The dropping dollar

Avotius

Avotius

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Oh the dropping dollar. I am trying to make the best of it here, now that I do not get my money from the states and instead have found sources of funds here I have found my Chinese RMB growing stronger almost monthly since the US dollars seem to be going in the hole. When I first arrived here nearly 4 years ago the dollar was a $1 dollar to 元8.4 RMB. Now its $1 dollar to 元7.6 RMB. A major shift when you take in account my tuition is 元28,000 RMB ($3,639.25 USD as of today) and when I first arrived that same amount was $3333.33.

But now that I am not dependent on dollars I have found camera equipment suddenly cheaper. For instance a Zeiss 50 1.5 C Sonnar at pop flash is $967 and here its 元6400 RMB ($831.82) at a reputable dealer and 元5900 RMB ($766.84) at a shop. That is a hell of a price difference! A Zeiss 25mm 2.8 Biogon (which I have had my eye on as a maybe lens later on) is $900 at pop flash and a amazing 元5660 RMB ($735.64) at the reputable dealer and 元5100 RMB ($670.66) at the shops.

Now while not all things here are cheaper, the are pretty close to the pop flash prices while last year they were all more expensive.

In fact Zeiss stuff here has all been going down in price. Bodies just took a 80 dollar cut and most lenses have gone down 50-120 dollars. Great!

The only thing here that keeps going up is Leica prices as ususal, Voigtlander prices have gone down a hair as well, the new 35 skopar pancake that I bought for 2010 RMB ($261.24) is now 1950 RMB ($253.44).


Now then....should I get a Zeiss 50 f2 Planar or a Voigtlander 50 f1.5 Nokton...hopefully only a month more of saving to pick one up! I got a scholarship for 16,000 RMB coming next week and am in a city photo contest where I hope to win one of 3 3000 RMB first place prizes.....

Sigh....one focuses closer which I greatly depend on, and the other is faster, which I greatly depend on. Crap.
 
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It's great, isn't it? My Aussie dollar now buys 83 cents US money, which is the best it has been for several years. The US is still the best source for most of the stuff I suffer GAS for.
 
In Hong Kong - doesn't make too much difference. No sales tax and we are pegged to US Dollar. Prices pretty close and in many cases - particularly Leica - more expensive.

Still, might get lucky on the 'bay to satisfy GAS!

Avotius - good luck in the competition - do post pics you enter into competition!

brgds
 
Oh, it's sooo painful, even though I get a "cost of living" allowance, the dollar is dropping so fast and I get paid in dollars... no new gear for me and I'm eating out a lot less, too. The "bar" is now, mostly, at home. I'm just happy I have a good stock of film, chemicals and paper.

Alex
 
For me it's very convenient either way. Back in Germany only camera equipment becomes cheaper, which is, of course, nice in itself... But here in Uzbekistan overall expenses drop as my scholarship is paid in Euros and the Uzbek sum is more or less pegged to the dollar.
 
Hey, sorry about the dollar- It's my fault-
Somehow the dollar's value falls whenever I travel.

I went to Germany for a while in the late 1980's and the dollar fell to a record low against the DM.
Now I'm just back from Geneva, and the news was the Swiss Franc was at an all time high against the dollar. 1.2 CH : 1 USD ..
Sure, that can of Pepsi is four francs- no problem, that's only about twelve times what i pay at home..

By the same logic, I also caused the 'tech crash' in stocks several years ago..
 
sigh.... leica 50 1.4 asph $2,895.00 in the states, $2,466.89 here....

Thank goodness I dont make enough to buy something like that or I would be in horrible debt. Now then, off to the bank to see if I can get a credit card...
 
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clintock said:
Hey, sorry about the dollar- It's my fault-
Somehow the dollar's value falls whenever I travel.

I went to Germany for a while in the late 1980's and the dollar fell to a record low against the DM.
Now I'm just back from Geneva, and the news was the Swiss Franc was at an all time high against the dollar. 1.2 CH : 1 USD ..
Sure, that can of Pepsi is four francs- no problem, that's only about twelve times what i pay at home..

By the same logic, I also caused the 'tech crash' in stocks several years ago..
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hehe well then travel more, maybe that black m8 will grace my presence sooner then 10 years time!
 
I'm hating it, too, being an American in Bordeaux living off dollars from home. The only silver lining, and it's very slim indeed, is that it's the only real world effect I can discern from the US's many years of disastrous fiscal policy, i.e. insane levels of foreign debt. If a handful of other countries didn' keep so many dollars in reserve, thing would be much worse. This is silver lining because it supports my occasional rants about how bad the debt levels are, to which most American listeners ask, so what, where's the effect if it's such a bad cause, and I have precious little to point toward. Can anyone say living on borrowed time?
 
sooner said:
I'm hating it, too, being an American in Bordeaux living off dollars from home.
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The "cheap" dollar is a deliberate US government policy aimed at helping US-based industries by making buying from the US more attractive to non-US buyers, while restraining the balance-of-payments deficit by making imports less attractive to US buyers. The government makes no secret of this.

