never really understood the argument that the USD can't be destroyed because it can't be destroyed against other currencies.
that isn't my argument. i'm merely voicing skepticism that this rally is "the Big One", given that USD has been falling not just against stuff, but also against other currencies which are at least as crappy as USD, like EUR.
also, i don't think stuff is as clearcut as it might seem at first glance, and over short time periods. because you have all these leveraged speculators in stuff. if you are long USD-denominated crude with 40x leverage, then you are also short crude-denominated USD with 40x leverage. in the short term this has big effects, both ways.
and, of course, the long term is composed of a bunch of short terms all in a row.
that's why i don't want to draw any huge conclusions from the current rally, other than that people really like risk. (ironically, they like risk because their pensions are underfunded, so they dig a deeper hole by taking on more risk in buying "what goes up" in the hope to prop up their USD-denominated pensions to match USD-denominated long-term liabilities.)
long term, i agree with you that "stuff" will go "up", but i don't think that is because of what happened in the last six months. that's my little distinction-thingy.
It just gets "decimated" over time in the classical sense of being cut down eventually to a 10th of its former self.
if i recall correctly from my own overpriced, entirely useless education, decimate in the classical sense means to reduce by one-tenth, not to one-tenth. normally by killing to death one in every ten soldiers. |
