Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of June 25th, 2024

Article Excerpt

When I first met my wife Cecy a couple of decades ago, I was surprised to learn an unusual fact about El Salvador, the Central American nation where she grew up. On January 1, 2001, El Salvador had retired its existing currency, the Colon, and officially switched to the U.S. dollar as legal tender. Around the world, dozens of nations now use the U.S. dollar alongside their native currency, or as their main currency, or, like El Salvador, as their sole currency. When countries institute this process of ‘dollarization’, it often improves their national economic health. However, keeping up that improvement takes constant effort, which comes at a cost. If a dollarized country returns to the bad habits that spurred the change in its currency, the cost of backsliding may make earlier economic losses seem trivial. Dollarized nations may also fail to make full use of the dollar in their home economies. This can limit or reverse the growth that U.S. dollars…