10/03/07
Look out… The Euroweenies* are starting to worry about the falling dollar:
Eurozone policymakers will urge the US and other countries at the next G7 meeting to take a strong stance against exchange rate volatility in an effort to halt the dollar’s decline against the euro, European Union officials said on Tuesday.
Finance ministers of the 13-member eurozone plan to forge a common position in Luxembourg next Monday, 11 days before the meeting in Washington of central bankers and finance ministers of the Group of Seven leading industrialised countries.
How exactly they plan to do this, no one is saying. But we got this priceless statement from one of the chief Euroweenies:
Christine Lagarde, French finance minister, said in an interview with Les Echos: “I’d really like to hear again [US Treasury secretary] Henry Paulson saying loud and clear that a strong dollar is good for the American economy.”
Does Mme. Lagarde really think this will do any good? I mean, how many times has Paulson said he supports a strong dollar, even as it's done the Great Slide? Let's see here, there was August of last year:
"I believe that a strong dollar is in our nation's interest and that currency values should be determined in open and competitive markets in response to underlying fundamentals," Paulson said in a speech to students at Columbia University's School of Business in New York. Copies of his remarks were distributed in Washington.
And then there was an interview with Charlie Rose back in April:
"As I think you know, I believe very strongly that a strong dollar is in our nation's interest, and I'm a big believer in currencies being set in a competitive, open marketplace," Paulson said. August of last year:
Is it not good enough for Mme. Lagrande that he said the same thing less than two weeks ago as the dollar and loonie achieved parity?
"I feel very strongly that a strong dollar is in our nation's interest and we believe currency values should be set in a competitive market place based on underlying economic fundamentals," Paulson told reporters after a meeting with Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.
I'm sure Paulson would be happy to oblige Mme. Lagarde’s request. But what good would it do? Paulson has proven time and again that talk is cheap — almost as cheap as the dollar itself.
*Apologies to P.J. O'Rourke
Dave Gonigam
Treading a fine line between contrarian thinking and conspiracy theory, Dave Gonigam explores the nexus of finance, politics, and the media for the Daily Reckoning’s Desidooru Saloon. He joined kindred spirits at Agora Financial in 2007 after a 20-year career as an Emmy award-winning writer, producer, and manager in local TV newsrooms nationwide.
Sign Up for The Daily Reckoning e-letter and receive a copy of Bill Bonner's The Trade of The Decade report… at NO CHARGE.
We Value Your Privacy.
Climate of fear.
I don’t know if anyone will be bothered to read through the whole thing, but I am going to post a link to an article which basically explains the generally US paranoia … which scares the rest of the world, e.g. by threatening to pre-emptively nuke Iran.
http://www.shunpiking.com/books/GOD/Chapter01.htm
PS
Bear in mind that, at the time, Russia/the Soviet Union was war-devastated and had NO capability to nuke the US, i.e. 1950.
There was simply NO way that the Soviet Union could replicate Hiroshima and Nagasaki over New York and San Francisco. NO WAY, but the Truman Admin scared the shit out of US children and uninformed adults alike – see my link.
At around the same time the US public was being convinced that Korea posed a threat.
Some ten years later it became Vietnam.
Some ten years after defeat in Vietnam, it became Libya which posed a “mortal threat” against the US, though Libya was still a Third World country and with no military capability to threaten the US whatsoever … but Tripoli got bombed the shit out anyway.
Yep and I have been to Libya and I have seen, with my own eyes, what the USAF did, in company with the RAF.
Iraq never posed any threat to US hegemony, but the Washington Empire has now been at war with Iraq since 1991 – sixteen years -and has killed or displaced at least four million Iraqis.
That having failed to stop the Iraqi Resistance against US occupation, the next target is Iran, though Iran poses no threat against at least mainland USA, just maybe occupation US forces in Iraq.
What is wrong with your admins and most of you Usans.
Your admins and most of the rest of you have unleashed more terror on the world than the mythical Osama could ever have done (he has been dead for about five years and was a CIA creation anyway).
I am stating facts, unlike Condom Rice telling you that Osama could unleash a “mushroom cloud” over New York.
NEVER possible. Only the Washington Empire has the capability, e.g. via satellite technology, of nuking every city on this planet.
What is wrong with your admins since Truman and what is wrong with the common populace who believe them?
BTW: 9/11 was DEFINITELY an inside job in some fashion. You had better get used to that fact.
PPS
If it appears that my above two posts were “off topic”, then this is not really so.
The US has been trying to defend “the strong dollar” through brute force and military might for decades.
I partially agree with the above posts in some degree, but there is never only 1 answer to anything in this life, so to say that “The US has been trying to defend “the strong dollar”, merely be brute force & military might is slightly naive.
“Brute force & military might” is not nearly as successful a method as the 2 C’s (Coercion & Corruption). Far more effective a method. And don’t tell me that the US hasn’t engaged in that kind of behaviour on the “world stage”.
Anyways, I wasn’t writing to blog to reply to the above posts.
I wanted to comment, that there seems to be a cultural misinterpretation of what Lagarde is saying by Dave Gonigam.
When an Englishmen or a European uses the term: “loud and clear” in any phrase when describing someone’s actions, it doesn’t refer to wanting to hear words “loud and clear”, but rather wanting to see some action “loud and clear”.
Get it?
Regardless, it is still a quite funny blog. thanks Dave.
Did I write “merely”?
Of course I didn’t.
You wrote it and of course there are coercion and corruption … subterfuge, duplicity and everything else you or anyone would like to call up as intrinsic to the current state of the world.
You have a bit of a nerve, kojacq, for attempting to add “merely” to what I actually wrote.
An apology would be nice, but I do not expect one.
“What is wrong with your admins since Truman and what is wrong with the common populace who believe them?”
admins – selected by the global elite for their benefit, not ours
populace – brainwashed by the media and school system
Hoo boy
we have a conspiracy theorist here (i.e. Gerry Hiles).