Talking Economics - Dollar Parity

by K. Russell Carlsson, Rogue Economist

[WARNING: Long and math-heavy. May cause drowsiness or dizziness. Read with care. Do not operate heavy machinery or evil-level Sudoku whle reading this article.]

All right, folks. I admit it. This one is just for me and my Econ homeys - your typical person on the street could give a rat's ass about foreign exchange rates. Thus, I'll amp up the terror and panic level of this post early so you'll actually read it. Wrap your mind around this:

The Canadian Dollar Is Now Worth More Than The American Dollar!

About five weeks ago, the US Dollar's years-long plummet finally drove the Greenback down to match the market value of the Loonie. I knew it was inevitable, but at that point, I was almost positive that psychological barrier would snap the American markets into action and put forth efforts to defend the honor of what was once the most powerful currency in the world. Alas, foreign exchange markets (ForEx) trade only in reality and truth, unlike equity markets with their as-yet unquantifiable Fairy Dust and Rainbows / Panic and Pants-shitting Fear Factor (I'm working on that, though... trust me. There's a Nobel waiting for me once I figure that baby out - so long as I give it a professional-sounding acronym.)

Thus the Greenback kept diving. At the end of trading yesterday, one US Dollar could purchase only 96.17 Canadian (CDN) cents. Seven years ago a buck bought $1.62 CDN. I know the only time most Americans only give half a shit about ForEx is during summer vacation season - but with today's nearly-perfected global marketplace, ForEx impacts your daily life in ways you probably haven't considered, such as food, clothing, and oil and gas prices.

FOOD:
Obviously, a weaker dollar will make frou-frou Eurogrub like Belgian truffles and that runny gym-sock-smelling French cheese more expensive - but that is miniscule sliver of the food market... and anybody who eats that crap deserves to pay an assload for it. Where the real impact lies is in the export market. Since American food products are now so much cheaper overseas, countries whose currencies have risen dramatically against the Greenback like the European Common Market, Canada, Switzerland and Australia (yes - fucking AUSTRALIA!) can buy more of our food supply. That's great for farmers, but all the rest of us get from the deal is higher food prices since domestic supply is reduced by the foreign demand.

CLOTHING:
On the whole, this one isn't so bad, because most of our clothing is manufactured in China, and China is utilizing special currency devaluing tricks to keep their Yuan's value from rising too strongly against the Greenback. However, the only comfortable office shoes I've ever found for those 10.5 EEEE boat docks dangling off my ankles are made in Italy. Five years ago, a pair cost $75. Two years ago, they cost $90. Last month, I paid $106 for them. If this dollar nosedive keeps going (and my weasel-dicked agent keeps making me work for damned-near free), I'll be barefoot come 2010.

OIL:
This is the big one. Brace yourselves for an onslaught of numbers and formulas and math and stuff: I hate to have to do it to you, but I must remain an economist first and your irritable-yet-good-hearted bar buddy second or I sell no articles at all.

The best way to illustrate the plunging dollar's effect on the US oil market is to take market prices for both oil and ForEx from two dates exactly seven years apart from each other. October 26, 2000 saw the US Dollar trade at its strongest level ever against the Euro: one Euro bought only 82.52 US cents. At the same time, oil, which is denominated and traded exclusively in US Dollars, traded for $30 a barrel. October 26, 2007 was conveniently enough the last full trading day before this article. On that day, a Euro could buy 143.89 US cents and a barrel of oil cost $91.86.

Calculating the rise in oil prices for Americans is pretty easy - take today's price and divide it by 2000's price, thus $91.86/$30, which yields a figure of 3.062. Therefore the price of oil has gone up by 206.2% in the last seven years, or an annual clip of 17.4% (trust my math on this one, unless you're particularly jazzed about computing the seventh root of 3.062) which is roughly five times the rate of wage increases in the US.

Calculating the rise in oil prices for Europeans may just make your eyes glaze over, but that's why you let me do the heavy lifting here. Just read along - or fake it just to make me feel good -nod and smile until I get to the easier-to-understand final figures. Here goes - bite down: A barrel of oil today costs 63.840 Euros ($91.86 divided by today's 1.4389 exchange rate), and a barrel of oil in 2000 cost 36.355 Euros ($30 divided by the old exchange rate of 0.8252). Therefore, the relative rise in the cost of oil to Europeans (63.840E / 36.355 E = 1.756) is only 75.6% over the last seven years, an annual rate of 8.4%, or only twice the rate of European wage increases in the same period.

Europeans notice the impact of the oil price increases, but since the increase takes a smaller share of their paychecks, they can more easily shrug it off as they ride their bicycles to work between soccer matches. Americans, however, take it much harder in the wallet as we make our 25-mile commutes to work in our SUVs between NASCAR races, thus Bubby Joe has much less truly disposable income in 2007 than he did in 2000 when compared to Jean-Luc.

