Two Simple Questions for Lawmakers

http://comexwehaveaproblem.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/two-simple-questions-for-lawmakers.html

Germany calls out Geithner's hypocrisy

The finance ministers of Brazil and now Germany are declaring what I've been ranting on for years: the Fed is the biggest manipulator of currencies in the world, despite accusing others of currency intervention.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/germany-calls-out-geithners-hypocrisy-says-money-printing-fx-intervention

At the G-20 meeting, per Bloomberg, German Economic Minister Rainer Bruederle said that the Fed's "push toward easier monetary policy is the “wrong way” to stimulate growth and may amount to a manipulation of the dollar. Excessive, permanent money creation in my opinion is an indirect manipulation of an exchange rate." The fact that China was smart enough to peg its currency to the most rapidly devaluing currency in the world is a different story altogether, and merely confirms that they are leap and bounds more sophisticated in their monetary policy than anyone gives them credit for. If Geithner wants to prevent a relative depreciation of the Yuan versus all other currencies in the world (especially the EUR, against which it continues to be in freefall), the answer is simple: stop bloody printing!

Currency intervention

Here are a couple articles on the hazards of currency intervention, the so-called race to the bottom.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/09/28/354756/25-currency-interventions-in-a-one-week-band/

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/09/28/currency.wars.brazil.ft/index.html

To intervene or not to intervene

http://www.gata.org/node/8560

That is, the story leads with the ECB's acknowledgement that it traded 35.5 tonnes of gold for dollars in 2009 in the name of "liquidity, security, and return."

Then the story quotes the bank as having "also confirmed it had not intervened in currency markets in 2009."

But whenever a central bank exchanges gold for a currency, that is by definition a currency market intervention.