Silver & Dollars
On my recent trip to Thailand I was presented with an ugly fact: my dollar is not worth what it was not long ago.
Silver prices have leveled out at around the $13 per ounce price, roughly double where they were a couple of years ago but relatively unchanged for the last six or eight months.
That's the "good" news. The bad news is that for reasons that include spiraling US trade and budget deficits, the Iraq war, and strong economies that produce most of what we Americans consume, we don't get much bang for our buck.
The US dollar vs. both the Thai baht and the Indian rupee are off by about 10% since the beginning of the year. While that may not concern most consumers, for us in the retail business it means that all those "inexpensive" foreign goods like silver jewelry, clothing and electronics just got a price increase of a dime for every dollar.
It certainly isn't the end of the world, but it has made it more challenging to buy overseas. I've had to negotiate harder and look more closely at everything I buy to make sure it is well priced and well made.
(This
article written by Mike McGinnis and published originally
on indiasilver.com.
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