Yes, it's kind of tough for purchasers of products that aren't made in the US (such as consumer camera equipment) but the posts in this forum just go to show that the policy is working.
 
Avo: It's not just the dollar dropping, it's also the RMB getting stronger. For years, the Chinese government has been keeping the RMB weak artificially to benefit Chinese manufactures. The stronger RMB you see now is the result of strong pressure from China's trade partners to increase the value of RMB in order to even the playing field somewhat.

I'm am surprised to hear that lenses cost less there. From what I remember, camera equipment costs way much than in the US, but that was 7 years ago..
 
JLW, you're absolutely correct. However it's becoming harder to ascertain--at least for me--what the limits are of such Fed or central bank maneuvering, and where the global economy and its concerns about the dollar overtake such policies. Just take the rumor recently that some country, maybe it was the South Koreans, were going to hold fewer dollars in reserve, and the dollar went south fast until the Koreans were pressed to make some statements to the contrary. It's a question I have yet to get a good answer to even from supposed economists.
 
Avotius said:
But now that I am not dependent on dollars I have found camera equipment suddenly cheaper.
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Courtesy of the party who says they're making the country "stronger".

I remember back in 2001, the Euro was $0.80; now it's about $1.30; that's an erosion that would topple governments elsewhere where its citizens are even slightly involved and won't stand for incompetence. This is a symptom of an over-spent, over-debited treasury that just doesn't have the resources to back up its own currency as it did on a previous point in time, due to fiscal irresponsibility. Classical examples are Mexico, Argentina and Italy in the 1980s. Welcome to the club, Dollar! There, they spinned devaluation as a tool to attract foreign investment and discourage the purchase of nondomestic products. Oh, 1984...

But I'm on this flavor of quantum Universe, and must accept reality. Unfortunately, most haven't, and demand for cheap (i.e. nondomestic) products and irresposible consumption of gasoline is strong.

So it works to the advantage to the rest of the world. Like everything, there's good and bad in every situation.

And that's Capitalism: supply and demand. And the less we demand brains over brawn, all we'll have in the end is nice brawny paperweight coins. It's the brains adjusting the exchange rate for some countries, btw.

The incredibly funny thing is: it's working out for most of the world! Things are cheap! My brain hurts. :bang:
 
steamer said:
I can't imagine why, but the greenback is still strong in Japan, it is like $1 to 120 yen.
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Easy: because the Japanese government is interested in a weak yen vis-a-vis the dollar. As the dollar goes down, they try to keep the yen down as well to avoid damaging Japanese exports.

JLW's theory of the US government being interested in a weak dollar operates on a similar principle. The problem with it is that the US government has only limited control over what other governments do with their present dollar reserves, which at present puts them in a less than enviable position. Basically they want to keep the dollar down, because it lessens the US' trade deficit, but not too much, preferably avoiding it going so low that other countries will sell their dollars. So they have to keep the dollar cheap, but not too cheap. All the US Federal Reserve can hope for is a soft landing. There is trouble for the Federal Reserve whenever a large dollar holder (such as Korea in the example mentioned) announces getting rid of some of them or a market with large dollar circulation and highly strategic US interests such as the oil market is partially switches to the Euro (which Russia, Iran and Venezuela have done and Iraq did shortly before the invasion - now Iraq is obviously back to the dollar). Basically Asia is now financing the US budget deficit, and the US Federal Reserve is having an increasingly difficult time of ensuring that this stays so. The one argument that works in favour of a soft landing in the US is that no one else is interested in the American economy crashing, as everybody has valuable assets to lose.

Philipp
 
ywenz said:
Avo: It's not just the dollar dropping, it's also the RMB getting stronger. For years, the Chinese government has been keeping the RMB weak artificially to benefit Chinese manufactures. The stronger RMB you see now is the result of strong pressure from China's trade partners to increase the value of RMB in order to even the playing field somewhat.

I'm am surprised to hear that lenses cost less there. From what I remember, camera equipment costs way much than in the US, but that was 7 years ago..
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yes I know its not only the dollar dropping. There are a lot of reason here for keeping the yuan weak, many capitol reasons for export and what not, but also you have to remember that china has been a "open" society (as in foreigners are allowed to come and go) here for only 30 some years, you would be surprised to find how stuck up chinese people are about other countries. One good thing that I have found is that basically it keeps "normal" chinese people from going abroad. Might sound a little racist but chinese people are extremely isolationist in attitude, people from this city hate the people from the city next to us simply because they do things kind of the same but a little different still. People from one part of china wont eat food from another part just because its not the same as where they are from etc etc. Keeping the yuan low makes it easier for normal people to adjust to the changing world by creating their own.

But in the end its all about business and right now since the chinese economy is getting stronger and stronger people are able to afford these kinds of things, so its a great emergence for china to come for sure.

But as for changing things here, I just go by what they say here: you cant do anything about it so dont worry about it. In other words take advantage of the situation because there are 1.4 billion chinese people here that want to do the same thing.
 
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