My latest article is up at Frontpage.com and in it, I detail the worldwide reaction of disgust at the Fed’s “Quantitative Easing (2)” and how it is affecting our relations with other industrialized nations.
A sample:
As other nations see it, the dollar is more than just the US’s currency, it is also the world’s reserve currency. This benefits the US economy because the greenback is constantly being propped up by the rest of the world, which doesn’t want to see the value of other currencies plummet. When the Fed takes drastic action, like creating money and pouring it into the financial system of the US, the resulting flood of cash makes central bankers nervous about inflation and governments worried about the export sectors of their own economies.
How long will the dollar be used as the world’s backstop currency? Not very long if China has anything to say about it. Zhou Xiaochuan, head of the People’s Bank of China, set off a wave of unease last year when he almost casually suggested that the world’s financial system could do better if it wasn’t using the dollar as a reserve currency. In a speech last Friday, Zhou revisited that theme:
We can understand the Fed’s QE2 policy, from the angle that it wants to revive the U.S. economy and increase employment. But the problem is the dollar is the global reserve currency…It may not be the right choice for the global economy, though it is a good option for the U.S. economy.
China is, itself, under the gun for its own currency manipulation, but this kind of challenge coming from a nation with an economy the size of China’s will bear watching in Seoul and the months ahead.
China’s jawboning is only the tip of the iceberg. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Germany has been even more vociferous in opposition to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s QE schemes.
You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show, one of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.
Tonight, I welcome Jazz Shaw back from the campaign wars as well as Vodkapundit Stephen Green and AT’s Political Correspondent Rich Baehr. We’ll look at issues raised by the smashing GOP victory at the polls last week.
The show will air from 7:00 - 8:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.
Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”
Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.
My latest is up at Pajamas Media and I address the Keith Olbermann suspension from the point of view of MSNBC’s hypocrisy:
This makes the NBC News policy against “journalists” giving money to their favorite candidates inexplicable. Who are they kidding? According to Politico, NBC isn’t alone in this exercise in serio-comic absurdity:
NBC has a rule against employees contributing to political campaigns, and a wide range of news organizations prohibit political contributions — considering it a breach of journalistic independence to contribute to the candidates they cover.
How can you “breach” something that exists only in the minds of arrogant popinjays who think that journalism is a “calling”? One assumes the humanity of reporters — normally — and therefore they cannot be immune from the biases shared by everyone else. Editors, whose job description includes removing as much bias as possible from a story, generally share the point of view of their reporters and are either too lazy or too blinded to their own prejudices to recognize bias when it pops up in someone else’s work. In the end, journalists are about as “independent” as Eastern Europe was during the Cold War. You don’t have to scratch very far below the surface to reveal the nauseating hypocrisy that is contributing to the end of journalism as we know it.
Olbermann’s punishment does not fit the crime. He violated company policy — a policy rooted in fantasy and outmoded notions of journalists as ink-stained cavaliers of fairness and justice. It may be elevating to believe in “independence,” but it isn’t practical.
And this is just cause to kick Olbermann off the air? And why now? William Kristol wonders if NBC’s parent company, General Electric. isn’t trying to curry favor with the new GOP majority in the House. More likely, as Bryan Preston points out, since Olbermann’s ratings have been tanking, his prickly presence in the newsroom has caused enormous friction with both on-air and behind-the-camera staff. MSNBC President Phil Griffin may have taken the opportunity afforded by Olbermann’s transgression to send the Kos-darling packing, ridding himself of this meddlesome high priest of hyperbole.
My latest is up at PJ Media where I wonder about the 80 or so new GOP congressmen and whether they will posture with the “no compromise” crowd or work together to make a difference in getting the economy back on track.
A sample:
About a third of the GOP caucus that is sworn in on January 3, 2011, will never have served in Congress previously. If they organize and stay together, they could affect everything from the battle to repeal health care reform to who becomes speaker of the House. Almost all of them are as conservative as any group of first-termers who have ever been elected. The question being asked by both tea party folk and the GOP establishment is: how wedded to “principle” are the newcomers?
Similar questions were being asked by Democrats in 1974 when the Watergate class of liberal congressmen upended the Democratic establishment and forever after skewed the party to the far left. There were 72 new congressmen in that class (the Democrats gained 49 seats) and they quickly organized themselves into a powerful caucus that changed the committee and seniority system, thus altering the way the Congress did business. Their example may be followed by this new group of freshly minted conservative House members who come to Washington as a result of the GOP tidal wave.
Not all of them have bubbled up from the tea party movement, but most are in sync with its goals: fiscal responsibility and a return to some semblance of prudent government. But what does that mean? We are in a nightmarish economy with slow growth, continuing job losses, and the specter of inflation in the background due to the irresponsible policies of the Federal Reserve. We are also faced with depressing budget deficits and a truly frightening national debt.
Is there no role for government at all in fixing this mess? If there is, the Republicans are not going to be able to accomplish much on their own. They will need to work with the Democrats and the president in order to get something done about the economy and the budget. Spending and tax cuts will have to be negotiated to have any chance of being signed by the president and put into effect. Otherwise, the GOP will simply be posturing, and nothing at all will be accomplished.
You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show, one of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.
Tonight, I welcome my co-host Monica Showalter for a two hour election special as we analyze and discuss the results of the elections. Also joining us tonight will be several other bloggers and writers who will throw their two cents in.
The show will air from 7:00 - 9:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.
Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”
Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.