SC Lamont RN > Blog > Dec 3, 2004 > A new blogger spreads his wings, and the economy gasps.

Posted Friday, December 3, 2004 @ 1019 PST
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A new blogger spreads his wings, and the economy gasps.

So, I have a confession to make. Despite having some geeky elements to my nature (for example, I can identify the Star Trek even to odd rule), and even a verifiably geeky history (for example, I played with computer punch cards as a child, had a home computer before 1980 -- it was an Atari 400, and learned how to write programs in Basic before I was 14), I am not up-to-date on the finer aspects of crafting web pages or setting up a proper blog. I've only learned HTML in the last few months, starting with the Composer function of Netscape Navigator 7.2. Based on recommendations from a couple of friends who actually do this for a living, including my sweetie, I just moved over to Macromedia’s Dreamweaver MX 6.0. So now I'm struggling to learn how to create templates so that I don't have to hand update all by pages at the same time, and trying to find examples of code that will let me put those charming "add a comment" buttons on my blog so that people can actually respond in a convenient way and I can post those comments automatically. Hopefully, anyone reading the site will be patient in the meantime, since the way I have constructed my homepage (where my current blog entries appear) in a very labor-intensive manner. On the plus side, I think I have finally sorted out my problem with some of my archived blog entries and will be able to post an actual archived page going back for the few months that I have entries for. Look for it to appear soon.

Listening to NPR again this morning, there was a piece by Jim Zarroli about the steady decline of the value of the US dollar and the potential risk to the economy. This could present an interesting situation for any of us living here in America. As I understand it, if the dollar drops too far the Fed will respond by raising interest rates to control inflation and to make purchasing bonds (to fund the deficit) more attractive. The danger lies in the massive deficit that the current administration is running up, coupled with the trade imbalance the US has been experiencing for some time. It is, as one commentator put it, “simply unsustainable”. America’s economic strength has become based on spending more than is earned – by the country and by individuals. It just can’t last.

It seems to me, when you get right down to it, the value of the dollar is really a matter of faith -- and there's a good chance that faith may be waning. The administration has been theorized to possibly want the dollar to be devalued in an attempt to leaver a more favorable trade balance. Conspiracy theorists have also proposed that the war in Iraq was really about forestalling the potential for Iraq and other OPEC countries to switch from the dollar to the euro as the currency for trading oil, which could have potentially had disastrous effects on the value of the dollar, or so the theory goes. Not been an economist, I have no idea, but I do understand the idea that how people respond to the dollar is really as much a matter of belief as anything else. Imagine this "perfect trifecta" occurring: the dollar starts to lose ground, and predictably foreign central banks start to shy away from it, moving to the euro or other currencies; at the same time, oil prices continue to skyrocket due to the situation in Iraq and deepening concern about Peak Oil, forcing up inflation despite the Fed increasing interest rates; the real estate market bubble, particularly in the California and Florida, collapses even as mortgage rates climb. Wound the economy? This scenario would leave it as smashed pulp on the side of the road. Let's hope it doesn't happen.

Finally, I got an e-mail from my friend Kat, who closed with the following quote by Howard Zinn: "The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." Thinking back to my post on November 24, I think it ties nicely to what I said about history being an interconnected web of events, since you can look at the future as history that hasn't happened to us yet. I like this quote because it strikes such hopeful note, and speaks to the power of what we can do now.

Scott Chisholm Lamont, RN.