Eldridge Financial: The weak shall inherit the earth
http://eldrigefinancialreviews.com/the-weak-shall-inherit-the-earth/
New government priorities and an enthusiasm for unconventional monetary policy are changing the way the currency markets work, Eldridge Financial quote.
OVER most of history, most countries have wanted a strong currency—or at least a stable one. In the days of the gold standard and the Bretton Woods system, governments made great efforts to maintain exchange-rate pegs, even if the interest rates needed to do so prompt economic downturns. Only in exceptional economic circumstances, such as those of the 1930s and the 1970s, were those efforts deemed too painful and the pegs abandoned. In the wake of the global financial crisis, though, strong and stable are out of fashion.
Eldridge Financial sees that many countries seem content for their currencies to depreciate. It helps their exporters gain market share and loosens monetary conditions. Rather than taking pleasure from a rise in their currency as a sign of market confidence in their economic policies, countries now react with alarm. A strong currency can not only drive exporters bankrupt—a bourn from which the subsequent lowering of rates can offer no return—it can also, by forcing down import prices, create deflation at home. Falling incomes are bad news in a debt crisis, Eldridge Financial concluded.
When one country cuts off the scope for currency appreciation, traders inevitably look for a new target. Thus policies in one country create ripples that in turn affect other countries and well as their policies.
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