| Hi there, this is Liz. If you're an American, like me, you're probably dreaming about a vacation abroad right now. Thanks to the strength of the US dollar, a buck is worth a little bit extra in London and Tokyo these days. But if pounds or yen—or anything else, for that matter—is in your wallet, you're feeling a world of pain. As my colleagues Michael MacKenzie, Christopher Condon, and I report in the latest Bloomberg Businessweek cover story, the dollar has become a problem for everybody except the US. What's supposed to be good for Americans—higher interest rates in a hurry, which the Federal Reserve needs to tame inflation—has other nations taking extraordinary steps to prop up their currencies. For any other economy, King Dollar looks like a wrecking ball. The situation has become so dire that it's raised speculation of another Plaza Accord—the coordinated agreement between economic superpowers in 1985 that weakened the dollar. Yet that outcome remains unlikely, because the Fed has yet to vanquish inflation, and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said markets are working as they should. This backdrop and the allure of appealing US rates—not to mention investors' comfort in feeling their money is safer in dollar-denominated assets—makes it clear that nothing can stop the dollar's ascent for now. And that means everybody outside of the US needs to brace for more pain. Click here to read our story. — Liz McCormick, Bloomberg News, Chief Correspondent Global Markets  Bloomberg Businessweek, Oct. 3, 2022 Photographer: Maria Chimishkyan for Bloomberg Businessweek | 
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