That's right, Bubby Joe - Jean-Luc is eating your steak and living better than you even though he does the same job you do! I bet that pisses you off real good, don't it Bubby Joe! What're you gonna do about it? Unfortunately, not a goddamned thing, since you get paid in Dollars, Jean-Luc gets paid in Euros, and the global market has more faith in the long-term strength of the European economy than ours right now.

The US Dollar, thus, is much like Britney Spears. In 2000, every healthy red-blooded country would pay any price to get their hands on her - but today, most right-thinking folks wouldn't shag her confused and devalued skank-ass with a rented dick. More markets are working up a horny slobbering drool over our northern neighbor Avril Lavigne than our own Britney these days - I don't think I need to tell you how unsettling that should be.

Thoughts on the ALCS

by Knorr the Interpreter

[Insert anger/frustration-inspired Tourette's attack here]!

Well, my Tribe proved they can kick ANYBODY's ass in a best-of-5 series - and considering eight starting position players, four starting pitchers and four relievers played for the AA-level Akron Aeros during their multiple championship runs of 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007, five-game playoff series are about what we're used to.

I have nothing good to say about this. I hate the Red Sox. I hate the Red Sox more than I hate Hitler - at least Hitler had the decency to kill himself once he found out how much of a douche he was. I hate the Red Sox's fans. I hate their uniforms. I hate their hot-dog vendors. I hate that piss-ant, falling-apart piece-of-shit T-ball field they make the grown-ups play in. The Red Sox are nothing more than a discount version the Yankees (whom I also hate, but not quite as much).

Losing to the Red Sox after going up three games to one feels like the Red Sox crashed my party, drank my beer, pissed on my couch, kicked my wife and shagged the shit out of my dog right in front of me. (Yes, those are in order - we ARE talking about Bostoners, here.) If I had the chance to look the Boston Red Sox in the face and tell them what I think of their World Series trip, I would have only two words for them...

GO ROCKIES!

(No, sorry... those butt-pirates would enjoy the two-word phrase you were thinking I'd say too much.)

Here's Another Revelation For You...

by John of Patmos

Wow! OK, guys... we need to talk here.

These so-called Revelations I wrote - they weren't intended to be interpreted as gospel. I had nothing to do whatesoever with the life of Jesus - he was sacrificed nearly a hundred years before I was born. I never met the man, never met his disciples, nothing. I heard stories about him, people seemed to like him, he sounded really cool, so I made him the conquering hero in my heavy metal concept album.

I played bass bouzouki for a going-nowhere metal band called Caesarsryche back in the early part of the second century AD. We toured Israel opening for much better bands on and off, but on the whole all we did was musical masturbation... and a crapload of psychotropic herbs. When desperation and Jerusalem peyote met the recounting of the life of Jesus in my sleepless mind, I decided to write the album that would get us recognized.

I have to say, it was hella boss there for a while - all these teenaged Romans pumping their fists and moshing in their sackcloth-black togas while we wailed on about the Whore of Babylon and seven-headed, ten-horned beast and such... but it had to come to an end sometime. In what was supposed to be our Big Show, our percussionist Nikola VI got shitfaced and dropped some buttons before we went on stage. Of course, halfway through our magnum opus "Beast Ride of the Purple Harlot" Nikki blow chunks. I don't mean he missed his marks... I mean he physically gut-cannoned ex-groceries all over the first row of fans. Turns out one of them was Emperor Hadrian's niece. We never saw Rome again.

We kicked around Judea for a while, but couldn't draw flies since that town was all about bubble-gum lyre pop. Eventually Caesarsryche broke up and I took my lyrics with me to Patmos. I hooked up with the Thebes-Hold-'em Poker Tour down there for a while and was doing pretty well until some lucky amateur jackoff tripped his sixes on the river when I went all-in on three fives I scored from the flop. I lost everything except my sandals and my songs, which is why I moved into that cave where my "revelations" were eventually discovered.

Now you know. All that end-of-the-world, Armaggedon, Judgement Day apocalyptic jazz that many sects of Christians have been predicting, longing for, and in many cases attempting to bring about for the last few centuries was just a bouzouki player's attempt at scoring some nookie and a patronage contract. Please stop damning, shunning, banishing, imprisoning and killing each other over my mosh - unless you react the same way in the year 3800 to Iron Maiden's Eddie, some of you ubervigilant 21st century Christians are acting like a fuckpile of retards.

For The Love Of America, Light Up!

by Mel Fisto-Feliz, Esq., Business Activist

Disturbing. Absolutely disturbing. A plague of nanny-state legislation has oozed across this once-great country like the quasi-police-state-flavored pus it truly is - city by city, state by state, a misguided army of Polyanna Q. Buttinskis has shoved anti-indoor-smoking policies down the gaping and snoring throats of their governing officials. "Clean Indoor Air Acts" they have the stones to call these freedom-raping regulations, as if pouring perfume on that fascist pig will make it smell rosy. My friends, these "Clean Indoor Air Acts" must be stopped, dropped and rolled back immediately if America is to regain is destined standing as an economic and moral superpower.

