Rising Dollar Spells Trouble

King Dollar is crimping private consumption everywhere in the world as the high cost of imported goods burns holes in consumers' pockets not just in the US but elsewhere in the world

Over the past few months, the word 'de-dollaraisation' is fast gaining currency everywhere in the world. It may be perhaps one of the most searched word on the world wide web after the Ukrainian War, inflation and other such trending words and phrases.

The reason for the growing interest of netizens in 'de-dollarisation' is not hard to find. The unfettered appreciation of the US greenback has been creating headaches not only for the consumers of import dependent countries but also for the central bankers on both sides of the Atlantic. I will explain the reasons for this in a while. Before that, if truth be told, in the first-place, king dollar is crimping private consumption everywhere in the world as high cost of imported goods burns holes in consumers’ pockets not just in the US but elsewhere in the world as well.

For the sake of context, the US dollar has been appreciating against all the major currencies including pound sterling, Euro and of course Indian rupee steadily despite occasional retreats now and then. The DXY or the dollar index, the go-to gauge that tracks the greenback’s movements against a basket of currencies, has appreciated almost 3% during the past one month alone. This means that all other currencies in the basket have lost almost 3% of their values by none of their own fault.