Doni,

True, perceptions are subjective and the truth for all of us regardless whether they correspond to objective reality or not. Yet, individuals, and certainly professionals, form perceptions based on culture as well as history. You are here, for example, because of your perception about the future of Edig which is based on some facts and some projections. The latter can be true or false and this is really the difference between those who are successful, in general, and those who are not. This has always been the case throughout history. Therefore, complaining about perceptions and how people make decisions, frankly, makes no sense.

Now about the dollar. The problem of the dollar has nothing to do with what you call perceptions. It rather reflects the fact that the deficit of our balance of payments- which records our international transactions with the rest of the world- has turned negative for the last 15 years to the tune of about 15% percent of our GDP. This is a huge amount that used to about 5-6%. To appreciate the magnitude it amounts to more than $130 billions a month. This means that we buy far more from foreigners than we sell to them. Go to any store and find out how many American products are on the shelves. Almost everything is marked "made in China". As we buy from abroad we supply dollars and as foreigners buy from us they demand dollars. Therefore, the supply of dollars far exceeds the demand for dollars and result is a decrease in the price of dollars as compared to foreign currencies. If you want to find the culprit in all this please look at the mirror as I do. This has implications on the future of this country the most obvious of which is that we transfer jobs from here to less developed counties. And this has more to do with the American businessman and less with the various administations. Now I can go further but this enough.