I present you the “female dollar“. Kthug:
Let’s start with the more extreme, open campaign. Last week, The New York Sun published an editorial attacking Ms. Yellen titled “The Female Dollar.” The editorial took it for granted that the Fed has been following disastrously inflationary monetary policies for years, even though actual inflation is at a 50-year low. And it warned that things would get even worse if the dollar were to become merely “gender-backed.” I am not making this up.
True, The Sun is a marginal publication, with strong gold-bug tendencies, and nobody would pay much attention if the rest of the right had ignored or distanced itself from that editorial. In fact, however, The Wall Street Journal immediately followed up with its own editorial along the same lines, in the course of which it approvingly quoted The Sun piece, female dollar and all.
Yatsuno
Wait. What? RLY?
The prophet Nostradumbass
Lawyers, Guns and Money have been on the Yellen/Summers beat for several days, demonstrating just why Summers is a shit who should be opposed.
Yatsuno
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Barack has a chance to make history here. I hope he doesn’t fuck up and choose the misogynistic asshole.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Yatsuno: I hope he does the right thing too. As LGM point out, if Lanny Davis supports the guy, look out.
Spaghetti Lee
I think Kruggers (I call him Kruggers) once posted about how currency backing is just a topic that drives a lot of people nuts-you can get caught in a loop trying to figure out what came first, the value of existing currency or the belief that it has value. Goldbugs are people who have been driven mad by that and regressed to idol worship. They ascribe the same magical, innate saving power to gold that ancient tribes might have given to a carved figure of a fertility goddess.
Yatsuno
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
That tears it. I’m going up to Patty’s and Maria’s office on Monday. It helps I work in the same building as their offices.
Ms.B
Damn. If I had the nerve (and I did used to sing in a band a long time ago), I’d name my own self “The Female Dollar” for my comeback, and go one-on-one, Boomer to Ke$ha.
I’d lose, but it would feel good. Then again, the last words in the Sun article were “Thurber was onto something.” That would be a bulky band name and yet, you know, he did say that “Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.”
Maybe I’ll go with “Whatev$”?
Anne Laurie
I think this is a better Krugamn link: Sex, Money & Gravitas.
Many years ago, I asked my dad what the word ‘gravitas’ meant, and he said that it was what rich old men developed from sitting at too many boardroom dinners: gravy-taster-ass. He was joking, but IMO it’s a pretty good definition.
Joseph Nobles
It takes a female dollar to make you holler
I get paid to adjust the Wild Thing
Doug Milhous J
@Anne Laurie:
thanks
Viva BrisVegas
Slightly off-topic, but PM Kevin Rudd has just called an election for September 7 (all Australian elections are on Saturdays).
Slightly more on-topic Rupert Murdoch has sent Col Allan, editor-in-chief of the New York Post to Oz to spice up the election coverage. In other words Rupert intends this to be a New York Post style election but spread across all Murdoch’s media holdings here. He’s going for Rudd’s jugular.
Fun times ahead.
TheMightyTrowel
@Viva BrisVegas: At least the guardian Aus now exists. too bad they have such low media saturation.
Groucho48
So, whose picture is going to be on the female dollar? Inquiring minds want to know. I vote for Elizabeth Warren. Some enterprising photoshop person should work on some possibilities.
Villago Delenda Est
Mammon worshiping fuckers.
Wipe them out. All of them.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Groucho48:
Being that people on US Currency need to be dead, I’d rather have Senator Warren not on currency.
Groucho48
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Good point! I suppose Pirate Jenny is completely out of the running, too.
NotMax
Don’t care what any newspaper says, Richie Rich’s dog was not female.
JPL
Rumor has it that Geithner was offered the position but refused. If that is correct, I have a feeling that our next fed chairman is Summers. ugh
MomSense
Well if we are going to design the “female dollar” I choose Frances Perkins.
Debbie(aussie)
@Viva BrisVegas: let’s hope that most Aussies can see thru the smears and propaganda( who am I kidding) poor Australia and its people, whatever the result.
gene108
I don’t get why Yellen would be better than Summers. Yellen would be very similar to Bernanke. I thought Bernanke was not in favor with the Left.
JPL
@MomSense: How’s it going? I didn’t read all the posts yesterday, since I was busy and chose to ignore the pit bull thread.
Alex S.
In substance, they’re not all that different. Summers is a bit of an economic weather vane. In academic circles, the defeat of austerity and hard money in the current situation is pretty clear. That’s why Summers supports expansionary monetary policy right now. There’s some advantage to his nomination because his village credibility would make his potential calls for action more powerful. On the other hand, Yellen is good as well. I heard she has the best forecasting record on the FED board. And nominating a woman is an historic step. There’s a potential Yellen/Hillary dream team in the future. The tides of our time definitely favor women.
Baud
@Alex S.:
That’s my take also. This is more about Summers being an ass than policy differences.
IowaOldLady
I look at the phrase “female dollar” and I have no idea what that could possibly mean. These people make things up in their heads.
Another Halocene Human
@gene108: Bernanke has been supremely competent. He was handed a shit sandwich by his predecessor, after all, and managed not to crash the economy. I think he actually cares about doing his job. This has earned him the enmity of some, true.
Lurking Canadian
@IowaOldLady: I can sort of guess what they mean. Central bankers are supposed to be hard-hearted, cool-headed technocrats who can pitilessly watch the misery and suffering of the multitude as they stand firm in defense of sound money. If you think, like these authors almost certainly do, in gender essentialist terms, then a woman, filled with all kinds of squishy nurturing instincts, won’t be able to be cruel enough.
Now, it’s bullshit. That much is clear. When I was in high school, my history teacher told a story about how ever since Louis XIV hired a Huguenot finance minister, nobody would trust a Catholic with the keys to the treasury. I remember thinking there could not be a stupider basis on which to choose one’s finance ministers. Turns out I was wrong.
Female dollar. Jesus wept.
Donut
@JPL:
My understanding is that Obama asked Summers if he wanted to go through the vetting process for the position – that is a lot different than having the job actually offered. