SantiagoBear

11:18 pm: It's been awhile
 . .  . since I complained about the exchange rate.  Well, the US$ spent about a year in the VERY low $400s, but in the past 2 weeks has skyrocketed in value.  I find it odd that the economy in the US has gotten so bad, and yet the dollar has risen in value . . . at least in Chile.

The exchange rate, as of closing yesterday (and it'll stay here until sometime on Monday) was worth $638.  No kidding. WAY more than it's been in the time I've been here.  In fact, it hasn't been this high since sometime in 2002.

I withdrew $250.000 today, from my savings in the US, and the net withdrawal was US$392.08. The rule of thumb for year has been that $250.000 would be around US$550.00  I'm transferring my US savings, at this point, little by little, to my savings account here.  Since I'm going to use it to make a down-payment on the house, the fact that the exchange is so much in my favor is really helping.

So . . . . even though it's NOT particularly good for Chile, the increase in the value of the dollar is good for me.

I find it odd, though  - - - they tend to want the dollar to be worth about $500.  when it was dropping, the Chilean Gov't was doing all sorts of monetary tricks to shore up the value.  They said we were suffering from the low value of the USD.  *I* certainly was.

NOW, they're saying that we're suffering from the high cost of the dollar.  Even though the cost of a barrel of oil has dropped to it's lowest point in over a year, the cost of gasoline here continues to rise.  I paid $746 per liter on Thursday.  That's just WAY too much.

Life goes on.