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solarbirdCHRIST, I'm an idiot. I finally figured out why the dollar didn't fall as much as 30% last year as I (and, in my own defense, boatloads of other people including Warren Buffett) expected it to do. It's so obvious that I feel very dumb.
Oil price - in real value - soared last year, as everyone knows. Oil sales - internationally, anyway - are universally denominated in dollars. Every country that has to import oil has to buy that oil with US dollars, so, obviously, they had to buy many more dollars than the year before, thus floating the value of the currency.
Really, the 30% the dollar arguably should have fallen plus the amount it actually rose against major industrial currencies is very close to the end-of-year oil price percentage increase in absolute terms, and the end of year oil price was down significantly below the earlier highs, so it about evens out for the earlier parts of the year, before oil took off.
This, by the way, all but guarantees some form of action against Iran this year, probably before June. All but guarantees it. Iran's oil bourse is opening in March, in theory, and will be denominated in Euros, in theory. Assuming that happens, it kicks the last major support peg out from underneath the current valuation of the dollar. It would be smarter for the US to allow that bourse to open and accept a dual-currency system for oil, because, geopolitically and militarily, the second option - military action - would be much worse. (The third option, sanctions, is probably not going to fly unless China (and India, but mostly China) get to opt out of it for oil. That could happen.)
On the good side, the pain of increased import prices will be at least partially offset by the increased capability of American exporters to compete, and will be limited by the distance between Chinese production costs and wholesale; there's still room for profit erosion, if competition holds up. But at this point I'm getting well ahead of my knowledge, so I should STFU before I look too much like a talky jerk.
In other news, I made a journal aggregator that shows various views of my journal (most recent, most recent flowers, most recent leaves, most recent boring essays like this one ^_^ ), and linked it in to my personal arty website so anybody going to my art site can see some of my nattering on here without so obviously hopping sites. I also updated the text page quite a bit; it points to some of my professional writing.
I wanted to do more clever and more transparent things than the iframes approach I ended up using, but if you've got an S1 journal, you can't do the transparent kind of embedding I wanted to do and also filter on tags. It's one or the other. I am sad! But not sad enough to learn a whole @#$*&(!!! programming language just to duplicate a buttload of work and then some more work to pull that trick off. The barrier to entry is too damn high for too little reward. And this does work. So la!
Reds are motivated by POWER, seek productivity, and need to look good to others. Simply stated, REDS want their own way. They like to be in the drivers seat and willingly pay the price to be in a leadership role. REDS value whatever gets them ahead in life, whether it be at work, school, or in their personal relationships. What REDS value, they get done. They are often workaholics. They will, however, resist being forced to do anything that doesn't interest them.
Reds need to appear knowledgeable. They crave approval from others for their intelligence and insight. They want to be respected even more than they want to be loved. They want to be admired for their logical, practical minds. REDS are confident, proactive, visionary, and can be arrogant, selfish, and insensitive. When you deal with a RED, be precise, factual, and direct.
What Color Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Oil price - in real value - soared last year, as everyone knows. Oil sales - internationally, anyway - are universally denominated in dollars. Every country that has to import oil has to buy that oil with US dollars, so, obviously, they had to buy many more dollars than the year before, thus floating the value of the currency.
Really, the 30% the dollar arguably should have fallen plus the amount it actually rose against major industrial currencies is very close to the end-of-year oil price percentage increase in absolute terms, and the end of year oil price was down significantly below the earlier highs, so it about evens out for the earlier parts of the year, before oil took off.
This, by the way, all but guarantees some form of action against Iran this year, probably before June. All but guarantees it. Iran's oil bourse is opening in March, in theory, and will be denominated in Euros, in theory. Assuming that happens, it kicks the last major support peg out from underneath the current valuation of the dollar. It would be smarter for the US to allow that bourse to open and accept a dual-currency system for oil, because, geopolitically and militarily, the second option - military action - would be much worse. (The third option, sanctions, is probably not going to fly unless China (and India, but mostly China) get to opt out of it for oil. That could happen.)
On the good side, the pain of increased import prices will be at least partially offset by the increased capability of American exporters to compete, and will be limited by the distance between Chinese production costs and wholesale; there's still room for profit erosion, if competition holds up. But at this point I'm getting well ahead of my knowledge, so I should STFU before I look too much like a talky jerk.
In other news, I made a journal aggregator that shows various views of my journal (most recent, most recent flowers, most recent leaves, most recent boring essays like this one ^_^ ), and linked it in to my personal arty website so anybody going to my art site can see some of my nattering on here without so obviously hopping sites. I also updated the text page quite a bit; it points to some of my professional writing.
I wanted to do more clever and more transparent things than the iframes approach I ended up using, but if you've got an S1 journal, you can't do the transparent kind of embedding I wanted to do and also filter on tags. It's one or the other. I am sad! But not sad enough to learn a whole @#$*&(!!! programming language just to duplicate a buttload of work and then some more work to pull that trick off. The barrier to entry is too damn high for too little reward. And this does work. So la!
Reds are motivated by POWER, seek productivity, and need to look good to others. Simply stated, REDS want their own way. They like to be in the drivers seat and willingly pay the price to be in a leadership role. REDS value whatever gets them ahead in life, whether it be at work, school, or in their personal relationships. What REDS value, they get done. They are often workaholics. They will, however, resist being forced to do anything that doesn't interest them.
Reds need to appear knowledgeable. They crave approval from others for their intelligence and insight. They want to be respected even more than they want to be loved. They want to be admired for their logical, practical minds. REDS are confident, proactive, visionary, and can be arrogant, selfish, and insensitive. When you deal with a RED, be precise, factual, and direct.
What Color Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
