Courtesy of Mish.
The financial world cheered when Bernanke announced QE3 until it works (which is essentially forever, because it never will work).
Bruce Stewart, writing for the Winnipeg Free Press, is one of few who figured out QE for what it really is: A Beggar-Thy-Neighbor competitive currency debasement policy hoping to sink the US dollar.
Not that QE would work anyway, but one problem for Bernanke, is most of the rest of the world is doing the same thing.
Please consider Bernanke declares war on Canadian economy
Did you smile or cheer when U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced Quantitative Easing III (and the markets went up)?
He just declared war on your job, and the whole Canadian economy.
Of course, so did the European Central Bank, the central bank of the Peoples’ Republic of China and others.
All of them are engaged in the same practice. They’re printing money. Gobs of it, in programs that have no end point.
Some are doing it to apply stimulus to revive their economies. Some are doing it to play extend-and-pretend games to hold their banks together.
For a country like Canada, with an economy in reasonably good shape, a government that’s not out of control, banks that are healthy and dependent on exports, it’s a declaration of war.
The game everyone else is playing is “beggar thy neighbour.” All this excess cash, whatever its stated purpose, is designed to bring their currencies down.
Well, we could play the game: Mark Carney could drop our interest rates to zero, and print money like it’s going out of style. The government could launch a larger Economic Action Plan II and rack up the deficits. Both would lower the Canadian dollar….
