah!
We can live another month or two on the cash we have here, but at some point we’re going to have to use the money in the account, and I hope the dollar gets better by then. Do any of you know anything about economics and how likely that is to happen?
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3 December 2006 at 4:14 pm
Claudia
Take a look at the 1 year exchange rate graph for Swedish Krona to the US dollar. The dollar lost almost 16% of its value. Unless there are big changes in the economic policy of the US, the dollar will probably fall further.
4 December 2006 at 8:27 pm
W. Shedd
Generally US economic policy for at least 20 years has involved the dollar losing value against other currencies to make imports more expensive and our exports more competitive. It is also one of the end results of all the borrowing the government and people do here. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. There might be short term gains here and there, but long term it points to decline.