Hard-Dollar Addendum

Whenever I create lists of friends and colleagues for anything I always forget a few important names. So let me amend yesterday’s Bernanke dollar blog with some supply-side friends who also have been calling for hard money for a long time.

Namely, my friend Steve Forbes, the editor and publisher of Forbes magazine. Steve has been indefatigable in writing editorial after editorial for years about the need for a hard dollar. Because of my senior memory, not only did I forget Steve in yesterday’s blog, but also the fact that he is a McCain economic advisor, having first counseled Rudy Giuliani earlier in the year. And that brings me to Jack Kemp, who is also a McCain advisor and who also has been tireless in his advocacy of a strong dollar.

Forgetting these two names is my bad. I apologize to them and I hope they and readers will forgive me.

And two more names: the tireless husband-and-wife team of Seth Lipsky, editor of the New York Sun, and his bride Amity Shlaes. In fact, the editorial page of the Sun is always reminding us of the declining gold value of the U.S. dollar, just in case we forget. Seth and Amity are of course graduates of the Robert Bartley Wall Street Journal hard-money school. (As, in effect, we all are.)

Ben Bernanke didn’t solve the dollar problem yesterday. But the Fed head’s speech was a very large and important first step toward recognizing that dollar neglect is associated with higher inflation. The greenback has been broken and needs to be fixed. Let’s see what happens from here.