Twilight Zone: Where even the lowly RUPEE is stronger than the dollar!

You want to know what's funny? This is what's funny -- I just paid GOOD MONEY to go to a writing seminar and what happened? The moment I got there, I developed writer's block! That's so unfair.

But then The Chief handed out a writing assignment that got me back on track. Why? Because it made me so PISSED OFF! "I want you to write an essay," said The Chief, "comparing the value of the American dollar with the value of the Indian rupee". What? What kind of an assignment is that?. Everyone knows that the dollar WAY out-performs the rupee. This is a stupid assignment. Give me a break!

But to keep The Chief happy, I just gritted my teeth and started doing the research -- but what I found out pissed me off so much that I totally FORGOT about writer's block! Geez Louise! Did you know that in just one week alone, the exchange rate between dollars and rupees has fluctuated a lot -- and it isn't the DOLLAR that is holding strong! "On Christmas Day, the exchange rate between rupees and dollars was 49 rupees per dollar." However, by January 3, 2007, the almighty dollar was only worth 42 rupees. It is the lowly rupee that is performing the best!

Seven years ago, before the neo-cons started messing around with our economic system, American tourists could go anywhere in the world -- from Amsterdam to Zimbabwe -- and find that people in ANY foreign country would be overjoyed to take dollars. Now even the most desperate bazaar hawker in the most desperate third-world backwater will now pause and say, "You got anything else besides dollars?"

Am I living in the Twilight Zone or what?