In light of my column
yesterday arguing that the dollar desperately needs
strengthening (an argument also made repeatedly and forcefully by
many experts wiser than I), it is my duty to inform you that we are
all doomed. Apparently, our federal reserve chairman is an utter
nincompoop. Unless the Wall Street Journal mischaracterized a
paraphrase of some testimony he gave Congress yesterday, his
solution for today's current economic problems is...drum roll
please...to be grateful that the dollar is weak!!! In not just any
story, but the lead story on page one of the WSJ, the big news is
"Dollar's Dive Deepens as Oil Soars," and the article provides
numerous indices that "the dollar is falling with new speed." Yet
Bernanke "point[ed] to the weak dollar as a rare bright spot
helping exports, jobs and the trade deficit."Â !!!!!
A bright spot, he says!!!! This is madness.
And even the few supposed advantages of a weak dollar cause even
more problems involve even more price hikes. Witness this sentence
from the same WSJ story: "A cheap dollar also fuels upward pressure
on the prices of imports, a factor that complicates the Federal
Reserve's task of fighting inflation." So Bernanke makes the dollar
weak, which makes his own job harder. Brilliant. As the news story
also notes, the administration is also at fault: "The Treasury
Department, while officially supporting a strong dollar, has not
protested its mostly gradual decline." Of course, now the decline
is no longer gradual; it's just short of a free-fall.
And nobody anywhere in power seems determined to arrest that
fall.
We're doomed.
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