I got this from the free preview section of the Wallstreet journal
Ben Bernanke is a married man. But if he weren’t, there’s at least one woman who wouldn’t want anything to do with the Federal Reserve Chairman’s policy charms: Gisele Bundchen. The Brazilian supermodel is reportedly now insisting that she be paid in a currency other than the U.S. dollar.
“Contracts starting now are more attractive in euros …
From the little bit offered it sounds like the Wallstreet Journal is trying to lay the blame for the falling dollar at the feet of the federal reserve chairman, the Dollar was falling long before he was appointed, in fact it seemed like the fall of the Dollar may have started about the same time that conservatives took over the whitehouse.  Some of the hate America crowd, like the guy here,have pointed out that soon Americans will be sneaking into Canada so that they can send Canadian Dollars home to the US. I wonder if part of the reason certan people are so against mexican immigrants is that they know soon they will be competing for the same jobs in Canada. A better solution to the xenophobia in some circles might be to get the US off its current path to third world obscurity. Â
In prison, we had a term for what Bernanke and Bush are doing: the Slow Puncture.
Well said.
Bernake being blamed for the dollar’s decline in value is a case of intellectual dishonesty. The FED didn’t cut taxes and then start a war. The FED didn’t pass bills containing handouts to the pharmacudical and energy industries. The FED didn’t create the budget defecits (even w/out the war included within).
Republicans did all of those things, and as result the country’s debt has doubled, we’ve created an entire army of permanently disabled veterans whose care will have to be paid for (regardless of how often the GOP has tried to reneg)…
This decline in the value of the dollar is about numbers, but in order to sell it politically, the GOP will have to convince people it is about personalities. I’ll have a nice laugh over stories in the future that say, “shucks, if we only had Greenspan back…”
If it’s time to dump blame on the FED, then Greenspan should be the target, not the guy who opened his door to find a flaming paper bag to stomp out.
I agree, Bernanke has been doing an outstanding job thus far.
Because inflation is creeping in other countries, they need to combat it by raising their interest rates. Our inflation pressures continue to be moderate, and given the friction in the credit engine, we are cutting rates. This leads to a higher demand for non-USD currencies.
Of course, the second order effect will be that the U.S. will import inflation from these other countries, as our purchasing power weakens.
It ain’t easy bein’ Ben. I’m glad to hear that the Dems will not be handing out money to special interests, or engaging in deficit spending.
http://caveatbettor.blogspot.com/2007/11/congress-raid-aviation-funds-to-pay-for.html
I think that inflation is already here, and earnings will reflect that. There’s a concerted effort to deny that inflation is a problem, across the idiot press (thinking CNBC’s talking heads) and beyond (Treasury Dept, FED).
This thing is real. The numbers scream that inflation is here. caveat – your explaination of it being an effect from outside our borders isn’t something I’m buying at the moment. I won’t pretend to have a complete answer as to how it happened, but my feeling at this point is it would be wrong to assume that our own actions haven’t had something to do with it.
An assumption like that is what I’d categorize as political, not scientific.
Politicians lie, and the media sheep follow without questioning, I agree. In fact, politicians need to lie about inflation, because they are the main generators of inflation, in their subsidies for healthcare, education, urban housing, agriculture, tort lawyers, cable TV operators …
According to Shakira, hips don’t lie.
According to Cav, futures prices are much closer to hips than politicians:
http://caveatbettor.blogspot.com/2007/11/little-perspective-on-commodities.html