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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Canadian dollar dropping -- or is it?
Message-ID: <975@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Jul-84 19:06:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.975
Posted: Fri Jul  6 19:06:13 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Jul-84 20:27:24 EDT
Distribution: can.all
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 23

I get burned up at the continual references in the newspapers, on
TV, and even from economists and politicians about the sad plight
of the Canadian dollar: how it is dropping like a stone, and how
rotten the Canadian economy must be if this is true.  Having just
come back from 6 weeks in Europe, it is clear that the C$ is NOT,
repeat NOT dropping. The US$ is rising dramatically, the C$ rising
less dramatically, and a few other currencies (e.g. French franc)
dropping.  During the time I was away, the C$ "dropped" perhaps 5%.
All the same, I got more for my dollar every time I changed a traveller's
cheque from C$ to whatever currency I needed.

Surely it would be fairer to relate the "value" of the dollar to
a basket of currencies, and not act as if the US$ was the single
standard for the world.  If we include the US$ along with other
major currencies of the industrial world, the Canadian dollar has
been remarkably stable or even rising over the last two or three
years.  If we exclude the US$, it has been going up quite sharply
all the time the gloom and doom merchants have been bewailing its
weakness.
-- 

Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt