James Pethokoukis

The great Lawrence Kudlow is skittish about Ben Bernanke’s seeming disinterest in a robust greenback:

I have never heard Mr. Bernanke proselytize for a stable-dollar currency value of money. Never. Of course, like any central banker, he says he’s for price stability. But the question remains how to get there and what model to use. Supply-siders like myself strongly support a price-rule model, where markets tell government what to do. But all too often it seems like Mr. Bernanke — who has been out there buying Treasury and mortgage bonds in a futile attempt to control their yields — prefers the model where the government tells markets what to do. This is a loser, as we have painfully learned in the past.

Paul Volcker watched gold in the ’80s. So did Alan Greenspan for most of the ’90s. But I don’t think Mr. Bernanke watches gold at all. And I don’t think he worries much about the fate of the dollar.