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Americans are discovering that sad fact when they go abroad themselves, as they are doing this year in record numbers. The big attraction is the lowered air fares, but many tourists are not prepared for the rude shocks they receive when they change their dollars into foreign currencies. West Germany's seven U.S. consulate offices are flooded with young tourists who hopped aboard cheap flights with the expectation of living in Europe on, say, $10 a day. Ten dollars an hour is more like it, and they find themselves stranded. Philadelphians Eugene and Bonnie Baker planned to bicycle around England and stay in cozy old inns. They ended up boarding in spartan lodgings, where people were reluctant to change American Express traveler's checks for fear the value of the dollar would drop before the checks could be converted into pounds. "It's a shock to find the dollar downgraded," says Mrs. Baker.
During the Wimbledon tennis matches, one of the most popular meeting places for the American players and their wives was a coin laundry just off trendy Carnaby Street. Americans balked at the high cost of sending their laundry out. One tourist, in fact, was arrested for trying to escape from a London laundry without paying his bill. He claimed that the cost of the washing exceeded the value of his clothes. The magistrate told him to check prices beforehand and let him go.
Nowhere has the dollar faded so badly as in Japan, where it has shrunk by 40% in a year. Confronted with a $2.50 can of beer, a $5 breakfast or a $30 minute-steak lunch, Americans beat a hasty retreat—"chuckling in amazement," says a shopkeeper on Tokyo's Ginza. Says a veteran tourist who is staying at Tokyo's Imperial Hotel, where the cheapest room for two is $80 a night: "It's just plain scandalous. I never thought I'd see the day when the greenback would turn into Mickey Mouse money. It really hurts my pride as an American."
To try to end the dollar's slide, the Carter Administration began a series of steadying actions last week. The U.S. Treasury announced that starting in November it would boost its gold sales from 300,000 oz. per month to 750,000. To allay any speculation about the oil-rich nations turning against the dollar, Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal met with Saudi Arabian Finance Minister Mohamed Abdel-Kheil at Disney World, of all places, where the minister was vacationing with his family. Blumenthal suggested that a timely statement of support might give the dollar a lift. Soon after, Crown Prince Fahd declared that his country had every intention of continuing to accept dollars as payment for oil.
The announcements gave a slight but encouraging boost to the embattled dollar. Said Lawrence Krause, an economist with the Brookings Institution: "The Administration is playing it very wisely so far. You don't want to panic the markets the other way and shoot up the value of the dollar. Dribbling these things out is just right to keep everyone except yourself guessing." The White House, in fact, plans to announce some new but limited measures to bolster the dollar every few days for the next two or three weeks. Before going off on their separate vacations, President Carter and other top Administration officials drew up a list of possible moves.