Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[skono4]

"how does a weaker dollar impact a family who is heavily invested in stocks but never travels farther from the US than Niagara Falls? If the dollar drops by half and the stock market doubles in dollar terms, the family I described above benefits, do they not? What am I missing?"
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If you had zero income and depended wholly on your net wealth then in your scenario you are probably break even essentially------assuming the currency collapse stops there. That would really depend though on your particular purchasing needs and where inflation was rearing it's ugly head. While the dollar may drop 50% it doesn't mean all goods and services will double in lockstep inverse correlation. As we've seen over my lifetime (50) individual goods, services and commodities can scatter with the wind, zig and zag and explode pricewise in somewhat irrational and incoherent market frenzies.

So for example if you didn't own a home and were renting then what your concerns would be are housing costs. If you had health issues then health care inflation affects you disproportionately. Everybody has to eat but depending on your net worth the price of a sack of beans may not be significant. Some day the price of a sack of beans may be very significant. Let's hope not.

Since most famiies with or without assets in the stock market depend on income the purchasing power of the dollar is critical to their living standard. So it's going to be a very few instances of people "breaking even" where our currency collapses to half of today's value.