Instruments of dollar policy
Oddly, although the world hangs on everything a U.S. Treasury Secretary says about the appropriate value of the dollar. the Secretary really can't do much about it. Daniel Gross explains over at Slate.
Stephen Kirchner comments over at Institutional Economics,
- "...Gross is rather too generous to former Treasury Secretary Rubin, recycling the conventional wisdom that his Wall Street background made him a more skilled Treasury Secretary. Unfortunately, it also made the Treasury an easy target for regulatory capture by Wall Street, particularly institutional bond holders. The Bush Administration's practice of appointing old-line industrialists to the position has been positive in this regard, although we have seen fewer serious financial crises that would really test whether the Administration would hold the line on these issues better than its predecessor. Interestingly enough, those who predicted that O'Neill would take a mercantilist approach to exchange rate policy because of his industrial background were dead wrong. Both O'Neill and Snow have favoured a non-interventionist policy stance..."
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