What's with crappy exchange rates?

[tracilicious]

Upon doing travel research, I recently discovered that you need almost two dollars to equal one British pound. What's with that? Didn't the dollar used to be stronger? Is there any end in sight to American traveler's woes? I know you political gurus will have a lot to say about this, so educate me. :D


And hooray for me for starting my very first Daily Grind thread!

[Alex]

The dollar has always roughly had that exchange rate as far as I can recall.

Just today they were talking on one of the business news channels about how it might be time for the president to back off on his insistance on a strong dollar and allow it to soften a little bit to help domestic exporters.

[Snowflake]

Congratulations on your Daily Grind thread! :snap:

I can't answer you, but I know it sucks. My boss was just in Finland and I just did his expense report and a Pepsi for him was $6.40 American!

[Alex]

And by "always" I mean for the last few years it has been between .5 and .6. For the couple decades before that I believe it was mostly in the .6 to .7 range.

[tracilicious]

The dollar has always roughly had that exchange rate as far as I can recall.

Just today they were talking on one of the business news channels about how it might be time for the president to back off on his insistance on a strong dollar and allow it to soften a little bit to help domestic exporters.

No! That would put a serious damper on travel (at least for me). So why is the pound so strong?

[Alex]

That was one of the benefits mentioned. Softening the dollar would keep more tourist money in the country.

[tracilicious]

But what about those of us that want to take our American dollars to other countries? Perhaps Great Britain should soften their pound.