. February 11, 2007 SouthAmerica: When I saw the enclosed article I immediately thought â the US is going to release a new US dollar â then a saw the word coin. But for a second I thought the US dollar has lost so much value that it might be a good idea to follow the lead of countries such as Brazil. Over the years I remember the Brazilian currency changing many times from âCruzeiroâ, to âNew Cruzeiroâ, then to âCruzadoâ, and to âNew Cruzadoâ, then came the âCruz Credoâ and finally the âRealâ. Today there are so many US dollars flying around the world that might be a good idea for the United States government to replace its current US dollar with the âNew US Dollarâ â and the new exchange rate would be: each current $ 100 US dollar would be exchanged to $ 1 New US dollar. â Just like they usually do in 3rd world countries when their currency starts becoming worthless. A house that was bought in our area in Northern New Jersey in the early 1950âs for US$ 4,000 dollars â the same house is worth today in the range of US$ 400,000 to US$ 500,000. The exchange rate of $100 âOld dollarsâ to $1 âNew Dollarâ would be just about right. ******* âU.S. gov't to release new dollar coinsâ By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer AP â Associated Press Sun Feb 11, 2007 WASHINGTON - Two recent efforts to promote wide usage of a dollar coin proved unsuccessful. But maybe Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea should not take public rejection personally. It's not easy overcoming people's indifference to dollar coins, even those honoring such historic figures. An AP-Ipsos poll found that three-fourths of people surveyed oppose replacing the dollar bill, featuring George Washington, with a dollar coin. People are split evenly on the idea of having both a dollar bill and a dollar coin. A new version of the coin, paying tribute to American presidents, goes into general circulation Thursday. Even though doing away with the bill could save hundreds of millions of dollars each year in printing costs, there is no plan to scrap the bill in favor of the more durable coin. "I really don't see any use for it," Larry Ashbaugh, a retiree from Bristolville, Ohio, said of the dollar coin. "We tried it before. It didn't fly." A quarter-century ago, the dollar coin showed feminist Susan B. Anthony on the front; then one in 2000 featuring Sacagawea, the Shoshone Indian who helped guide the Lewis and Clark expedition. The latest dollar coin will bear Washington's image, followed later this year by those of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. A different president will appear on the golden dollar coins every three months. People have strong feelings about their money, even the penny, which occasionally is threatened with elimination. When people were asked whether the penny should be eliminated, 71 percent said no, according to the poll of 1,000 adults conducted Nov. 28-30 that had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Some fear that getting rid of the penny will cause product prices to be rounded up, perhaps increasing inflation. .
. February 11, 2007 SouthAmerica: Reply to Longhorns Since you did not get it - In the above context I was trying to be just sarcastic. And I used Brazil on my example because Brazil has changed its currency many times in the last 50 years. Let me clarify a little further for you to be able to understand - among the Brazilian currency names that they adopted over the years the name "Cruz Credo" I added it to the list just as a joke. The other Brazilians on this forum knows what I mean. By the way, the name that you are using on this forum "Longhorns" in Portugues means "Chifrudo" - and if you called a person "Chifrudo" in Brazil that person would not be too happy. .
. Longhorns: AIDS, poverty, corruption, prostitution, and drugs. ********* February 12, 2007 SouthAmerica: Reply to Longhorns Your above comment is about Brazil or the United States? The items that you listed above â Brazil can beat the United States maybe on one category that is poverty. The rest of your list the United States beats Brazil by a mile. Let's review your list as follows: 1) AIDS: There are more AIDS cases in the United States than in Brazil. 2) Corruption: In Brazil the corruption is in nickel-and-dimes. I am not going to bore you with the long list of corruption in the US including the savings and loans scandal (at least 200 billion in todayâs money) â Enron and WorldCom, and so on.... The latest scandal alone â the US$ 12 billion dollars that the United States sent to Iraq to be used as petty cash â and they donât have receipts and the US government has no clue where the money ended up â my guess would be on a Swiss bank account of a couple of very lucky people. This jackpot alone cost American taxpayers US$ 12 billion dollars â and that was related only to petty cash. Now if we start an investigating to try to find out where the over US$ 2 trillion dollars that have been spent by the US government in Defense spending in the last 6 years â now you would find real corruption. I would not be surprised if the amount related to corruption alone would be larger than most countries GNPâs â the countries that are members of the United Nations. If you add some of the major corruption cases that has happened here in the United States in the last few years that number would be a couple of times larger than the entire budget of the Brazilian government. I am sure that if one could add all the corruption that has happened in Brazil in the last 6 years â the cumulative amount still be much lower than a single act of US corruption; the US$ 12 billion dollars of American taxpayer money that has disappeared in Iraq. Now you see it â Now you donât. 3) Prostitution: I have been seeing a number of programs on our local TV showing wide spread prostitution all over the United States. They show these programs on MSNBC, CNBC, and on HBO â just to mention a few TV channels. Per capita the United States has a lot more prostitutes than in Brazil â besides a very large number of the Brazilian population are very poor and they canât afford the money charged by prostitutes. 4) Illegal Drugs: The United States has the largest illegal drug market in the world. Thereâs no other country in our globe that comes even close to the United States regarding illegal drugs. By the way, the United States has 2.2 million people in prison and another 10 million on probation, and over half of the crime committed by these people was illegal drug related. 5) Poverty: Brazil has over 100 million people living on complete poverty, but the budget of the Brazilian government is only a fraction of the United States government budget. The US federal budget is about 30 times larger than the budget of the Brazilian government. Watching Katrina on live television and the follow up histories since then I wonder what is the excuse of the United States â supposed to be the only remaining superpower â to have so much poverty and despair around such a wealthy country. Katrina has exposed to the rest of the world the extent of poverty among the people in the United States. .
