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Declining Dollar Reflects U.S. Policy Failure by
Leon Hadar
The conventional wisdom in Washington is that President George W. Bush hasn't been rewarded politically for a mostly booming U.S. economy. Indeed, his approval rating in the public opinion polls is now somewhere in the low 20s, despite the fact that the indicators reflecting the resilience of the U.S. economy – inflation (low), interest rates (relatively low), consumer spending (relatively high), unemployment (relatively low) – should have helped transform the current White House occupant into a popular president. Most pundits explain that paradox by suggesting that Mr. Bush's policy failures in Iraq, his dealing with Hurricane Katrina, a series of scandals involving officials and Republican lawmakers, and recent rising energy costs have counteracted any positive effect that the booming economy should have had on his standing in polls. But pollsters also point out that notwithstanding the good economic news, most Americans are uneasy about their long-term prosperity as a nation. In a way, the anxiety among Americans reflects concerns over the continuing effects of globalization on the American economy and society – the slow erosion in the U.S. manufacturing base as a result of technological changes and competition from emerging economies; the dramatic demographic changes that have been produced by rising illegal (and legal) immigration; and the financial and human costs involved in maintaining the preeminent U.S. global military position. There is, however, another indicator that may explain why Americans seem so irritable these days. That has to do with the value of the U.S. dollar falling 28 per cent against other currencies between 2002 and 2004. It then bounced back slightly, only to fall again against the euro and the yen in recent weeks. Representative Ron Paul, a Republican, who is the leading "goldbug" on Capitol Hill, traces today's financial problems back to the removal of gold backing from global currencies. He argues that the real measure of just how far the U.S. dollar has fallen can be found in the price of gold, which has reached a 25-year high of more than U.S.$700 per ounce. "It's much more accurate to measure the dollar against a stable store of value like gold, rather than against other fiat currencies," Mr. Paul writes in LewRockwell.com, a web site affiliated with the Mises Institute. According to him, the declining U.S. dollar as measured by the rising value of gold will continue "until the American people demand an end to deficit spending by Congress and unrestrained creation of new dollars by the Federal Reserve and Treasury department." Or to put it differently, "voting" for gold is a vote of no confidence in the ability of the Administration and Congress to control the budget and trade deficit, the Fed's ability to control the money supply, and by extension, the ability of Washington to pursue its hegemonic policy in the Middle East and elsewhere. Most investors recognize that the federal government's huge debt and deficit spending will continue to grow as the costs of U.S. military intervention abroad will rise and make the American economy more dependent on foreign governments and central bankers. Indeed, in 2005, America's current account deficit with the rest of the world exceeded U.S.$800 billion or about 6.5 per cent of GDP. As any economist will tell you, at some point Americans will have to start repaying what they borrowed abroad or they would face a world that refuses to lend them more money. Such a repayment of debt would have to be linked up to a big drop in the value of the U.S. dollar. Michael Mussa, former director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) told John Maggs of the Washington-based National Journal that the value of the U.S. dollar would have to drop by 25 per cent to have any impact on the U.S. current account deficit. In turn, a lower U.S. dollar will force higher interest rates, which will slow economic growth. It's not inconceivable that foreign investors will decide at some point that the risk of investing their capital in the U.S. outweighs the benefits and will shift their investments to other currencies. According to Mr. Mussa, the worst-case scenario would be a "dollar crash" which could take place if speculators bet that the U.S. dollar will continue to fall and devaluation begins to feed on itself, threatening China and other economies that tie their currencies to the U.S. dollar.
May 20, 2006 Leon Hadar [send him mail] is Washington correspondent for the Business Times of Singapore and the author of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan). Visit his blog. Copyright © 2006 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of the author. |
