Market analysts and currency experts can wibble on as much as they like on TV programmes that no one watches, but perhaps the most significant blow to the ailing US dollar was dealt by a rap star during a five- second clip in a new video.
An album of songs that were "inspired" by the new film American Gangster contains Jay-Z's Blue Magic. The video features Jay-Z flashing €50,000 worth of €500 - yes, euro - notes. It was a smart and clued- in move by the rapper. Rap is all about reflecting current events, and you simply can't bling it up with the devalued dollar any more.
Jay-Z's controversial move was undoubtedly based on the calculation that to flash the US dollar equivalent of €50,000 he would have needed $72,000, and that amount was too much for his gold money clip to contain.
It was one thing for clothes- horse Gisele Bundchen to insist that she now be paid only in euro; she's Brazilian. But it's a different matter when an American pop culture hero is visibly seen "dissing" his currency. While it won't lead to a Dixie Chicks-style boycott of Jay-Z for such a flagrant "unpatriotic" move, the image was significant enough to draw comment.
Academic Kathleen Vohs, who has researched the psychology of money, moved to note that Jay-Z's actions may have a more far-reaching effect.
"A strong national currency is in some ways signalling the strength of the nation," she says. "You can see that when the home currency is weak, people just have this sense of inferiority in the world." For Vohs, the dollar's decline has whittled way at national pride in the superpower, making a recovery all the more difficult.
The Canadian dollar, usually weak, reached parity with the US dollar in September and has been climbing since. Expect a lot of American artists to begin touring in earnest in Canada (a territory they traditionally ignore). For some, though, the real poetic justice aspect of this story will only arrive when a
Dr Dre or an Eminem begins to ostentatiously flaunt Mexican pesos in their videos.
What is most remarkable about Jay-Z's actions is how analysts are using the video clip as a sign that "things are really serious". It seems that you can write hundreds of editorials and have any amount of men in suits weeping on the financial news channels about the decline of the dollar, but it is only when it is fed to the people in a context they understand - a rap video - that some form of critical mass of thought about the dollar has been reached.
On a related note, the hip-hop message boards are now calling for US rappers to start promoting the "amero". This comes from a much-mooted proposal that Canada, the US and Mexico
share a common currency, based on the euro, to be known as the amero. The conspiracy theory du jour is that earlier this year the US Treasury Department began issuing "amero coins", and that secret high-level talks between North American leaders have taken place about the urgent need to create a rival to the euro. These talks probably took place on a grassy knoll in Roswell.
In the wake of Jay-Z's video, there are also stories (probably urban myths, but who knows?) that the more upwardly mobile crack dealers in US urban areas are now accepting payment in euro only . Crack dealers, as you can imagine, do like to keep up with changing international currency trends.
The short clip of Jay-Z flashing the euro may not rock the international markets, but it is a perfect PR job for the still new currency - and perhaps the first time the euro has featured on MTV. Many Americans still don't know the euro exists, much less in which countries it is legal currency.
This is all bad news for 50 Cent, in particular, who by today's trading figures is now worth just €0.340933 in Europe. As if his last album didn't devalue him enough.
