Dollar Bears Mercifully Silent

"The old dollar, she's going down" -- Bill Gates at Davos, January 2005
"In your dreams, Windows-boy" -- Howard Simons

Was there anything more tedious than listening to all those dollar bears a year ago proclaiming that the greenback was not going to be worth the paper it was printed on?

Their arguments were repeated breathlessly, and could usually be summarized as saying Americans were going to get comeuppance for their wicked, wicked ways by seeing the dollar sink, interest rates rise, stocks get pounded and (shudder) their ability to keep on consuming curtailed.

They were wrong then and they would be wrong today if they were so foolish to keep their jaws flapping about our twin budgetary and trade deficits in the face of an upside breakout in the dollar. ...