Word: weak
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...there are deeper reasons to fear a persistently weak dollar. For decades, various emerging markets in Asia and the Middle East have either officially or unofficially matched their currency rates to the dollar to limit their own currency fluctuations and thus stimulate trade. Since these countries tend to be exporters, they have also historically generated buckets of surplus dollars, which they funneled into U.S. Treasury bills, attracted by the dollar's long-term stability. This arrangement benefited the U.S., providing it with a bountiful source of buyers willing to fund its debts, despite the relatively low interest rates on offer...
China, Japan and others welcome the chance to scale back their U.S. holdings, but even the hint of a sale could send the dollar tumbling - as happened earlier this month when a Chinese official suggested China might shift some of its currency reserves to offset the "weak" dollar. The notion that the days of the dollar's dominance are numbered is, in fact, increasingly popular. In September, Alan Greenspan, former chief of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said it's "absolutely conceivable that the euro will replace the dollar as [the] reserve currency, or will be traded as an equally important...
...jihadists’ attack on Madrid’s trains. Some predicted at the time of Spain’s pullout that the terrorists had won and that this would surely lead to terrorist attacks in other countries just before national elections. Some said that Spain had proved itself weak and the terrorists would be sure to target it even more in the future. Neither prediction has proved true. Countries from Australia to Denmark to Macedonia all have troops in Iraq, but since 2004 there has not been a repeat of pre-election terrorism. And in Spain, the country?...
...liberals’ attempts to capture the moral high ground have thus far been weak or incoherent, especially in their moral case for single-payer health care. Such a system, by funneling most health care spending into the public sector, eliminates the private sector, and thus inequity. Millionaires, they beam, have to wait in the same lines for surgery as janitors. It is egalitarian. And therein lies its problem...
...deficits, a lax monetary policy and the falling dollar. "The European economy is on tranquilizers," retorted Laura D'Andrea Tyson, dean of the London Business School and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton Administration. She argues that Europe is both too complacent about its weak growth and strong common currency, and too slow to boost its international competitiveness in response to surging U.S. and Chinese productivity...