Dollar starts the big slide against major currencies

Who benefits?

The benefits of the falling dollar vastly outweigh the costs for the U.S. economy. The primary costs of the falling dollar are higher prices for imported goods and for American tourists traveling abroad. The primary benefit is increased price competitiveness of U.S. products, both for exports abroad as well as in the domestic market. The United States currently has an enormous trade deficit (importing more than it exports), which represents a significant drag on efforts to spur economic growth and create jobs, and has led to an accumulation of foreign debt that will have to be repaid in the future. Given this trade deficit, the benefits of greater international competitiveness prompted by the falling dollar greatly outweigh the costs.

For the past five years, the strong dollar has hurt many U.S. companies as earnings repatriated in weaker currencies served to put a crimp in profits, not to mention sales. The boom years of the late 1990s masked that to some degree. But the subsequent weak economy made the impact of the muscular American currency increasingly apparent. After all, about 25% of U.S. corporate profits come from overseas.

Ah, the same elite gang that benefit from Free Trade Agreements and Deregulation (a term that means a corporation does not have to answer to the public in anyway, but can do what it wants).