Let us flash back to the 1970's - America was the King of the World. Our standard of living was at its peak. American industry was unparalleled in production, thanks largely to its job-creating inefficiencies and repeat-sales-generating mediocre quality. We dressed ourselves like pimps and spent hours making our hair look like we just stepped out of the shower... but got laid left and right anyway. The music, booze and drugs were positively awful, but we gulped them all down in mass quantities until we felt mellow. How could we pull all this off without gagging, you may ask? Because of smoking.

Everybody smoked - everybody who was cool did, anyway. Tobacco smoke effectively suffocates taste buds, so we didn't know how wretched Coors beer actually tastes. Cigarette smoking also kills the sense of smell, so your only reaction the otherwise-puke-inducing aromatic funk-chowder of polyester-spawned BO, pheremones, patchouli and/or Hai Karate, and three packs of Kools was "Lance is here... Groovy!"

That's right, folks... smoking. Cigarette smoking made our country great. We worked all day, partied all night, and repeated in full knowledge that we Americans had never had it better. We bought muscle car after shittily-built muscle car, drank all day long in large quantities, partied and danced to folk and disco between coke-snorts and lude-drops because we had the money to do it. We had high-paying jobs, cheap rent, and low day-to-day expenses thanks once again to cigarettes, since taxes on smokes were negligible and nicotine in large doses suppresses the urge to eat (and our deadened taste buds didn't care if we bought store-brand food when we did bother to eat).

Then along came the nit-pickers. "Oooh... smoking causes cancer! Cigarttes increase asthma! Smoking leads to emphysema!" Oh, boo fucking hoo, Priscilla!

Yes, those annoying side effects can be a bit problematic, but did they ever think what would happen if people stopped smoking? With the life cycle extended beyond its natural boundaries by these Health Nazis, people will continue to live deep into their eighties and nineties, thus draining our private pension, Social Security and health care systems at a breakneck pace. Plus, without nicotine's great twin gifts of vigorous energy and appetite suppession, people would simply sit around and eat fattening foods until their asses grew blubbery roots in their sofas.

What a nightmare world that would be - a nation of elderly fat lazy bastards who'll only get off their couches to cash Social Security checks and pick up their government-subsidized cholesterol and blood-pressure medications after yet another drive to Country Kitchen Buffet for Early Bird Specials. Folks - we are living that nightmare! A trip to any Cleveland suburb on Sunday afternoon will bring that home in grease-stained, old-person-smell-drenched spades.

We must bring cigarettes back into the restaurants, bars, offices and government buildings where they belong. Smoking is our right. The American economic engine is powered by cigarette smoke. Smoking cuts unproductive years off the ends of miserable lives, saving pensions and governments and health insurance companies billions. Smoking keeps us active and thin. Plus smoking keeps whinging, needy, fat old fucks out of our bars and restaurants, so we can kick back and truly enjoy getting our grooves on.

We must rip America's glory back from the wrinkly festering clutches of those nanny-state Health Nazis... even if we have to do it one butt at a time. Right On Brother - Light On Up!

Transcripts from Carter’s “Elders” Mission to Sudan

By Cinta Sella-Ductos, IbK Foreign Correspondent

This past Tuesday a delegation known as “The Elders”, which features Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, ran into resistance as they visited an aid camp for Darfur refugees. The camp guard, appointed by a local governor, was given instructions to reject all visitors, and in fear for his own life fulfilled his command to deny the peace delegation admittance.

We couldn’t get close enough to hear the guard’s side of the exchange, but the IbK Foreign Detail ™ did hear former President Carter’s staunch defense of the Elders’ right to enter. The following is a transcript of Mr. Carter’s side of the heated discussion:

JC: Yo, Homes – the Elders here looking to drop a ten-ton load of peace on all your asses. Let us get all up in here and do this humanitarian thing!

Guard: (inaudible)

JC: Say what? We have GOT to be on the list, Yo! We cleared this with the UN, the African Union – ALL that shit! Let us get up in this camp, Son – we have come to bring re-LIEEEEF!

Guard: (inaudible)

JC: Aw, HELL no! I KNOW I didn’t hear you say that! You see, all the bling from my Nobel Fuckin’ PEACE PRIZE sometimes messes with my hearing. You want to try that again, Son – we got some peace to get on!

Guard: (inaudible)

JC: Oh, so you get your orders from the Governor… you wanna know who I get my orders from? Desmond Tutu, bitch! Yeah, that’s right – The. Bishop. Desmond. Motherfuckin’. Tutu. Now, I’m sure it’s the blingterference from TWO Nobels playing with me here – quit your playing and let us in.

Guard: (inaudible)

JC: All right, you do that. You GET the motherfuckin’ Governor out here. We’ll lay so much goddamned goodwill, charity and diplomacy all up in his ass, you’ll wish you let us in to begin with! Elders in Da CAMP! [sounds of loud barking from the delegation].