Beware the Ides of March! Today is the Ides of March and also the Breitbartocalypse. At this time tomorrow the “institutional left” will have ceased to exist. I suppose you’ll only see a blank page here tomorrow. We will all have been raptured or something. It’s pretty unclear what Breitbart meant. Stay tuned! Let’s open up this thread and get rolling.
Paul Krugman has an interesting op-ed today on tensions between the U.S. and China over currency policy. He turns conventional wisdom on its head by showing China is the one with no power right now:
If Treasury does find Chinese currency manipulation, then what? Here, we have to get past a common misunderstanding: the view that the Chinese have us over a barrel, because we don’t dare provoke China into dumping its dollar assets.
What you have to ask is, What would happen if China tried to sell a large share of its U.S. assets? Would interest rates soar? Short-term U.S. interest rates wouldn’t change: they’re being kept near zero by the Fed, which won’t raise rates until the unemployment rate comes down. Long-term rates might rise slightly, but they’re mainly determined by market expectations of future short-term rates. Also, the Fed could offset any interest-rate impact of a Chinese pullback by expanding its own purchases of long-term bonds.
It’s true that if China dumped its U.S. assets the value of the dollar would fall against other major currencies, such as the euro. But that would be a good thing for the United States, since it would make our goods more competitive and reduce our trade deficit. On the other hand, it would be a bad thing for China, which would suffer large losses on its dollar holdings. In short, right now America has China over a barrel, not the other way around.
Good news for Harry Reid – his wife has been released from the hospital.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s wife was discharged from a Washington-area hospital Sunday after being treated for a broken neck and back when a tractor-trailer rear-ended her minivan.
Landra Reid, 69, was hospitalized last week after she and the couple’s 49-year-old daughter, Lana, were hit by a semi-truck while traveling in their Honda Odyssey in stop-and-go traffic on Interstate 95 about 14 miles south of Washington.
The Nevada senator’s wife of 50 years, who suffered a broken nose, broken back and a broken neck, underwent neck surgery Friday at Inova Fairfax Hospital.
Best wishes to Landra Reid for a speedy recovery.