Nov 9, 2007

Devaluación competitiva (II)


La editorial del WS Journal, implacable:
To understand the dollar's current woes, you have to look elsewhere -- to
monetary policy and economic management. The supply of dollars in the world is ultimately controlled by a single source, the Federal Reserve. With its aggressive easing in September, and again in late October, the Fed has signaled to the world that it cares more about creating dollars in the hope of limiting U.S. credit problems than it does about the dollar's value. Investors can see this, and so they are dumping dollars and looking for other assets to hold. This
includes commodities such as gold, which is now at $835 an ounce.

Our current financial woes are in large part the result of previous
monetary excess, which fueled a debt and asset boom that has become a banking bust. The way to emerge from the mess is to slowly but honestly work off the bad debt and write down the losses. The one sure way to make things worse is with more monetary excess. That could trigger a run on the dollar and the necessity for far higher interest rates to stem it.

But don't take our word for it. Listen to Adam Smith, who this week has been growling in the distance, ready to enforce his own very rough form of market discipline if the Fed doesn't listen.

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