First Gisele Bundchen, now Jay-Z swaps dollars for Euros

Bloomberg News reports that Gisele Bundchen is not the only celebrity swapping dollars for Euros. Now Jay-Z is flaunting his preference for the Euro. In a video for the movie "American Gangster," hip-hop maestro Jay-Z thumbs through a wad of 500-euro notes on a night of cruising through the concrete canyons of New York, a city where the dollar -- not the Euro -- is legal tender.

Does this warrant comment from distinguished economists? Bloomberg News thinks so. Jeffrey Garten, a Yale School of Business professor who was the Commerce Department's undersecretary for international trade in the Clinton administration opined: "What we're seeing is a very broad rebalancing of economic and political power in the world. The scales are moving, and they're moving quite fast."

With the dollar down 60% since January 2001, the decline in the dollar is probably going to be hard to reverse. Harvard University professor Kenneth Froot, who has been a consultant to the Fed said, "There is no doubt that the dollar must sink against periphery currencies to reflect their increase in competitiveness and productivity."

If you agree with Garten, Froot, Bundchen, and Jay-Z, it may be time to buy Euros. Or maybe it's too late.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.