Monday items.

In The Weekly Standard, Jeffrey Bell and Sean Feiler argue the GOP doesn’t understand the monetary roots of the economic crisis.

At the moment, Republican leaders and policy elites are advancing exclusively fiscal solutions that address only the government response to the economic crisis and not the crisis itself. Fiscal deficits did not create the crisis, and reducing deficits won’t put our economy on a stable footing. From its inception in 2007 right up to the present, the crisis derived from the interaction between excessive investment leverage and dysfunctional interest-rate policy—in other words, a predominantly monetary phenomenon, albeit one that has had grave fiscal consequences.

As long as the GOP enjoys the luxury of being the only alternative to Barack Obama and the Democrats, the party is understandably reluctant to delve into the murky depths of monetary policy. But after November 2, the Republicans’ role will change. They could do worse than pay attention to the only public official, elected or unelected, who is speaking out against current monetary policy, telling anyone who will listen—including an increasingly impatient Tea Party movement—that the root of the crisis is monetary.

On Forbes, John Tamny suggests the President’s best chance for a comeback requires rejecting devaluationist ideas.

At CNBC, Peter Morici and former GW Bush official Tony Fratto discuss China’s currency:



At Classic Capital, Wayne Jett explains the role U.S. monetary authorities have played in destabilizing the world financial system.

Monetary inflation is an accomplished fact, and product prices will adjust accordingly as an added variant of supply-demand signals. So far, the CPI has adjusted only 16.6% since 2003, leaving nearly 60% in price rises still to be realized. This means price inflation of 6-12% annually over the next five to ten years is already built into the dollar. Talk of “deflation” is either ignorant or deceptive, because any downward pressure on prices comes not from monetary policy but from falling demand in relation to supplies of goods and services.

China pegs its currency to the dollar to avoid loss of U. S. markets. Duplicating the Fed’s money creation causes worse inflation in China than the Fed creates in the U. S. Congress was set to make matters worse in September by voting on a bill to allow penalties to be imposed on Chinese producers to compensate U. S. producers for China’s “weak” currency, but adjourned to avoid voting on extension of the Bush tax cuts.

The world’s best monetary theorist, Robert A. Mundell, declared such U. S. penalties would create a “disaster” which would create even greater instability in international relations. He further warned that the China penalty bill distracts from attention to the primary source of monetary instability, which is devaluation of the dollar relative to the euro. The recent dollar/euro ratio, Mundell declared, “is a terrible thing for the world economy. We’ve never been in this unstable position in the entire currency history of 3,000 years.” Since Mundell spoke in September, the dollar/euro ratio has worsened to $1.40, provoking European retaliation. Japan, too, is being priced out of the U. S. market, with the dollar now worth only 82 yen.

From last month, The NY Sun recounts a prominent investor’s warning on the dollar and gold.

On Forbes, Steve Forbes interviews Albania’s prime minister about the flat tax.

At The Money Illusion, Scott Sumner discusses tax rates and incentives.

Also on The Weekly Standard, Matthew Continetti warns Republicans not to emphasize austerity over growth.

In The American Spectator, Stephen Moore debunks Green Jobs.

World Net Daily reports on financial industry calls for a single world currency.

On The NY Times, the Heritage Foundation’s Derek Scissors opposes Chinese devaluation.