"The U.S. has a current account deficit, a budget deficit and a
president who appears unconcerned about dollar weakness," said Shahab
Jalinoos, senior currency strategist at ABN AMRO. "No one can see any
reason to buy the dollar at the moment."

The president cost me nearly $15,000 last year when I purchased my
current glider with flip remarks about not caring and then retracting
his statements about the dollar's strength. It has become so weak now,
that gliders are priced beyond all reason... meaning even though new
ones cost more, used gliders are losing value because demand is
reduced (psychologically, it's tough to justify six figures for a
piece of plastic). Since I don't quite earn 7 figures yet, my tax
break in miniscule, and now GWB is spending three-day weekends at Camp
David, effectively barring us from our local ridges on NW days.

Four more years... sigh!

(Mike Stringfellow) wrote in message . com...
The US dollar is now valued close to 0.75 Euro, down from its peak of
1.25 a couple of years ago. Analysts say it may go even lower, with
some projecting exchange rates of 0.7 (1.4 dollar to the Euro).

This has pretty much put the kibosh on my goals of buying a new
European sailplane. A model at, say, Euro 85,000 cost around $70,000
a couple of years ago, is now around $110,000 and may soon be at
$120,000.

Economic models would suggest a strong incentive for sailplane
manufacture in North America, but I wonder if the numbers of potential
sales would justify this.

Any thoughts?