Attributing to Skill what may be Ineptitude
From the Lex column in today’s FT:
Tim Geithner’s extraordinary denial that the US is deliberately weakening its currency is a reminder that the [Hong Kong Monetary Authority] should no longer talk blithely of the “unparalleled credibility” of US monetary policy.
It’s kind of like fight club. the first rule of currency devaluation is that nobody talks about currency devaluation.
I read something this morning about a Japanese trade minister saying something disparaging about the Koreans manipulating their won and then, the reaction was so negative, because of course the yen just had some artificial tweaking too, that he was required to apologize publicly. This being especially serious stuff in Japanese culture, that minister has probably since gutted himself. But I am only speculating?
On and off, mostly on, for 40 years America has had a strong dollar policy which consists entirely of declarations by politicians and government officials that we have a strong dollar policy. I am strongly confident that this strong policy of declaring we have a strong dollar policy will contiune up to the moment that the dollar disappers in 5 or 50 years.