How low can the dollar go?

Quote from phatlosz:

Maybe I don't follow... The main point of my question is that if our dollar is devalued due to inflation or hyperinflation - would earning a wage from another country (via the internet, etc) be a good way to gain wealth in comparison to those who are still earning dollars?

I've heard that all of the Hungarian currency combined didn't equal 1000th of a US dollar when they finally settled their bout of hyperinflation. My thought is, if a Hungarian man could have earned one US dime per day, he'd be well off. Does that make sense? Why or why not?

Thanks.
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Where did you hear that, in a barber shop? Seriously, have you ever looked at a HUF graph before? See how interestingly it moves along the euro? It's because it unofficially/naturally is tied to it, being in the EU and all... The point is, before you want to accumulate wealth in a currency, you should learn what you can about it and it still might not be enough with these small currencies...

The claim that for a Hungarian a dime a day is a great deal is so funny, that I don't even begin where to start... The minimum wage there is $2.20/hour and someone earning that little is practically a beggar... Not to mention that you will have your ass handed to you if you try to pay or bid someone below that. It's not a developing country any more. Not in a sense that South-East Asia, or some parts of Africa, or even (more) Eastern Europe is...

The second reason your claim is funny, is because if I understood you well, you live in the US. What on Earth do you want to do with a dime a day, even if it is in a foreign currency?
 
Louise Yamada (who was voted TA Queen of Wall Street several years in a row) sees a potential USD bottom around 60.

Peter Schiff, a notorious $ bear sees a bottom somewhere between 50 and 40... if they decide to change course in time.

Myself? No idea.

Other major currencies have their share of problems as well so i tend agree on the contrarians of today of a USD becoming relatively more atractive VS other big currencies should it continue to drop.

Having said that I don't own any dollars besides my precious metal stocks who are denominated in USD.
 
Quote from Blue_Bull:

It's getting kinda ridiculous. I just realized we're down 20% over the past year vs. the Euro.
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The USD dropped 45% vs the European Currencies in 18 months, 1984-1985. There are no limits to drops in financial markets, who says the Dollar index can't go much much lower? So far, by historical standard we're seeing nothing special right now. The (synthetic, back-adjusted) EUR has been at the 1.50/1.60 area a couple times before.

1978, 1994 and most recently 2008.

Every time it was the end of the empire and the US was declared bankrupt, doomed and finished. I know I know, this time it's "for real" :cool:
 
Quote from jprad:

Are these things guaranteed to deliver you a certain quantity of the underlying even in the event of an extended trading halt?

If not, then they pretty much carry the same risk as any other exchange traded fund and these have piss-poor rates of return compared to the others.

I'm not talking the leveraged ETFs either. Most of the 1x index ETFs and a good many others completely dust these currency beasts in rate of return and liquidity.

So, what's the point?
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This is not a helpful post. The OP is looking to hedge against US currency devaluation. Who cares what the other ETFs do? What is their correlation to the dollar? As for whether they are echangeable for actual underlying is also a misleading point. Can you exchange a share in SPY for underlying shares? Naturally even cash in your bank is fake during a collapse. If that's the concern then demand actual currency notes and store them in a safe. The currency ETFs are a viable tool to hedge inflation. Just beware the tax consequences.
 
Quote from orange_trad:

Where did you hear that, in a barber shop? Seriously, have you ever looked at a HUF graph before? See how interestingly it moves along the euro? It's because it unofficially/naturally is tied to it, being in the EU and all... The point is, before you want to accumulate wealth in a currency, you should learn what you can about it and it still might not be enough with these small currencies...

The claim that for a Hungarian a dime a day is a great deal is so funny, that I don't even begin where to start... The minimum wage there is $2.20/hour and someone earning that little is practically a beggar... Not to mention that you will have your ass handed to you if you try to pay or bid someone below that. It's not a developing country any more. Not in a sense that South-East Asia, or some parts of Africa, or even (more) Eastern Europe is...

The second reason your claim is funny, is because if I understood you well, you live in the US. What on Earth do you want to do with a dime a day, even if it is in a foreign currency?
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1946 inflation was the highest in history.
before u shoot from the hip check your facts.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Hyperinflation.html
now go get a haircut. unbelievable what people will post.
 
So I guess my question was misunderstood... Presume I were living in Hungary in 1945/1946 and there was a way for me to earn a small wage in dollars (maybe 10 cents a day). Knowing that all the currency in Hungary didn't add up to even 1 american penny at the end of '46; would my daily wage translate into an incredible amount of wealth in Hungary? Or would I still be poor?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation
 
Quote from phatlosz:

So I guess my question was misunderstood... Presume I were living in Hungary in 1945/1946 and there was a way for me to earn a small wage in dollars (maybe 10 cents a day). Knowing that all the currency in Hungary didn't add up to even 1 american penny at the end of '46; would my daily wage translate into an incredible amount of wealth in Hungary? Or would I still be poor?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation
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like in germany the medium of exchange was probably cigarettes. US money would
probably have been discounted very heavily.
 
Quote from zdreg:

like in germany the medium of exchange was probably cigarettes. US money would
probably have been discounted very heavily.
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What do you mean by "discounted heavily"?
 
Quote from phatlosz:

You've made the assumption that I have money to purchase assets; I need to figure out the best way to prepare when one doesn't have cash to swap into something else. :)
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Do what I did. Learn how to pan for gold. You will always have a job then. I took panning lessons which cost 80$ to learn, but I found about $40 in gold that day. On any given day, if i work 3-5 hours I can pull about a gram of gold out of the ground. Todays spot price for gold means thats almost $40 per gram. (this is with nothing more than a pan, shovel, bucket & 3 foot portable sluice box) All that equipment costs about $150-$180 total. One day I may get a panning machine as panning is the hardest part of the job and you are never sure if you accidently lost a few flakes. A panning machine would cut my work time in half, but they cost about $350.

Im lucky though that i live in CA and there is lots of gold here.
 
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