Surprise : l'économiste Paul Krugman et la candidate virtuelle à la présidence Sarah Palin défendent des positions divergentes sur la décision récente de la Fed de soutenir l'économie américaine en imprimant 600 milliards de dollars pour acheter des obligations que le Trésor américain émet pour rembourser ses anciens emprunts. Krugman, dans une chronique publiée aujourd'hui dans le New York Times, estime que la politique monétaire de la Fed est trop timide, alors que Palin la juge irresponsable dans un discours qu'elle doit prononcer aujourd'hui à Phoenix.

Je cite dans le texte les arguments respectifs de Palin et Krugman concernant l'effet inflationniste de la décision de Ben Bernanke et les critiques que celle-ci a engendrées à l'étranger :

Palin :

We shouldn't be playing around with inflation. It's not for nothing Reagan called it "as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man." The Fed's pump priming addiction has got our small businesses running scared, and our allies worried. The German finance minister called the Fed's proposals "clueless." When Germany, a country that knows a thing or two about the dangers of inflation, warns us to think again, maybe it's time for Chairman Bernanke to cease and desist. We don't want temporary, artificial economic growth bought at the expense of permanently higher inflation which will erode the value of our incomes and our savings. We want a stable dollar combined with real economic reform. It's the only way we can get our economy back on the right track.

Krugman :

This time, much of the noise is coming from foreign governments, many of which are complaining vociferously that the Fed's actions have weakened the dollar. All I can say about this line of criticism is that the hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a knife. After all, you have China, which is engaged in currency manipulation on a scale unprecedented in world history - and hurting the rest of the world by doing so - attacking America for trying to put its own house in order. You have Germany, whose economy is kept afloat by a huge trade surplus, criticizing America for running trade deficits - then lashing out at a policy that might, by weakening the dollar, actually do something to reduce those deficits.

As a practical matter, however, this foreign criticism doesn't matter much. The real damage is being done by our domestic inflationistas - the people who have spent every step of our march toward Japan-style deflation warning about runaway inflation just around the corner. They're doing it again - and they may already have succeeded in emasculating the Fed's new policy.