The Dollar is Falling, The Dollar is Falling!

Yesterday's NY Times reported that the dollar continues its swan dive against the Euro, resting at $1.40 per 1 Euro. In fact, the greenback pretty much sucks against all major currencies. Our friends to the north, the Canadian ones, are now even stevens with us. That's right, one US dollar equals one Canadian dollar. Now you know times are tough.

Forget the trip to Spain, forget the supposedly cheap trip to visit friends in Montreal, I'd pretty much have to go to the Third World to afford to travel. But enough about me, back to Bernanke. The Fed's unexpected half point rate cut sent markets scrambling to correct. American tourists aren't the only ones fretting. A strong Euro makes it more expensive for EU companies to do business globally;

"For example, big importers and refiners of crude can expect a shot in the arm, maybe even enabling them to hire more people. But manufacturing employees who get laid off because sales ebb on the back of a strong euro cannot simply go into the energy business."

One of the benefits to a strong Euro here in the city, aside from having to sidestep every middle class European tourist and their mother logjamming the sidewalk, is their investment dollars on our square footage. On NPR this morning, Brian Lehrer spoke with Jonathan Miller about his study linking foreign exchange rates to NYC housing inventory. Between Europeans pied a terring Uptown and Israelis bankrolling blocks in Brooklyn, the dollar falling might not be so bad after all.