Wow.
Price of zinc. Price of copper. Price of steel. Price of cement. Price of gold.
I haven't heard anybody say it yet, but it sounds to me like years of not making much of anything here in the USA, of not exporting much besides dollars, has finally caught up with us. It appears that the world market has finally caught on to the fact that the dollar isn't worth much anymore.
I think we were being propped up by the arab world keeping much of their petrodollars in this country. I believe they recently pulled out something like 90% of their dollar investments and put them into Euros, because they're afraid that we may freeze and/or seize their assets.
Whatever else I may think of Ross Perot, I'll give this to him--you can't have a viable economy that doesn't make anything.