Freedom Line Blog

Further proof that the Beltway Keynesians have taken us down the economic rabbit hole: it’s now falling to Europeans to warn us that inflation and stimulus are tanking the dollar. Consider the following from the Financial Times:

Increasing expectations the Federal Reserve will pump more money into the US economy next month under a policy known as quantitative easing sent the dollar to new lows against the Chinese renminbi, Swiss franc and Australian dollar. It dropped to a 15-year low against the yen and an eight-month low against the euro …

A senior European policy-maker, who asked not to be named, said a further aggressive round of monetary easing by the US Federal Reserve would be “irresponsible” as it made US exports more competitive at the expense of its rivals…

Russia’s finance minister Alexei Kudrin, in a meeting with European Union officials, blamed the US – and others – for global currency instability.

He said one reason for exchange rate turmoil “is the stimulating monetary policy of some developed countries, above all the United States, which are trying to solve their structural problems in this way”.

The entire justification for the creation of the Federal Reserve was to ensure that monetary policy would be insulated from political pressure. If Ben Bernanke chooses to act as a handmaiden for the profligacy of the Obama Administration, then he deserves to be cleaning out his desk just as much as the president.