against the dollar achieved under the blessed Margaret in 1985
In fact, though the falls look huge, it has moved back to trading nearer its historical average. The aberration was the $2 seen in recent years.
Personally I do not think that any of the changes made by Darling are going to make much difference to how this unravels. The simple truth is the world has seen a credit bubble of the likes not expereinced since the 1920's. There are really only three ways to deal with the resulting debts
1. Default
2. Inflation.
3. Repayment.
I expect we are going to require a mixture of all three to resolve the crisis. The one thing the government should not do is to try to prop up the value of assets such as houses which really need to fall back to their historical norms (ie with mortgages circa 3.5 times wages). Unfortunately this bolstering of asset values seems to be exactly what the authorities here and in the USA have in mind. Indeed, the desperate bailing out of Wall street and the City just goes to show how laughable were all those lectures the population received from financiers over the years. It seems that only the little people were required to 'change to survive' in a globalized world. When the wolf came for the elites it was open the public purse and hand outs all round.
In fact it seems almost anything is being contemplated to maintain the status quo for the rich. They are hypocrites to man and deserve to be lynched by the mob from the nearest lamp post.
The sad thing is that the traditional left has been largely silent at this huge largesse to the wealthy and it has been left to a handful of cranky fiscal conservatives and green sympathisers to call the crooks out.
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/667-Tired-of-The-Crash.htmlhttp://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/11/bailout-pledges-hit-77-trillion.htmlhttp://suddendebt.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-many-trillions.html