The British government was rocked last week, first from the scandal involving the insane spending done by their parliament members and then by the warning from Standard and Poor’s that their credit rating – or should we say debt rating – is in peril of being lowered due to huge budget deficits and a rising national debt not seen since World War 2. Did the Sterling fall though? No, it did not – at least not as much as one would think that a “AAA” rated country would fall after hearing that they will soon be subject to higher interest rates and unfavorable terms that comes with anything less than a “AAA” rating. What did happen was quite fascinating, and it was something that I have been saying here for months. The US Dollar collapsed on the news out of England.
Why? You might ask would the currency of a country across an ocean fall on bad news out of the British Isle’s. The answer is quite simple, Forex traders and investors know that the US is next on the chopping block. Although I firmly believe that they should be first based on their crazy debt to income ratio – they are running at a 12 Trillion Dollar deficit carrying a 1.5 Trillion dollar debt and GDP is expected to fall this year – the Dollar enjoys the privilege of being the Dollar, and thus it gets afforded a little more latitude when it comes to these matters.
But the real reason why the US was not first on this list was political and economic in nature. Lower the sovereign debt of the US and countries holding the bonds suffer. As the US will be faced with higher borrowing rates, and will not be afforded the right to offer so much debt and will be regulated as to the terms (10 year, 20 year 30 year), the value of the currency will fall and thus make the value of the debt already out there worth less. This will have a huge impact on the world economy and is probably one of the reasons why China is pondering accepting the Brazilian Real in trade over the US Dollar.
But one last thing on this, it is ironic though that while this might hurt the rest of the world, it will help the US get out of the mess quicker. By deflating the currency it means that the US has to pay less in order to repay a debt. For example, if China is holding $10 in bonds from 1999 those bonds are still worth $10 today – plus interest, however the value of the dollar is lower than it was in 1999 and so the payments that the US makes will be worth less than they were only a few months ago. Forex online blogsters are buzzing about this – and all those trading in the dollar should be aware that this is coming. Don’t say you were not warned.