Quote from Now is Now:
Richrf,
Greed did them in but good.
There are a number reasons why the dollar strengthened including the obvious, but what is not so obvious was that the Eastern bloc borrowed dollars ,, weak and weakening at the time, to invest in their respective countries and when it came to paying the interest and principal on their failing investments they all rushed simultaneously to cover their liabilities by having to sell their weakening currency to buy US dollars.
The end result... some of these countries will have to ultimately devalue their currency; thereby strengthening the US dollar further..
This has also happened in Europe and South East Asia to lesser extent.
hmmm... exactly the southeast asian crises of 98.
Indonesian rupiah went from like 2500 -> 16800 and is still 10000 to a dollar. All because of US dollar loans gone bad and unpayable.