General Election 2024

Quote: Pacomartin

Maybe in the first world places.

The Japanese Yen is at 133.89JPY to the USD and 136.14JPY to the EUR. It went above 130 to the EUR in 2017, but this is the first time it's been above 130 to the USD since 1998. The JPY was below 110JPY to the USD just a year ago.

Very often finances in Japan are controlled by the wife and she is often very conservative. Japan's postal savings system is the largest financial institution in the world, with about (250 trillion yen) on deposit. That value measured in USD dropped quite a bit in the past year. I am sure that if the cost of acquiring digital USD was cheap enough, many Japanese wives would keep money stored that way. There may always be a fee to change back and forth from one currency to the other, but some may choose to always keep a percentage of welth in USD.

Japanese wives used to do the Yen carry trade, a complex thing where you lend Yen over the weekend. It might be time to invest in Japanese fixed income.

Some small countries use the USD as their official currency.

The first country to seriously consider dollarizing was Argentina. At the time the USD circulating as an unofficial currency was about a third of the Argentine national currency.

In the last 25 years El Salvador and Ecuador adopted the US currency for very different reasons. El Salvador has the greatest percentage of their citizens living in the US of any Latin American Country and their primary source of income was remittances. Although the currency exchange rate was stable they did a study that said it was costing them more to maintain their own currency than to simply use dollars. El Savador had the more normal problem that rampant inflation was destroying the value of their currency.
Panama has always used the USD as their currency since 1906.

The Bahamas sets their dollar equal to the USD and backs it with treasury bonds. US banknotes are legal to use in the Bahamas.

Bahamian Banknotes total roughly 1/2 billion dollars for the population of ~400,000 in the following distribution
4.4% $0.50
63.1% $1.00
1.7% $3.00
6.3% $5
5.0% $10
6.8% $20
5.8% $50
7.0% $100
At the time of independence in 1974 $3 was the current exchange rate with the British Pound. The Bahamas has created a digital currency called the "sand dollar" with the primary goal of bringing banking to islands without physical banks, to collect taxes and distribute money to the poor, and probably to try and reduce or eliminate the large number of low denomination banknotes.

Obviously the American $100 bill is of great use as a store of value or to do trade around the world. Some estimates are over 80% of the $100 bills are circulating overseas.

While Bitcoin and Ethereuem are the largest crypto currencies by market Cap, #3 and #4 are simply digital USD. There are 20,443 crypto currencies at present
Bitcoin 1 BTC=$22,939.49 $439B Market Cap
Ethereum 1 ETH = $1,619.93 $198B Market Cap
Tether 1 USDT = $1.00 $66B Market Cap
USD Coin 1 USDC =$0.9999 $54B Market Cap

Today they’re both tied at 44.2%.

Nothing to see here!

Now folks in Georgia can claim their unborn fetus as a dependent on their taxes.

At least they're consistent.
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/georgia-unborn-child-count-dependent-taxes/story?id=87873125

Wait, so GOP +0.3% to pick'em?
Thanks for that intriguing update!

Yahoo News: DeSantis: Proposed state license plate features warning to "out-of-state cars".
https://news.yahoo.com/desantis-proposed-state-license-plate-090011948.html

Is DeSantis losing his mind and jumping the shark. Knucklehead, you are the Governor of vacation state Florida. Our state business is attracting and making vacationers feel WELCOME.

Quote: terapined

Yahoo News: DeSantis: Proposed state license plate features warning to "out-of-state cars".
https://news.yahoo.com/desantis-proposed-state-license-plate-090011948.html

Is DeSantis losing his mind and jumping the shark. Knucklehead, you are the Governor of vacation state Florida. Our state business is attracting and making vacationers feel WELCOME.

don't think a warning to out of state drivers is a bad idea. Maybe something like "People in Florida drive terrible, keep your distance"

Quote: DRich

don't think a warning to out of state drivers is a bad idea. Maybe something like "People in Florida drive terrible, keep your distance"

We should do what other states do
Put a positive motto on the plate attracting drivers to vacation here
This ain't 1776. Fl wasnt part of the original 13 states. "Don't tread on me or Florida" as a state motto is dumb. I can see MA maybe using it due to their close association with the 1776 revolution and being one of the 13 but even they won't go where DeSantis goes.
Dumb

NH has the best motto: "Live free or die."

Quote: missedhervee

NH has the best motto: "Live free or die."

Florida. “Retire here and die.”