It’s been an historic week for the U.S. with president Donald Trump signing a record $2.2 trillion coronavirus-induced emergency stimulus package.
The massive cross-party rescue deal is designed to help Americans and businesses cope with the economic shutdown caused by the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.S. dollar has taken a beating, however, dropping almost 4% against a basket of currencies this week—its biggest weekly loss since the height of the global financial crisis over 10 years ago.
This week’s losses come on the back of the dollar index’s biggest weekly gain since the financial crisis, with the dollar surging as investors scrambled for the world’s most liquid currency amid crashing stock and debt markets.
“In short-term, huge dollar demand because short-covering, but it won’t last,” Wall Street veteran and founder of Wyoming-based crypto bank Avanti, Caitlin Long, said via Twitter, adding she expects the U.S. Federal Reserve’s balance sheet to top $10 trillion before the coronavirus crisis is over and predicting the dollar’s eventual crash.
On top the of the massive economic aid package, the Fed has been working hard to prop up plunging markets—with mixed results despite its shock-and-awe firepower.
Potential risks of the combined cross-party rescue bill and Fed’s biggest-ever bazooka include out-of-control inflation, the dollar’s displacement as the world’s funding currency, and the complete destabilization of the U.S. financial system.
The Fed pumped over $1 trillion to the system in recent weeks, with its chair Jerome Powell promising never before seen levels of money printing and so-called quantitative easing to infinity through an unlimited bond-buying program.
Kurgen
Article URL : https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/03/28/donald-trump-and-the-fed-are-destroying-the-us-dollar/#6846be7e6ebc