On Nov 19, 2010, at 10:16 AM, Marv Gandall wrote:
> On 2010-11-19, at 5:41 AM, Michael Pollak wrote:
>
>> By PAUL KRUGMAN
>>
>> ...but the core reason
>> for the attack on the Fed is self-interest, pure and simple...Republicans want the
>> economy to stay weak as long as there's a Democrat in the White House.
>
> While Krugman's right that the Republicans want to score political points, I doubt the "core reason" they're attacking QE2 is, as he says, for fear it's going to work.
I swear, sometimes when he's writing about partisan politics, Krugman sounds like a Common Dreams hack. Reps oppose QE2 for the same reason the Germans and all the other hard-money nuts do - fear of inflation and currency debasement.
> So it's an easy issue for the Republicans. They've historically represented creditors rather than debtors as the strong dollar party.
Hmm. The petty bourgeoisie, many of whom are debtors, are reliably Republican. The National Association of Manufacturers, also mostly Republican, is a leader of the weak dollar lobby. How many times did Robert Rubin say that a strong dollar was in the interests of the U.S.? Most of Wall Street - aside from the right-wing hard money nuts in the Jim Grant circle - supports QE2.
Doug