[Foundation-l] Relocation announcement

Sat Sep 22 19:12:56 UTC 2007

Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> The point is, the non-USD donations are already being spent in the US at
>> very favorable exchange rates.  Go to the UK and that utterly
>> evaporates, and you suddenly need a much larger income stream to achieve
>> the same level of spending power.
>>     
> That's a good point. Nevertheless, it's still a short term
> consideration - purchasing power and exchange rates will converge over
> time (and then diverge again, of course, but there's no way to know
> which direction they'll go in next time).
That's not a given.  It depends on getting the economic fundamentals 
right at the national level, like not depending on debt to fuel 
spending.  It will work as a short term tactic, but cannot be sustained 
as a long term strategy.  Exchange rates merely reflect purchasing 
power, and that in turn is a composite of a number of factors.  Some 
countries have gone bankrupt in the past, and the old currency became 
worthless.

Ec