Owing to my German background, Marine Rescue still don't allow me to work in their radio-room. Instead, I have been relegated to selling raffle tickets in the main street on Thurday and Friday afternoons.
Yesterday I sold some 140 tickets to the passing parade. One chap paid me with a $5 note which had the Queen's picture defaced with the felt-tip-penned inscription "SHE'S UN-AUSTRALIAN". Another couple, covered in tattoos and very little else, demanded their 'lucky' ticket number of 69 !
Today's ticket sale has been called off because of bad weather. I sit at home and read through the latest economic data.
The Australian dollar came within a whisker of parity with the U.S. dollar - 0.9993 cents! - and already there is talk of a New World Order for Currencies. Going back to the June lows, the Australian dollar has appreciated around 22 per cent against the greenback! And America wants to flood the world with even more US dollars while the Chinese refuse to decouple their currency from the US dollar. Who will win this currency war?
The appreciating Australian dollar is bad news for our exporters, including our miners who sell their coal and base minerals in US dollars. However, just as fast as the US dollor drops, the price of base minerals seems to jump as the world seeks refuge in real, tangible assets.
Overnight, the Baltic Dry Index, always a good indicator of the state of the world's economy, notched up another small gain to 2748 (which is still a far cry from its high of 4209 in late May).
The German "Bundeskartellamt" indicated its opposition to the planned BHP-RIO Iron Ore Joint Venture in the Pilbara but the market had already anticipated this. On the overnight London Stock Exchange, BHP was down a few pence; in early trading on the local exchange their shares dropped 15 cents.
