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May 30th, 2007 issue

Dollar dive

What is the point of this article (“Declining dollar, declining standards,” Opinion, May 23–29)? That you are missing the situation of postwar economics?

Let me tell you that similar conditions exist not just in the United States but also in Europe and Canada.
It is called leveling. The citizens of Asia are catching up with all the “Western democracies.”
The one-wage-earner family has been a thing of the past for a very long time.
We in Canada (some of us, anyway) are fretting that the increase of value of the Canadian dollar versus the U.S. dollar is cramping our exports to the U.S., which is a major importer of our goods. There are others that laud these increases for their own reasons.
The money market is fluid. The cost of living in the U.S. is far cheaper than in the majority of European countries.
Prague is one of most expensive cities in Europe. Try to get out of Prague some time and you will find that your money will go much further. There are still many U.S. tourists in Europe and around the world. Europe does not have the same appeal to North Americans that it had in the past.
You are not a believer in conspiracies (you said), but you are, really.
As you said at the start of your article, the U.S. government does not care one way or the other where you are going (with the exception of Cuba), yet you insinuate that they are happy that Americans don’t go to Europe to see the situation for themselves. As if two or three weeks of vacation could really make you an expert on life in any country.
It is patently inane.
Jiri Hubacek
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Gray economy
I am not sure why people think that the U.S. is an “economic giant” (“Going gray,” Business, May 16–22). Its per-capita income is below that of many other countries, including Iceland, Luxemburg, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and others. Its total GDP is less than that of the European Union.
Generalizing what “Europeans” do or do not “realize” over the 27 countries within the EU and the other European countries outside it is arrogant. There are as many differences among the immigration policies of different European countries as there are between the U.S. and Honduras.
As for the illegal immigrants in your own country ... they are largely uneducated and bring the per-capita GDP down, rather than up. So, let’s hope that more and more come until the United States is full up.
John Ainsworth
Prague
What I was generalizing about is a fact: that all of Europe, without exception, is going gray. There is not one country that has population growth. Therefore, they should all think about revising their immigration laws. All the EU countries already do, and will in the future, need foreign labor.
Peter Zamfir
Sanford, Florida, U.S.A.


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