Weak dollar puts America outside luxury’s “Golden Triangle”
“While American buyers are keeping an uncharacteristically low profile, with a beady eye on the miserable dollar exchange rate, other parts of the world are rejoicing in burgeoning markets and have no thought of recession . . . designers agree that it is definitely not, as it used to be, all about America setting the pace as the market for luxury, even if the weak dollar is saving retailers in America’s tourist regions. The Middle East, stretching via the Mediterranean coastline to Turkey and Greece, is the most buzzy area.”
Growth indicators are flapping wildly in Brasil, Russia, China, India and the Middle East/North African regions, while the U.S. consumers are biting their nails and digging in for a long-haul of economic pain.
We import two-thirds (or more) of our fuel, and this is having a staggeringly negative impact across all aspects of our economy as fuel prices skyrocket (not to mention the impact of natural disasters, which is just icing on the Misery Cake). This is not a problem that can be solved quickly or easily, and certainly not without a lot of radical rethinking of how we live our lives in the 21st century, but as cheap fuel becomes just another memory, look for the countries with the last of it left within their own borders to be the only ones left to close down the party.
Goodbye, New York! Hello, Moscow!
