posted on Nov, 14 2008 @ 07:34 PM
I'm not sure how all the currencies started out or how they got to the value levels they are now, but I could give an example of the chinese yuan
being pegged to the US dollar.
About 8.25 yuan would be $1 US dollar. Now since that was a peg it means the Yuan would be valued to other currencies depending on how the dollar was
valued against them. If $1 = 1 Euro then 1 Euro would also be 8.25 Yuan.
Now that it's unpegged it has gained somewhat in value against the dollar.
What changes the value of a currency can be many things. The monetary policy of the government, the fiscal policy and of course the economy.
If the Federal Reserve injects a lot of money into the markets like it has been doing lately it's increasing the money supply, which decreases the
overall value of each dollar.
In third world countries their currencies are not worth much because of the political instability there. If I was to invest $10 million usd into
argentina I would have to convert it into Argentinian Pesos, which would drive the demand for that money up, thus slightly increasing the value
thereof.
This would also cause some deflation and prices to be stabilized. Now if the president was assasinated and there was a war going on, I would say that
it's too risky to invest in there, so I pull my money out. So I would bring my pesos to the banks and say I want USD or some other currency for these
pesos. If everyone does this the currency falls and the country goes into inflation. The banks might even run out of foreign money reserves to do the
exchange so they would automatically drop the price of the peso to be able to exchange enough into other currencies.
That's at least what I know about it.
Cheers
Zebra