The War on the U.S. Dollar

Currencies / US Dollar
Oct 26, 2009 - 09:21 AM
By: Martin_D_Weiss

Last week, I showed you the most shocking numbers I’ve seen in my lifetime:

Up until the day Lehman Brothers collapsed in September of last year, it took the Fed 5,012 days — 13 years and 8 months — to double the cash currency and reserves in the coffers of U.S. banks.

In contrast, after the Lehman Brothers collapse, it took Bernanke’s Fed only 112 days to double the size of those reserves. He accelerated the pace of bank reserve expansion by a factor of 45 to 1.



Even the Fed’s response to the biggest emergencies of the recent past was far smaller by comparison: Before the feared Y2K crisis and after the 9/11 attacks, the Fed’s money infusions were 14 times and 25 times smaller, respectively.

Moreover, they were quickly reversed as soon as the crisis subsided.

This time, the Fed has done precisely the opposite: Despite its largest money infusion of all time in late 2008, the Fed has added still more reserves in 2009!

The end result is a massive supply of U.S. dollars, driving down their value. (See “Bernanke gone berserk.â€