Euro devaluation is eating deeply into the profitability of CPA member manufacturers.
I just got off the phone with Jack Davis, owner of I Squared R Element Company in Albany NY. I Squared R is the largest U.S. manufacturer of silicon carbide heating elements (see picture above). Because the euro has dropped 30% in value recently, his company is being asked to substantially cut prices to be competitive in bidding. This is a very big hit on pricing and profitability.
Contrast this reality with the fiction written in some financial pages. Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal negligently wrote (subscription required) that there are no losers in modern currency wars. In other words, this free market newspaper is supporting government manipulation of currency valuation despite the fact the global system is built upon the assumption of free floating currencies maintaining equilibrium value.
The Europeans are not manipulating the Euro. But 20 countries are, many of them for the purpose of gaining an international trade advantage akin to a government export subsidy and import tariff.
The path towards reclaiming American prosperity is littered with dangerous and destructive “analysis” like that of Greg Ip which basically say “nothing to see here, please move along.”
A very big part of escaping the new mercantilism of the global trading system, in which global growth occurs on the back of US consumption, is to fix the problem of foreign governments gaming the currency trading system.
