Friday, August 8, 2008

Exchange Rate Warfare

Perhaps readers may be able to help clarify the state of play for multinationals over the last few decades? I'm trying to piece together the jigsaw of international manoevres by the world's largest corporations.

It's interesting to observe that the nations with the largest deficits - the US, UK and Germany - are also the homes of the largest transnational corporations. Have their respective governments and reserve banks been:

(i) floating a lot of debt to these businesses at low interest rates;
(ii) maintaining artificially high exchange rates in order for their large MNCs to
(iii) accumulate assets relatively cheaply overseas and in order to facilitate
(iv) their cheap repayment of debt??

Now that these same corporations are caught in a recession with high levels of debt are we now seeing a taxpayer-funded bailout of these same MNCs?

2 comments:

reason said...

Largest Deficits? Germany?

YouNotSneaky! said...

Artificially high exchange rates? US?

(based on your iii) i'm assuming you're talking of ERs as foreign currency per national currency)