How Far Can Your Dollar Stretch?
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Several members of Congress recently made news when they tried to see if they could subsist on $21 per week -- the average amount that food stamp recipients receive to supplement their income.
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NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--After seven months of bumping around within a range, it appears as if the dollar may finally be on its way somewhere - down.
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ECONOMISTS may be fretting about the implications for the global economy of the near historically weak US dollar.
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Sure the currency is tumbling, but don&#39;t expect the FOMC to do much out of the ordinary today. NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - It&#39;s pretty clear that another interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve today will not be much of a headline maker.
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Think twice before engaging in a lot of trading. Patience often wins out.
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This is going to be the year the world learns to live with a cheaper dollar. How well it does that may have a profound effect on prospects for continued world growth.
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Where does that money go, anyway?
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The Euro today set a new record high, breaking through key 1.41 levels in the early part of the European trading session. The Dollar touched another record low against the Euro as investors continued to dump the U.S. currency after the aggressive rate cut by the Federal Reserve earlier this week. The Dollar's slump comes on the back of increasing worries over the U.S. economy in the wake of its mortgage crisis.
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Boost your mood by stretching your paycheck.
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Stocks, bonds, the dollar and real estate look pricey. Here's what to do
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The dollar was a whisker away from a record low against the euro on Friday after the currency succumbed the previous day to weak U.S. economic data, including disappointing housing figures.
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The dollar held near the previous day's  one-month low against the euro on Wednesday after the Federal  Reserve raised rates as expected, but signaled that tightening  would continue only at a moderate pace.
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The threat of losing money now could help you make money in the long run.
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(InfoWorld) - The declining value of the U.S. dollar should allow PC vendors to offer bargains to people living in the euro zone, while U.S. consumers probably won't feel much of a pinch, according to a leading economist. The U.S. currency has suffered from a decision by the Federal Open Market Committee to lower the federal funds rate 50 basis points to 4.75 percent. That's the rate financial institutions charge each other for overnight loans and it has a big impact on overall interest rates in a country. The lower rate hurts the dollar because it causes investments to flow out of the U.S. to find higher interest rates elsewhere, such as England where the rate is 5.75 percent, or Australia where it is 6.5 percent. The Fed said it reduced the rate to stave off credit problems associated with theÂ bad-loans crisis in the U.S. housing market. A negative side affect for people in the U.S. is that the falling currency is leading to higher prices for some commodities. The price of oil, for example, rose to a record $83 a barrel on Thursday, largely due to the cut in the federal fund rate, according to Robert Mundell, professor of economics at Columbia University and the 1999 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics. Oil is traded globally in U.S. dollars, but oil traders have bid the price per barrel higher to offset the declining value of the U.S. dollar. Higher oil prices raise fuel costs for consumers, including heating oil and gasoline, and potentially mean higher prices for airplane tickets and shipping rates. The situation is far different for computer components, despite the fact they are also bought and sold in U.S. dollars around the world. While oil producers have the power to raise prices in order to compensate for the weaker dollar, makers of computer parts, for which the market is far more competitive, do not have the same type of leverage. The good news for people in the euro zone is that the euro rose to a record high against the dollar after the Fed's rate decision, so people in countries that use the euro should see bargains for a number of IT items. Currency traders bid the price of the euro to $1.41 on Friday, up from $1.37 at the beginning of September and $1.39 a day ahead of Tuesday's Fed rate cut. By comparison, the euro bought only $0.82 at its low point in October 2000. The stronger European currency should bring more bang for the buck, so to speak, unless retailers take advantage of better exchange rates to boost their own profits. For Americans, the news isn't bad. Despite the decline in the currency, component prices probably won't rise, Mundell said, because most of the computer industry is located in the U.S. and Asia. "Asia is a U.S. dollar area," he said, during a briefing with reporters in Taipei on Friday. Computer components are bought and sold in the U.S. currency, and nations in the region generally tie their currencies to the U.S. dollar. In addition, manufacturers are constantly working to lower costs, and these reductions are valued in U.S. dollar terms. One example of a computer component traded globally in U.S. dollars isÂ DRAM, where prices have fallen dramaticallyÂ this year. The contract price of the most widely used DRAM, 512Mb DDR2 (double data rate, second generation) chips that run at 667MHz, dropped to $1.75 each as of Thursday, down 70.5 percent since the beginning of the year, according to DRAMeXchange Technology, which runs an online trading site for the chips. The chip prices are falling because producers are churning out too many chips and causing a glut on the market.
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You'll be grateful down the road for that dollar you put away today.
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The dollar struggled on Tuesday to extend its recovery against the euro from a record low hit last week, as the market eyed a deeper decline in the U.S. currency in the near-term.  The unexpectedly quick rebound in the dollar against the euro at the start of 2005 caught some traders off guard and left the market cautious about selling the U.S. currency.
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What current interest rates mean for the average Fool.