Bush says backs strong dollar policy

[mconder]

Bush says backs strong dollar policy
Sun Jul 6, 2008 9:28am EDT

By Tabassum Zakaria

TOYAKO, Japan (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Sunday the American economy was not growing as quickly as he would like and that his administration supported a strong dollar policy.

"Our economy is not growing as robustly as we'd like," Bush told reporters at a news conference after meeting Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda ahead of the G8 leaders summit. "We had positive growth in the first quarter, we'll see what happens in the second quarter."

The U.S. economy grew at a 1 percent annual rate in the first quarter amid soaring oil and commodity prices. In a sign of continuing weakness, the Labor Department reported last week U.S. employers cut jobs for the sixth straight month in June.

"We're not as strong as we have been during a lot of my presidency," Bush added.

The Bush administration has come under pressure from abroad to take action to stabilize the weak U.S. dollar, another issue likely to come up during the G8 meetings at the lakeside resort of Toyako July 7-9, after complaints the weakness has contributed to soaring food and fuel prices.

"In terms of the dollar, the United States believes in a strong dollar policy and believes the strength of our economy will be reflected in the dollar," Bush said when asked what world leaders could do to improve the economy and intervene to boost the dollar.

When pressed on potential intervention, Bush replied, "I just said, the relative strength of our economy will be reflected in currencies."

But Bush and Fukuda did not discuss currencies at the meeting, Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama told reporters later in the day.

Bush also pointed to the $152 billion economic stimulus package approved earlier this year as helping the economy and urged the U.S. Congress to approve housing regulation reform and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Outer Continental Shelf to drilling to try to further boost the economy.

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Rodney Joyce)

[mconder]

Bush also pointed to the $152 billion economic stimulus package approved earlier this year as helping the economy

How outrageous is this?!!!

[Ozwest]

Halliburton, and oil barrons have been stimulated to exhaustion!

[forsmant]

Simply saying you support a strong dollar policy does nothing to strengthen the dollar.

[Ozwest]

Simply saying you support a strong dollar policy does nothing to strengthen the dollar.

The dollar is dead meat.

Freakishly low interest rates restores diddly.

Bail-outs, and rapid printing are short term measures.

No Ron Paul.

No chance.

[acroso]

was looking at this civil war article that was talking about out of control inflation from the 1800's

http://www.tax.org/Museum/1861-1865.htm





By the spring of 1863, the crushing burden of inflation motivated Richmond to come up with an alternative to fiat money. In April, they followed the Union’s lead and enacted comprehensive legislation that included a progressive income tax, an 8 percent levy on certain goods held for sale, excise, and license duties, and a 10 percent profits tax on wholesalers. These provisions also included a 10 percent tax-in-kind on agricultural products. The latter burdened yeoman more than the progressive income tax encumbered urban salaried workers, since laborers could remit depreciated currency to meet their obligations. Adding to the inequity, the law exempted some of the most lucrative property owned by wealthy planters * their slaves * from assessment. Lawmakers considered a tax on slaves to be a direct tax, constitutionally permissible only after an apportionment on the basis of population. Since the war precluded any opportunity to count heads, they concluded that no direct tax was possible. Accumulating war debts and heightened condemnation of a "rich man’s war, poor man’s fight" led to revision of the tax law in February 1864, which suspended the requirement for a census-based apportionment of direct taxes and imposed a 5 percent levy on land and slaves. These changes came too late, however, to have any sustained impact on the Confederate war effort.

Without a Federal Reserve to print money, how is it they had so much inflation?

New gold?

[Ozwest]

Interest rates should be about 13 - 14 %.

Start there, or be prepared for a lot worse.

Seriously.

[IChooseLiberty]

Simply saying you support a strong dollar policy does nothing to strengthen the dollar.

Well, saying you support a strong dollar, when you do not, supports only the confidence of the common masses of which only a handful will understand the truth.

I mean, it's pretty obvious that we are in the small minority that actually care enough to pay attention and research to understand the truth.

[IChooseLiberty]

was looking at this civil war article that was talking about out of control inflation from the 1800's

http://www.tax.org/Museum/1861-1865.htm




Without a Federal Reserve to print money, how is it they had so much inflation?

New gold?

They still had fiat, the greenback I think it was... they used it to pay for the civil war to be redeemed after the war was over. The difference is that the gov't made and controlled the currency, not private bankers.

[forsmant]

was looking at this civil war article that was talking about out of control inflation from the 1800's

http://www.tax.org/Museum/1861-1865.htm




Without a Federal Reserve to print money, how is it they had so much inflation?

New gold?

The federal government went off the gold standard in order to pay for the invasion of the south. Fiat money is inherently inflationary. Greenbacks went back on the gold standard after Lincoln reunited the nation.



In early 1862, the United States government began issuing Greenbacks, a legal tender currency that was not convertible into gold. The government promised to redeem the Greenbacks in gold eventually, but speculators understood that the probability of redemption depended on Union Army military fortunes and political developments that affected the total cost of the war. To serve the speculative interest in gold, a market emerged for the purpose of trading Greenbacks for gold dollars. Because the market price of a Greenback reflected the public's perceptions of future war costs, the movement of these prices provides unique insights into how people at the time perceived various events. We use daily quotations of the gold price of Greenbacks to identify a set of dates during the Civil War that market participants regarded as turning points. In some cases, these dates coincide with events familiar from conventional historical accounts of the war. In other instances, however, market participants reacted strongly to events that historians have not viewed as very significant.

http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5381.html

[IChooseLiberty]

The still had fiat, the greenback I think it was... they used it to pay for the civil war to be redeemed after the war was over. The difference is that the gov't made and controlled the currency, not private bankers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Note

[Ozwest]

To artificially inflate the dollar for the short-term is bad practice.

Tough medicine should have been implemented.

It's too late now. Inflation has its grip.

And the prognosis sucks!