The guy who was stymied by TurboTax, who was hurriedly approved by Congress because he was “the only one who could get us out of this mess”… is learning on the job:
China and the Dollar
Markets don’t like Treasury talking down the dollar’s status.
No sh*t, Sherlock!
As if the dollar didn’t have enough problems, Timothy Geithner took China’s bait yesterday and said he was “quite open” to its suggestion this week to displace the greenback with an “international reserve currency.” The dollar promptly fell and stocks followed, before the Treasury Secretary re-emerged to say “the dollar remains the world’s dominant reserve currency. I think that’s likely to continue for a long time.”
Ooopsie!
Mr. Geithner is learning on the job, and yesterday’s lesson is that it isn’t smart to fool with currency markets when you are already tempting fate with a gigantic U.S. reflation. Treasury and the Federal Reserve are flooding the world with dollars to break the recession, and the world is rightly getting nervous.
Now comes the worrying part:
Ms. Hu isn’t alone, and we only wish the Treasury, the White House and the Fed were equally as concerned. The dollar’s status as a reserve currency gives the U.S. enormous advantages, and it should be protected ferociously by our public officials. It means we don’t have to repay our debts in foreign currency and that our borrowing costs are cheaper. To the extent that the rest of the world follows a dollar standard, it also gives us far greater global sway.
What has me worried is that the Treasury, the White House and the Fed
a. don’t appear to be concerned (I’d say, they don’t appear to even be aware) of how dangerous this is
b. or, if they are, they don’t give a damn.
Scared Monkeys asks, What is the Obama Administration doing … Are they that obtuse or is it intentional?
Mark Steyn suggests,
I understand the advantage to President Obama of having Toxic Tim in place as designated fall guy for a month or two hence, but in the meantime maybe they could keep him duct-taped to a chair in the basement.
By now I am convinced that 1,000 people picked at random from the phone book (any phone book) would be doing a better job than Geithner. No wonder Treasury can’t fill the job vacancies.
The USA is definitely underestimating the shrewd Chinese mentality and weakening of the US$ will test the USA resolve once the Chinese begin pressuring them with their treasuries in the not so distant future.