the mighty dollar(s)

[piranha]

wow, the canadian dollar is trading slightly higher than the US dollar. i've never seen that before (apparently it happened last about 30 years ago, when i wasn't paying attention to either dollar).

seems there was a short blip yesterday, but today the blip is longer, it's at U$ 0.999151 now (1.00 U$ is 1.00085 C$). so this is basically par.

which is as it should be. :) well, actually, what should happen is that the US dollar should fall more. the canadian economy has been solid for 10+ years, while the US economy has been mucked up.

i am more excited about this than i would have thought. no idea why.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

The curious thing is that my 'default norm' is about $1.10 USD per $1.00 CDN. That's what it was when I was a little kid, living with one grandmother in Detroit and visiting the other in Windsor on weekends. (in the mid-60s)

Yeah, how things have changed.

Re: the mighty dollar(s)

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

you're living in the past! :)

Re: the mighty dollar(s)

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I know.

It's even a little misleading to suggest that my mind is mostly in the 60s. I think my attitudes and values are more those of a late Victorian or Edwardian liberal.

But my notions about exchange rates are firmly anchored in the 60s.

[brooksmoses]

Somewhere I got a default norm that's "The convenience stores at the border give you $0.75 US for $1.00 Canadian, and $1.00 Canadian for $1.00 US, and it's a lousy deal in either direction." Which is pretty much the same thing.

I'm not sure where I got that, since I only actually exchanged money at the border twice (once in, once out), quite some time ago.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

(Deleted prior comment 'cause I wrote it backward). My default is $1 USD buys about $1.25 CDN. But as I don't pay attention to exchange rates much I honestly don't know what it had been in the recent past before we got to the current so-far-blip-but-maybe-it'll-stick-around of on-par.

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

When we were in Vancouver last month, and exchanging some US dollars for Canadian, the teller apologized to my older son that he wouldn't be handing out as large a pile as in days gone by.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

maybe they should hand out more coins, so it feels like you're getting more. :)

[swerved.livejournal.com]

I'm excited about ordering cheap books from across the border.

ordering cheap books

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*heh*. yeah, that has a big influence on me too.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You're excited because you don't get paid in US dollars -- though I bet you sometimes do, and then you may stop being excited and start being pissed off. I feel as if I've had a pay cut. The half of the advance for Ha'Penny I'll be getting on October 2nd will be worth 10% less than the first half I got this time last year, and 25% less than the Tooth and Claw one. What did I do to deserve this? Can I ask Tor for more money because the US$ sucks? I can not. However, I wonder about asking for a contract in CDN$ next time, so I know what I'm getting.

exchange rate hurts exporters

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

ha, if only. since most of our customers are american, we usually get paid in U$, and even some canadian companies do their accounting in U$ because most of their customers are american and it simplifies things for them. i've long since gotten used to the uncertainty that brings since our income is to some degree at the mercy of the currency exchange market. ghods, i used to try and game it by checking the trend of the market and letting that determine when i would deposit a U$ checque. i no longer bother; i would need more know-how to do this well.

where we have an advantage over your situation is that we have more of a chance to adjust our rates because our contracts run over a much shorter period of time. not that this is easy anyway, companies get peeved when you change the rates on them too often; they usually don't grok (especially as americans) how much currency exchange can shave off one's income. i always get growly about that because i think our rates are already damn good for them. we're about to have to go through this again, and i am not looking forward to the grief. it's easier to slip this in when the contract is for a fixed amount rather than hourly, but one of our main customer prefers hourly.

and yeah, it sucks that you're losing this much money. a contract in C$ might be a good thing, if they do that. we used to offer that (and at the time it was always cheaper), but no american company ever took us up on it.

i am way too lazy to actually try and calculate whether we come out even considering what we consume (while exporters are hurt, importers are happy, and some of their boon starts to get passed on a couple of months down the road).