The short-lived - due to central bank intervention - dollar rally in 2008 was not the consequence of the declining trade deficit; it was the cause of the declining trade deficit. Everything denominated in dollars becomes cheaper. It shouldn't take a genius to figure out that one doesn't become more competitive by raising prices.
It's impossible to devalue the dollar to manipulate exchange rates without impacting any other prices. It might be true that devaluing the dollar will enable renminbi holders to purchase a greater quantity of dollars, but it will require a greater quantity of dollars to purchase goods and services. Therefore, real prices haven't been lowered for renminbi holders whatsoever.
If inflation actually mitigated a trade deficit, Zimbabwe would be one of the world's leading exporters. Inflation doesn't lower real prices for anybody. But even if inflation did mitigate a trade deficit by lowering real prices for foreigners, while making things more expensive for Americans, why would that be a good thing? Why should American economic policy be calculated to make things cheaper for foreigners and more expensive for Americans? Economic growth - which is not measured by the GDP - engenders falling prices, which is a good thing.
Inflationary stimulus has served one purpose: preventing prices from falling to reflect wages. The market then fails to clear. The real issue isn't even the direction of nominal prices, but what prices would otherwise be absent central bank manipulation. Even if prices fall in nominal terms while wages fall much faster, then we're still suffering from the consequences of inflation. We can be suffering from lost price deflation. Falling nominal prices engender rising real wages.
Inflationary policy by the FOMC suppresses nominal interest rates by increasing the supply of loanable funds, but without a genuine expansion of savings to fund investment. Investment can only come out of savings since producers must be able to consume in order to sustain the process of production. Deploying printing-press money (i.e. unearned income) transfers money away from producers and the process of production to consumers. Inflationary stimulus disconnects consumption from production, turning Say's law upside down. Thus inflation not only drives capital overseas, but begets capital consumption. Inflation is injurious to the process of production.
Increasing the money supply tricks the loan market into consummating unjustifiable loans to non-credit worthy projects. That's why malinvestment occurs and projects are halted midstream with the revelation of malinvestment. By allowing debtors to pay back creditors with devalued dollars, real interest rates are suppressed. There's no right way for the loan market to extend credit at negative real rates, which is a negative ROR in real terms. That's a calculus for the loan market to go bust as it did in 2008. See: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h3/hist/h3hist1.htm [now the information must be downloaded]. Check out the early months of 2008. That's not psychological and that's not a matter of consumer confidence.
The long end of the curve is most sensitive to market forces while the short end of the curve is most sensitive to FOMC policy. If the Fed stays loose to prop up the bond market, this will undermine the very bond market the Fed is trying to prop up. Investors/lenders will account for the inflation risk by tacking an inflation agio onto the curve. Eventually, the Fed will lose control over the short end, too. Under the scenario where the Fed stays loose, there will be no floor underneath the dollar nor any roof on interest rates.
Already, central banks seem to be the only buyers for mispriced bonds. As the Fed stays loose to prop up the bond market, this undermines the bond market in real terms, since other asset classes rise much faster.
Under the scenario where the Fed props up the bond market indefinitely, both the bond market and the dollar collapse. Dollars will hit par value with the par value of bonds. The Fed will be left with $18.5 trillion plus - in nominal terms - worth of bonds on its balance sheet, and we will be left with both junk bonds and junk dollars. The dollar itself will go bankrupt. What's the par value of bonds? We don't know, because the Fed has been propping up the bond market.
Under the scenario where the Fed tightens, the bond market will decline in nominal terms, but the dollar will be saved and what's left of real bond values will be salvaged. Dollars won't hit par value with the par value of bonds. Just like investors/lenders tack an inflation agio onto nominal rates, there could very well be a deflation agio. Nominal interest rates could be set very low with the real rate of return coming from an increase in the purchasing power of the dollar. The only way to save the dollar is to stop propping up the bond market.
Until the Fed is compelled to tighten, we won't have an economic recovery. The loan market has to set interest rates pursuant to the true supply of savings. If interest rates were to hit, say, ten percent on the two-year with a $18.5 trillion national debt, do the math. The longer interest rates are artificially suppressed, the higher they will have to go in order to correct the imbalances in the economy.
By tightening sooner rather than later, this will not only allow the market to discover the natural rate of interest by letting interest rates rise, this will encourage capital inflow. Capital naturally gravitates towards cheaper, higher-yielding, more efficient economies. It's called arbitrage. The Fed is waging an eternal struggle against arbitrage. The Fed, through its war on low prices, has made the United States more expensive and lower-yielding.
If a person, firm, or institution is dependent upon inflationary credit expansion for sustenance, that person, firm, or institution is - by definition - insolvent. Somebody or some institution (e.g. government) is spending beyond their/its means. As a nation, we have spent beyond our means. Expenditures exceed earnings and we depend on foreign markets to supply us with production. We don't suffer from a dollar shortage, but from a dollar leakage.
Inflation is no substitute for income-generating investment. Inflation creates pseudo prices and pseudo rates of return. Presently, there's no right way to invest in the U.S. economy. It's error to conflate trading with investing. Buying and selling real estate is not investing. Buying and selling equities is not investing. I'll draw the distinction between trading and investing. A trader buys and sells a particular asset based on nominal price movements. An investor buys and holds a particular asset based on returns from the underlying asset itself. In the case of real estate, that would be rents. In the case of equities, that would be dividends.
The problem isn't a lack of regulatory oversight. One can't regulate away past mistakes. Insolvency can't be regulated away. The only solution is to force up interest rates, prices fall, dollars that have accumulated in foreign reserves will flow back into the domestic loan market, which will then beget a lower natural rate of interest. Any other solution will lead to the destruction of the currency, in which case everybody's savings get wiped out. Loose monetary policy to prop up a spending orgy engenders capital outflow (i.e. begets outsourcing).
Inflation is a tax. There's no objective difference between the government taking the money you have in your pocket and duplicating the money you have in your pocket, thus devaluing the purchasing power of what you have in your pocket. Even if prices don't rise in nominal terms, the real issue is what prices would otherwise be absent central bank manipulation.
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