Does Tim Geithner understand that QE is actually not a path to prosperity? That we should not devalue the dollar en route to real economic recovery? In comments today at the Commonwealth Club he at least acknowledged some concerns over the dollar:
Q: Are you concerned with all of the money being printed over the last couple of years, if we’re on our way to debasing the value of the dollar?
Geithner: Not going to happen in this country. It is very important for people to understand that the United States of America and no country around the world can devalue its way to prosperity and competitiveness. It is not a viable feasible strategy and we will not engage in it. It is very important to us that people have confidence in our capacity to meet our long-term fiscal obligations, to make sure the Federal Reserve does its job of keeping inflation low and safe over time. And we recognize that the U.S. plays a particularly important special role in the international financial system because the dollar serves as the principal reserve asset of the global financial system. So we’re going to work very hard to make sure that we preserve confidence in the strong dollar and we’re working very hard to strengthen confidence in our capacity and Washington’s capacity, as I said, to repair the damage caused by this crisis and restore as we recover a sense of discipline, gravity, balance to our long term fiscal situation.
Q: Do you see a time, Mr. Secretary, when the dollar is not the world’s reserve currency?
Geithner: Not in our lifetime. Of course the world’s going through a very dramatic, very important set of changes in the basic balance of power of economic activity around the world. You know most of the growth’s going to come from the world’s most populous, the rapidly growing emerging economies. That’s going to be true for a long period of time. But I think that can happen in a way that makes the U.S. stronger too. Again, the most important thing we in the United States is again just keep working on trying to make sure we’re improving our long-run growth prospects and restore a basic sense of discipline and balance to our long-term fiscal position.
Mr. Roche is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Discipline Funds.Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory firm with a focus on helping people be more disciplined with their finances.
He is also the author of Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Understand About Money and Finance, Understanding the Modern Monetary System and Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction.
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