Altho your website does not focus on the issue, many have been worried about the "falling dollar" and so many other associated problems (such as inflation). Whenever I hear such news the blame is invariably put on the deficit or some other Fed Reserve shennanigans, or as you recently posted on your site, a secretive plan to implement a new currency.

I digress. The reason the dollar is becoz of ultra-low intrest rates, that is, no one wants to hold a currency in reserve if they can simply go to the next monetary unit down the list and get a better intrest rate, it should be noted that while the UK has a national debt that is much larger than ours as a percent of its economy, its currency is valued MUCH HIGHER than the U.S. dollar, mostly becoz the Pound can give you a 5% intrest rate or better, while the dollar struggles to give you 2%.

I have no doubt in my mind John that if the Feds raised the prime rate to 10%, petrol would fall to below $1/gal overnight. That being said, based on yesterday's rate cut, I will predict that the Fed is finished cutting rates, and may well begin to raise them in late summer or soon thereafter (maybe earlier?). This will, of course, immediately raise the value of the dollar and give an entirely new slew of confidence in those wishing to hold dollars as a reserve, thus propelling the dollar upward, forming a positive feedback loop wherein the dollar becomes a highly-valued commodity. Gold and silver will of course fall, altho I don't think it will be precipitous, but Ed Steele can still make a silver football field or whatever.

One question remains in my mind, however, and that is whether or not raising interest rates would be sufficient enuf to counteract the deficit, which has grown large in recent recent years mostly becoz low interest rates have made a deficit cheaper to finance. Which in turn brings me to yet another point, without some gold standard, maybe it's GOOD that the government is forced to pay for it's own debt/money, after all, having to re-pay it back is a big incentive NOT TO run a deficit (and thus devalue a currency), and we can only imagine what sordid state of affairs might exist had it only been a matter of turning on the printing presses w/ no worries of paying back any of it, as anyone can now see with Rhodesia. (For the record, I don't like the Fed)