A Quote by Milton Friedman
The lesson for Asia is; if you have a central bank, have a floating exchange rate; if you want to have a fixed exchange rate, abolish your central bank and adopt a currency board instead. Either extreme; a fixed exchange rate through a currency board, but no central bank, or a central bank plus truly floating exchange rates; either of those is a tenable arrangement. But a pegged exchange rate with a central bank is a recipe for trouble.
Related Quotes
The stability of the rate is the main issue and the Central Bank manages to ensure it one way or another. This was finally achieved after the Central Bank switched to a floating national currency exchange rate.
If a country is an attractive place for foreigners to invest their funds, then that country will have a relatively high exchange rate. If it's an unattractive place, it will have a relatively low exchange rate. Those are the fundamentals that determine the exchange rate in a floating exchange rate system.
When you own gold you're fighting every central bank in the world. That's because gold is a currency that competes with government currencies and has a powerful influence on interest rates and the price of government bonds. And that's why central banks long have tried to suppress the price of gold. Gold is the ticket out of the central banking system, the escape from coercive central bank and government power.
When financial sectors are small and capital is mobile, floating exchange rates spell massive currency volatility. When a lot of foreign capital flows in, a freely floating exchange rate rises sharply, wreaking havoc for domestic banks and exporters alike.
I have always thought and I still think that the Central Bank should act independently. Indeed, it does, you can take my word. I do not interfere in the decisions of the Central Bank and I do not give instructions to the Bank management or to its head.
A government cannot be expected to allow independence to its central bank unless that bank is also accountable to it and to the wider public. That is, the central bank must be able to be judged on whether or not it has achieved its agreed objective.
In a mature economy like India's, which is becoming modern and a financially-oriented economy, an independent central bank, responsible central bank, is really central to success.
In stabilizing the macroeconomic environment, we have focused on aligning fiscal with monetary policy and nudging the central bank toward the objective of more market-determined exchange rates.
That day the U.S. announced that the dollar would be devalued by 10 percent. By switching the yen to a floating exchange rate, the Japanese currency appreciated, and a sufficient realignment in exchange rates was realized. Joint intervention in gold sales to prevent a steep rise in the price of gold, however, was not undertaken. That was a mistake.
The best way that a central bank can support growth on a durable basis is to ensure inflation is low, stable - there is financial stability - and that is the role that the central bank plays.
A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank.
The IMF insisted that both Russia and Brazil maintain their currency at over-valued levels. Who are you protecting when you try to maintain that exchange rate by having high interest rates? You're protecting domestic and foreign firms that have gambled on the exchange rate. And who is paying the price? The small businesses that did not gamble [and no longer can afford loans], the workers who are going to be put out of jobs.
Global central banks are working hard to lift their economies through an aggressively easy monetary policy. The ECB [European Central Bank] and BOJ [Bank of Japan] are buying tens of billions of bonds and other financial securities each month in an effort to stimulate their economies, which is pushing down rates everywhere, including in the U.S.
There are five main purposes of central bank cooperation"..."the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful.
The principle that a central bank, charged with controlling inflation, should be independent from the government is unassailable. It may also be true that it's easier for the central bank to guard its independence from political pressure when it mainly holds government securities.
The problem is that, in a world of floating exchange rates, as Italy was before the euro, if one country is subjected to a shock which requires it to cut wages, it cannot do so with a modern kind of control and regulation system. It is much easier to do it by letting the exchange rate change. Only one price has to change, instead of many.
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