For a start ... whatever happens in the 'planned devaluation' of the US$ ... US trade deficits continue to grow. This is called the J-curve by analysts, meaning that Americans go on buying things from abroad (like oil and Chinese, Japanese or Indian goods to fill their supermarkets) despite those imports costing more in devalued dollars, so increasing the trade deficit for some while.
After that "while," New Economy gurus claim, the curve goes down and an awful lot of Americans lose their jobs. The gurus keep their jobs, and a Happy Few of the new jobless will get work producing goods to fill the empty spaces foreign goods used to occupy on supermarket shelves.
This is the theory ... and it was tried out after the so-called 'Plaza devaluation' in Reagan's second term, leading to the J-curve giving the previous record high for US trade deficits. At the time, the US was only a modest oil importer, just a few million barrels per day, and not dependent on today's flood of imported oil, now costing the US at least $120 billion per year, at a price of around US$45-50 a barrel ... at $60/bbl oil imports to the US would cost near to $150 billion in a full year.
And one thing is sure: if the US$ falls fast and far against the Euro, ¥en and likely not the Yuan ... then oil exporters will have little or no choice but to fully switch to Euro pricing.
While the US$ still dominates world trade (about 52% of all trade is transacted in dollars), the Euro has come from nowhere to take about 22% of all trade transactions.
The Euro certainly does have the coverage now and volume to handle the world's oil trade, unlike the ¥en or Yuan.
Even better for oil exporters, a switch to the Euro -- an intrinsically stronger money than the US$ -- will, by the magic irony of world markets, lead to a higher oil price in dollar terms!
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Also, remaining users of the US$ for oil transactions ... perhaps those Saudi princely friends of the Bush family .. will find that the dollar buys ever less, and so they have to increase their prices to maintain purchasing power. This ratchets up the oil price in dollars, before being rounded up again when it is priced and traded in Euro.
If you can follow all that, you are doing better than I am. But, one thing I have noticed to bolster the idea that the dropping dollar is not as well "planned" as its caretakers would like to insist is that Mr. Hussein was routed coincidentally with his threats to trade oil in euros. For more on that aspect of the invasion of Iraq, click here on my website war page and read the articles in the box at the top of the right-hand column. Venezuela's Chávez rattles that saber some times, too, and nobody's likely to sell their oil in a currency that isn't good for their economy. (And I keep remembering this.) So, while I don't understand the ins and outs of the finances, I'll be watching for any eventuality of an oil producer switching petro currency (and Republicans dumping their dollars for euros).
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