Dollar pumping

摘要

Last January on a flight to Los Angeles I sat next to a young man from Australia. He and his fellow basketball team members were in the United States for some exhibition games. I believe he was returning home to college, but at the time he was enjoy-ing his visit to the United States and the best thing about the country, he said, was the shopping. 'The shopping?' I thought. I never realized that age group of men were such consumers, but then I realized it may be more exaggerated with those from overseas because the exchange rate is, as he said, "just awesome." At one point, he pulled out a U.S. dollar bill and said "they should just burn these." A bit defensive, I replied, "The dollar hasn't sunk that low." But he explained that the bill itself was cumbersome and our U.S. Treasury should come up with a better idea (I didn't have the heart to tell him about the failed Susan B. Anthony $ 1 coin or scarce $2 bill).