The Washington Post ran another front page editorial in which it complained that “the dollar is down.” Of course getting the dollar down is the only way to reduce the size of the trade deficit. This should be a conscious policy of the Obama administration. It is not obvious why anyone would complain about this policy.

The article also asserts that: “the national debt is oceanic.” The oceanic debt is much smaller than it has been at prior times in the country’s history and smaller than the debt of other countries relative to their economies. It would be interesting to see what adjectives the Post uses for these larger debts.

–Dean Baker

Dean Baker is senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He is the author of several books, including Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Read more about Dean.