What does a currency devaluation look like?

[Fullpower]

Roosevelt did it by executive decree;
Devalued the Dollar by 40%.
How would such an action play out now?
Devalue the dollar against WHAT?
The dollar is already fiat, not based on anything.

[Phoenix]

Go here:

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

Insert 2010, 1913, and $1.00, and then you see how currency devaluation looks like.


(quick version: a dollar today is worth the same as 5 cents in 1913, the year of the "Federal" Reserve founding)

[Joe King]

Roosevelt did it by executive decree;
Devalued the Dollar by 40%.
How would such an action play out now?
Devalue the dollar against WHAT?
The dollar is already fiat, not based on anything.



If it's backed by anything, it's backed by the collective future productive capacity of the Nation.

All those bonds they sell are only as good as the govs ability to levy taxes sufficient enough to make the promises good.
...and they can't do that if the future productive capacity isn't as big as it was thought it was going to be. It's called borrow even more to try to make up the difference.

[madfranks]

Roosevelt did it by executive decree;
Devalued the Dollar by 40%.
How would such an action play out now?
Devalue the dollar against WHAT?
The dollar is already fiat, not based on anything.



If you're asking about a direct overnight devaluation, it can't happen today. Like you said, the dollar is fiat and floating, there is nothing against which to devalue it by declaration. In order to devalue the dollar by any %, it would first have to be pegged to something, either another currency or a commodity. Such an act would destroy the dollar as the world reserve currency. Slow devaluation via inflation has been the name of the game for almost 100 years, and will continue to be the name of the game until the dollar is eventually replaced with a new world currency.

[Trinity]

The most recent devaluation by one of the "big guys" was China in the 80's,90's. It played out pretty well for them. They say.