Readers Question: Where is the US economy headed? Is it inflation or depression? Recently, Goldman Sachs predicted a rough year ahead for the US Dollar. They forecast the dollar may fall against Pound Sterling to $1.85 in 12 months. Against the Euro, they forsee it to fall to $1.55 in a year’s time. Exchange rates …
A casual observer may have been led into thinking that the recent credit crunch and recession were caused by profligate governments, with Governments spending and borrowing too much. Much attention has been focused on the need for fiscal austerity and less on ways to maintain recovery and help reduce unemployment. Governments are not entirely blameless, …
If you are studying for exams, you will hopefully, be learning that the value of a currency is generally influenced by factors such as: Interest rates – low interest rates lead to hot money flows out of economy and a weaker exchange rate. Relative inflation rates – Higher inflation makes a countries exports uncompetitive and …
Readers Question: Does it (financial crisis) have any possible positive effects for the future? It is an opportunity to repair a broken financial system and put in safeguards to prevent future boom and busts. For example, we could have policies which banks automatically hold more deposits during a boom to provide counter cyclical instruments. Better …
Some people or businesses are reluctant to switch banks because they think the process could be time-consuming and risk loosing information. It is easy to stay with the bank you first chose through inertia when but switching your account could help you get a better deal. The Banking Conduct of Business Sourcebook (BCOBS) which replaced …
One of the great challenges of Monetary and Fiscal Policy is knowing exactly where the economy is. If output is falling, then this justifies an easing of monetary policy (lower interest rates, or in the UK’s current situation more quantitative easing). Recently GDP statistics showed an unexpected 0.4% fall in GDP. This was a key …
Readers Question What are your predictions for us/Canadian dollar currency. Do you think they will reach par in 2009 ? Recently the Canadian dollar has been weak against the US dollar. This is because of the plunge in commodity prices which depress Canadian export revenues and decrease value of Canadian Dollar. Despite many problems in …
The US Dollar is often viewed as a safe haven currency. It is still the world’s reserve currency and the thinking is that if the dollar goes bust the rest of the world will be in an even worse situation. Therefore, during the worst of the economic turmoil, the dollar remained relatively strong because investors …