Without a minimum wage that wouldn't happen. And there would be less unemployment.

The currencies generally have gotten a little ahead of themselves in terms of purchasing power parity vs the dollar. Eventually arbitrage will even it out again but with all the former USD loving central banks unloading and diversifying (and even supermodels demanding payments in Euros) there is a lot of momentum in the dollar slide.

Mises - agree. I work in oil & gas with the currency being US$. Most of the poor buggers I work with have gone in a short space of time from $1.8 to the £ sterling to 2.1. I've seen this fluctuation before. I refused payment in dollars when I took up my last contract. It's far too flaky to rely on. I believe the currency of choice of the next few years will be the euro, and it's already moving that way.

Price from the UK are still a good deal to us as far as some web sites go. Cycling attracts money and money people, so it drives up the price here in the US. At the moment it is still a good deal to order from several UK places. I won't name names but Total Cycling used to have killer deals and fast service to the US. It's still not bad, but I need someone to beat EBAY before they get my money. I have no local shops to frequent, but the pricing when I do go to one makes me lie on the floor and don't do anything foolish as they are robbers. Here's an example. Local KEO cro mo pedals are around $200+ and another 7% for the man. I can get around $140 on EBAY or $125 from the UK. Gets kind of scary and makes me want to hoard essentials if everyone goes to $200 as I only make $12.00/hr.

For those that do want to buy from the US, these guys offer a cool service. Haven't used them myself, but was featured in a UK newspaper when the US dollar dropped a few months back...

http://www.myus.com/

It is hard to use a non US credit card though... address validation doesn't work too well on Aussie cards, haven't tried with my UK cards.

Worst part of all this is dating UK women. They want twice as much and give half in return.

LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!

tikka