On Trial

David Reilly's article in Bloomberg asks the question; who's face should adorn a US $1 million bill. His article postulates a Weimerian collapse of the greenback, and in this, he is now far from alone. The answer, he concludes, is inescapably correct, the US consumer should be the face of the new bill.

I would rather not issue a pardon so early for the villians of this disaster. Let's review his list of potential perps:

Ben Bernanke: Verdict: Case dismissed.

Helicopter Ben came far to late to the scene. The reality is that the factors that have created the Great Recession could be first observed in the mid- to late- 90's.

Bernie Madoff: Verdict. Guilty........but not of currency assassination.

George W. Bush: Verdict. Guilty.

Tax cuts, unconstrained spending, combined with the folly of the Iraq war, laid the foundations the US's disasterous economic state. The only redeeming feature of this administration was its consistency.......... in unrelenting awefulness at everything it attempted.

Wen Jiabao: Verdict. Not guilty by virtue of self defense.

Fascist China's relentless pursuit of mercantilist growth has served it well and the US has paid the price for its lack of vision (yes I know where I stole that from).

Henry Paulson: Verdict. Case dismissed.

In the line-up but no where near the murder weapon.

Richard Nixon: Veridct: Guilty of many things including introducing instability into the fiat system.

Unlike G.W. actually achieved a few things.

Alan Greenspan: Verdict: Guilty of first degree currency murder!

A feature of this blog from early on. Al's relentless easy money program mitigated the post dotcom recession by creating the foundations for a depression. Neither the stock market bubble, house price bubble, or debt securitisation bubble fazed easy Al.

With the collapse of the US dollar bubble his failure will be complete (yes I know). Welcome to the $1,000,000 bill Al!