. February 12, 2007 SouthAmerica: O.K. - might be a bit unrealistic to try to give the impression that prices were back to the values of the early 1950âs. But that same house that was worth US$ 4,000 in the early 1950âs, the market value of that same house had increased to around US$ 40,000 by the early 1970âs. That means that instead of taking the current US dollar and converting it at a ratio of 100 to 1 â we should instead convert it using a ratio of 10 to 1. In that case each US$ 10 of the current currency it would be converted into US$ 1 New US dollar. That would beneficial to the United States in many ways as follows: 1) Instead of the US government having US$ 10 trillion dollars in accumulative outstanding debt â the US government would have instead only US$ 1 trillion New dollars in cumulative outstanding debt. In âNew US dollarsâ that debt would represent about the same amount of cumulative US government debt that the US had in the last year of the Richard Nixon administration. It would give the illusion that the clock had been turned back on the debt to the early 1970âs. 2) Instead of the US federal annual budget being US$ 3 trillion dollars as the coming budget â under the new currency the United States government annual budget would be only US$ 300 billion New US dollars. The United States would give to the world the âillusionâ that all the numbers look a lot better than they actually are. A change in the value of the US dollar using a ratio of 10 to 1 from current US dollar to New US dollar - it is something for the US government to think about. .
southamerica. thats very noble of yours keeping up a crusade to defend brazil against its critics. but the fact is, in sao paulo, the main economic powerhouse in brazil, chances of being killed, kidnapped or raped by a bunch of favela's kids is as much as raining in london before noon. how can someone that speaks up so much in these boards and carries such a illustrative handle like you, not acknowledge that brazil is leading he pack on aids, poverty, prostitution and corruption. do you really think that the us is worse off? demagogy is the strategy of the weak. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
. Asap: Southamerica. thatâs very noble of yours keeping up a crusade to defend brazil against its critics. but the fact is, in Sao Paulo, the main economic powerhouse in Brazil, chances of being killed, kidnapped or raped by a bunch of favela's kids is as much as raining in London before noon. how can someone that speaks up so much in these boards and carries such a illustrative handle like you,⦠********* February 12, 2007 SouthAmerica: What you described above was created by choice in Brazil â in the past Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other major cities did not used to be like this. What Brazilians have today is the result of the Brazilian societyâs choice in the past. Brazil is a democracy, a free country, a free market economy, and people have choices and in this case no one can't blame it on some dictator for this mess. In the past the very rich got greedier (just like in the United States) and slowly they got rid off the middle class. Today we have two major social classes in Brazil 1) the incredible rich, and 2) the very poor â and a very fast shrinking middle class. The wealthy live behind the walls of gated communities and the rest of the population lives outside of the gates. Today there are more private security forces protecting the wealthy and their gated communities than there are policemen to enforce law and order outside of the gates. Today, when the wealthy risks going outside the gates they become just a prey like everybody else. By the way, the United States government have been studying what has been happening in Brazil in the last 20 years and the Bush administration must like what they see because all their policies in the United States since they took power in January 2001 has been geared to establish a similar system here in the United States. Most Americans are not aware of that but the United States today already has the largest number of gated communities in the world â and the population is being divided between the âhave and have notsâ. Americans are going to love when they reach the next stage â they are so worried about terrorists today but wait until the local gangs starts making house calls and start blocking streets and robbing every car trapped inside a highway with no place for the people to go. You can bet on that that kind of system is around the corner and it will be available also around your neighborhood here in the United States. In the age of 24/7 satellite news coverage everybody is watching what is happening around the world and the gangs try to copy what they see on TV that is happening in other countries. The gangs in France started burning busses and cars, and it did not take long for the gangs to start copying what they saw on television around the major cities in Brazil. The wealthy took over the years a bigger and bigger piece of the pie and told the rest of the Brazilian population screw you. Today that selective group is wealthier than ever before, but they have to live behind the gates of their gated communities and they are afraid of going out side of the gates â and they have to send their kids to study in Europe because they are afraid that they are going to be kidnapped if they stay in Brazil. I have no excuses and I am not sorry for what is happening in Brazil today â that was the choice that the Brazilian elites made during a period of many years for Brazil, and that was the system that they created and asked for. Please donât fool yourself the United States is in that same track and what we see happening in Brazil today it is just around the corner here in the United States. By the time the population wakes up it is too late. Today in the United States we have about 1.7 million policemen around the country and the United States has already 2 million people who are documented gang members â and these gangs are moving slowly into your local neighborhoods. The US gangs donât operate only on big cities anymore today they are operating on any neighborhood inside the United States. .
. February 12, 2007 SouthAmerica: Reply to ProfLogic Check this document prepared by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Right in the front page you see the name of the author of that document â just call him directly and ask him about the latest data â if he does not have it he will be able to let you know where to go to get the information. Over the years I did called a number of people who are experts on their fields and usually these people turned out to be very helpful. One time I was able to get even the home phone number of a fed official and I spoke with her when she was at home in the evening. And she was very helpful on that occasion and gave me all the detail information that I was looking for. Based on my personal experiences over the years when I contacted many of these people they were willing to speak to me and give me the information that I was looking for. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2003/2003-006.pdf Let me know if you were able to get the information that you want. .