The drop in the dollar is caused by interest rates, which, as you pointed out, is caused by the housing market. The fed is trying to stem the tide of a housing crash - which may not be the right answer.
I definitely don't think it is the answer. The majority of people affected are those that shouldn't have given out loans and those that knew they shouldn't be getting a housing loan.
And while the middle class takes a big hit when it comes to selling it does become a buyers market. My wife and I are looking at buying a house in the next few years and watching prices drop, and knowing that if you offer 10% under the asking price will probably get you a deal is making this ideal for us.
As it goes though the housing market just boomed too much too fast and while people are getting hurt by the crash it is a stabilizing effect in the long run and trying to stop it and bail people out will either slow the stabilization or cause a repeat boom and crash.
The main issue with all this is that pay has not gone up to meet the suddenly increasing cost of living. If it weren't for that I wouldn't even blink at rising gas prices.
True but it can be made out of coal (even low grade coal).
But guess who owns the patent on this; yes the oil companies.
An even bigger issue here is that Congress passed a bill saying that the government cannot purchase a fuel that creates more greenhouse gas in its complete life cycle than petrol.
Because the oil to gas process and technology is relatively new the total emissions after production and use make it worse than petrol. So, even if they get this running efficiently the government is preventing themselves from using it until they make it clean. So, once again climate concerns have taken place over economic concerns.
But then they are a green myth anyway. Only slightly less Co2 production and most of it is made from what used to be rainforest land. It's not in the least bit sustainable either so god knows why people invest in it.
The only reason why most of it is made from rainforest lands is because the countries that are making efficient use of it are in tropical regions and the most efficient plants used to date, sugarcane, requires a tropical climate.
But even if we all used sugarcane based bio-fuels there isn't enough proper farmland to support it outside of the individual countries.
And in cooler temperate climates the most efficient plants that can be grown locally don't provide enough to support their own needs. That and when grain keeps going toward bio-fuels it makes all my other prices go up to.
Manage Profile
