Many things are equivelent like Georgian, Costa Rican and Canadian plywood.
The relitive cost of the domestic product improves withthe falling dollar and we import less plywood.
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This is the first time I have seen an argument that a falling dollar is good for America. Of course, if you focus on specific areas of trade, there will be some sectors which benefit: possibly, as you point out, plywood exports. The falling dollar is bad for other sectors: oil imports. What's the big picture?
America has a huge trade deficit. Imports much more than it exports (measured in dollar volume) and that situation long pre-dated the fall of the dollar. The cause is not hard to find: things that you used to export can be made better and cheaper elsewhere. That isn't going to change. If your currency lowers to make your exports more attractive to foreign buyers, you are making it correspondingly more expensive to buy foreign imports. Since you import much more than you export, and since some imports (like oil) are absolutely essential to your economy, the NET EFFECT of a falling dollar is going to be damaging to the U.S. economy. Also, since many of your exports (plywood) depend on imported fuel to run the processing and transport of the raw materials and finished products, the benefits of a falling dollar (expanded markets) are wholly or partially offset by the increased production and transportation costs to the manufacturer.
So even without factoring in the Iraq war, you are fighting a losing battle against a very unfavourable balance of trade and a falling dollar. Now superimposed on this mess, you have a three trillion dollar debt run up by the Iraq War. (Some of which, true enough, may already be reflected in the existing budget deficit.) A war that was originally costed out at a mere $50 billion. I think at this point very, very few people realize or wish to publicly admit the sheer immensity of the stupidity which has brought you to this point. Even many who claim, correctly IMHO, that George W. Bush is the worst President in all of American history, do not fully appreciate just how big a fiscal catastrophe is about to hit you because of these colossal fuck-ups. A country as deep in the hole as yours is, has only one practical way out, print more money. And that's the shortest of short-term fixes. The more you print, the less it's worth. Everyone, particularly every currency speculator, can see what's coming way down the road, the cycle of printing and devaluation, each step of which postpones the inevitable adjustment. In very short order the currency is worthless and the day of reckoning arrives. A new dollar is printed and its value upheld, not by your currency reserves (which have long ago run out in vain attempts to maintain the value of the dollar against recurrent waves of speculative selling) but by government promises to foreign creditors of a drastic period of "belt-tightening." Slashing credit. Slashing imports. Slashing government services and entitlements. Slashing military expenditures and particularly foreign military adventures. Leading to, of course, to high unemployment, reduced welfare and SS payments, deteriorating public sector, more crime, less police . . .
That's what the fall of your dollar really means, plane. By no stretch of the imagination is this good for the country, although I admit some plywood manufacturers may well enjoy some of the temporary benefits. That would be only a very small part of the total picture.
