Monday, August 11, 2008

Obama Wants Sound Money

From a Wall Street Journal editorial today:

"The underreported economic news of the week is that Barack Obama favors a stronger dollar. Even better, he thinks a stronger greenback would help to reduce oil prices.
"That at least is what the Democratic Presidential candidate told a town hall forum in Parma, Ohio, on Tuesday. 'If we had a strengthening of the dollar, that would help' reduce fuel costs, he said, according to a Reuters dispatch ignored by most of the media. ... We don't know who is whispering in Mr. Obama's ear about the dollar, but he's on to a rich political vein."

Via the Huffington Post.

Who's whispering in Obama's ear? Austin Goolsby, his libertarian economic adviser, of course.

1 comment:

LibertyRepublican said...

Please. The idea that Obama would pursue any necessary monetary reforms- like stripping the power of fixing market interest rates by the Fed, allowing competing legal tender, and instituting a monetary growth rule.

You're confusing a strong dollar with "sound money." Sound money means sound monetary policy that doesn't allow a central bank to manipulate the economy through its policies and allows monetary alternatives and monetary rules as a check on growth. A strong dollar can be accomplished through manipulation by a central bank.

Obama, like all politicians except Ron Paul (and that includes my candidate of choice, Bob Barr), has no clue what he's talking about on economic issues, particularly not monetary economics.

And Austin Goolsbee is NOT a libertarian. He favors central planning, albeit through a different mechanism.