With Obama’s looming titanic fiscal disaster which path will the Fed decide to take? Central banking or central planning? The Fed has announced that it will continue to print notes in order to trim its funds rate, if need be, all the way to zero. All bodies in Washington seem to think the wholesale printing of money is the answer to the nation’s economic woes.
Yes, today’s policy makers allow, there are risks to “creating” a trillion or so of new currency every few months, but that is tomorrow’s worry. On today’s agenda is a deflationary abyss. Frostbite victims tend not to dwell on the summertime perils of heatstroke.
Our troubles, over which we will certainly prevail, stem from a basic contradiction. The dollar is the world’s currency, yet the Fed is America’s central bank. In the boom, a superabundance of mispriced debt led countless people down innumerable blind investment alleys. E-Z credit financed bubbles in real estate, commodities, mortgage-backed securities and a myriad of other assets. It punished saving and encouraged speculation. Imagine a man at the top of a stepladder. He is up on his toes reaching for something. Call that something “yield.” Call the stepladder “leverage.” Now kick the ladder away. The man falls, pieces of debt crashing to the floor around him.
One final question for which Mr. Bernanke will have to put himself into the shoes of a foreign depositer:
“Tell us, Mr. Bernanke, if you had the choice, would you hold dollars? And may I remind you, Mr. Chairman, that you are under oath?”
Sink your chops in here, via WSJ.
Casual Appearance 