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Wanna buy some dollars?
Let’s face it, the “almighty dollar” isn’t as mighty as it once was.
In fact, compared to a lot of other currencies, it isn’t even worth a dollar anymore. Check the foreign currency rates and you’ll find that the dollar is currently valued at about 51 cents compared to a British pound and approximately 68 cents compared to a Euro. Even the Canadian dollar, which was always worth less, is now its equal.
When I read, as I did the other day, that many businessmen overseas would now rather be paid in just about any other currency than the dollar, I figure that can’t be good. Maybe it’s all got something to do with the fact that our national debt is now more than $9 trillion dollars – that’s a nine followed by 12 digits – and increasing by more than $1.54 billion a day. But what do I know? I’m not an economist. I’m just an aging American who was brought up to believe that you don’t spend more than you earn and who also remembers the days when the Yankee dollar was the most sought after currency in the world.
Only a few years ago, when my wife and I were still traveling abroad regularly, I always made it a point, like most seasoned travelers, to carry as many one dollar bills as possible in my wallet. That was because, while we would always exchange some American money into the local currency, a dollar bill could close a deal in a bazaar or market place where bargaining and haggling over price is an art form.
“How much?” you’d ask, pointing to some souvenir, and the merchant would say 500 drachma or dinar or whatever, but when you held out an America dollar he’d say, “No problem,” and hand over the wooden carving or stone statuette of what he claimed was a genuine antique image of an ancient god.
My first experience with the volatility of monetary exchange rates came at the end of World War II. Our ship, an amphibious flagship with the Seventh Fleet, was in the Philippines, preparing for the invasion of the Japanese homeland, when the atomic bomb was dropped and the war came to an abrupt end. As a result, instead of Japan we were ordered into Shanghai, China where we moored in the Huangpu River while the surrender there was implemented.
For us enlisted men it was good duty, the first real liberty ashore we’d seen in almost two years. When we came off the landing craft that was used to ferry us from our ship to the dock at the foot of Nankin Road, an area known as the Bund, we were greeted by peddlers hawking their wares in pidgin English, barefooted laborers in straw hats and money changers shouting out their rates.
There were two kinds of Chinese currency at that time. One was known as CNC for Chinese National Currency and the other was a form of Japanese occupation money, which was considered worthless. The rate for the CNC kept escalating as you walked along – 700 to the dollar, 750, 800 – and we soon learned that you were better off keeping your dollars, which were readily accepted by almost everyone.
Many years later my wife and I ran into the same type of situation in the then Soviet Union where we were informed on arrival that the official rate of exchange was 70 rubles to one dollar and warned that exchanging dollars for rubles anywhere but at an official Soviet bank was a serious offense and strictly forbidden.
The first night there, while we were having dinner in the hotel, the waiter leaned over and whispered, “Want 300 rubles for a dollar?” in my ear.
Despite the warning, I slipped him a 10 bill and he handed me a wad of 3,000 wrinkled rubles. Turned out to be a mistake. It wasn’t that they were counterfeit. They were real enough, but out on the street they were offering three times as much for a dollar. The ruble was just about as worthless then as a Chinese dollar had been at the end of World War II, and the reason the Russians were so anxious to exchange rubles for dollars was because the only place they could buy consumer goods was at “Hard Currency Only” stores where only U.S. dollars, British pounds, West German marks or French francs were accepted.
Imagine living in a country where your own hard-earned money is no longer accepted at a local store. Could never happen here, right? But “Euros Accepted” signs are now popping up in New York City and there’s even one store that accepts Euros only. Of course, that’s only a gimmick intended to attract European tourists.
I hope.
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