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"We never have returned to normal after the inflation of the 1970's. My guess is it will happen at some point. I'd rather have it happen gradually rather than all at once. GWB is heading us in the wrong direction."

That's just so very, very wrong. GWB isn't *doing* anything.

Here's a little test: tell this forum *what* GWB is physically doing to the Dollar (you can't name it, by the way).

It's not like he has some magic wand pointed at the greenback, after all!

No, it's what GWB *isn't* doing that has got people like you so flustered: he isn't encouraging the Fed to intervene to buy Dollars.

In the past, the U.S. would aid our nominal "allies" in keeping the Dollar artificially propped up. We did this by purchasing Dollars (via the Fed) on the open Market, thereby creating an artificial demand for Dollars.

But those interventions in the Market had the effect of subsidizing foreign exports to the U.S. by enabling the Dollar to buy more foreign goods than would be natural in a purely free, non-intervened Market.

What has changed under GWB is that the U.S. is no longer propping up the Dollar alongside our "allies."

Instead, we're allowing the free market to take its course.

...And the free Market sees that there is an enormous trade deficit on one hand and an overvalued Dollar on the other.

The Market, if not sufficiently intervened, will therefor adjust both the Dollar and the trade deficit down.

That's how free markets work. That's capitalism.

It's not GWB. He's not "Taking" us anywhere so much as he is simply letting the free market correctly re-price Dollars and international trade.

By so doing, or really, not doing, GWB is thereby protecting the U.S. economy from losing more jobs to artificially low-cost countries.

so many people here just think their lives are going to end if they don't have access to $39 DVD players and $10 shirts and jeans. you can't reason with them. how much of their monthly budgets are spent on foreign made manufactured goods? very little. yet they panic and scream "inflation" when, heaven forbid, that $10 shirt might cost $13. they don't care what else happens, what jobs are lost, what's happening to our industries, our deficits, etc. as long as they can wander around walmart picking up cheap crap.

That's just so very, very wrong. GWB isn't *doing* anything.

Here's a little test: tell this forum *what* GWB is physically doing to the Dollar (you can't name it, by the way).

Actually, it's the Treasury that buys or sells dollars on the open market. The official name for it is intervention, and when it's done the Treasury issues a press realease. While it's true that the Treasury hasn't intervened, it hasn't had to. Our current weak dollar has come from low interest rates and jawboning, along with some cooperation from Japan and some stupidity from the EU. GWB's weak dollar policy is the worst kept secret in Washington. If you don't believe it you don't have to, but it puts you in the extreme minority.