Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Don't Know Nothing

One can't always distinguish between the lies, the shifting incentives, and the ignorance. And Trump is right sometimes even when he's wrong!

He's right about the Fed chair. The Fed's basic stance wavers between hawks who want to raise interest rates because inflation is always lurking around the corner to make rich people a bit less richer, and doves, who want to raise interest rates so that they will have room to cut interest rates to cure the next recession that the increased rates cause. Trump is right that rate increases are dumb. Also he, like every other posing conservative/Republican, once demanded that the Fed raise interest rates yesterday, and in an especially manly way, not in a girly Janet Yellen way.

I don't know what to make of his strong dollar gibberish. Like many people Trump thinks a "strong dollar" is good because it's our dollar and strong is better than weak. It isn't that simple. Also like many (of the often same) people Trump has been very mad ta China's "currency manipulation" which involves China manipulating the dollar to make it stronger. I've never quite known what people who talk like this actually think, or how to resolve this basic contradiction.