Debt and the dollar« Thread Started on Jul 26, 2007, 2:27am » --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Debt and the dollarThe United States damages future living standardsby borrowing itself into a deceptively deep holeBy L. Josh Bivensread at source> http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/Issuebrief203The United States is currently borrowing $665 billion annually from foreign lenders to finance the gap between payments to and receipts from the rest of the world, an amount equivalent to $5,500 per American household. This borrowing entails serious costs for the U.S. economy. However, these costs have been hidden for the past few years, predominantly by the historically low interest rates, which resulted from the Federal Reserve’s attempts to spur economic recovery after the 2001 recession and from a downturn in domestic investment. This happy scenario will not persist indefinitely, and when interest rates rise, the costs of U.S. borrowing will have serious economic consequences:• With no improvement in the current account deficit, the external debt of the United States will rise from 24% of total U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of 2003 to 64% by 2014.• The cost of servicing just the additional debt incurred from 2004 to 2014 will rise to 1.7% of GDP by 2014, the equivalent of $250 billion in 2004 dollars.Recent declines in the value of the dollar, while a welcome development, must be more broadly based among a larger cross-section of trading partners to bring the international accounts of the United States back into rough balance. Specifically, nations that actively manage the value of their currencies must allow the value of these currencies to rise vis-à-vis the dollar.