The US Has Already Tightened – Which Explains A Lot

Next week we’ll find out if the longest-ever will-they-or-won’t-they drama involving a virtually insignificant quarter-point interest rate change will amount to anything. But either way, US monetary policy is already a lot tighter than it was a year ago.
The Fed’s balance sheet, for instance, is a measure of how much new currency it is pumping into the banking system. And it’s up only $79 billion, or 1.8%, in the past year. In real terms, that’s flat to slightly negative.
Much bigger in the scheme of things is the dollar, which is up by about 20% versus most other major currencies (and a lot more versus emerging market currencies like the Brazilian real). A stronger currency makes loans harder to pay back (just as would a higher interest rate), exports harder to sell (because they’re priced in a more expensive currency) and imports correspondingly cheaper.

This post was published at DollarCollapse on September 11, 2015.