So far, good news on the value of the dollar...

A brief followup on the 9/29/08 post:
The dollar has risen in value in the past 2 weeks. Only 9/29/08 it was worth 0.695362 euros; by 10/10/08 it had climbed to 0.742335 euros, which is as high as it has been since the first part of 2007.

But we should still pay close attention to the value of the dollar. When it drops, expect interest rates to climb. And, with a 10 Trillion dollar debt, high interest rates will be devestating to our federal budget.

One other note: the current economic crisis has caused people to seek the security of Treasury notes and bonds, which has the effect of reducing the interest rate the government pays to borrow money. So it creates a short-term advantage to the federal budget. But it also means that money is less available to commercial operations (can you say 'credit crunch'?) so it's not a long-term solution.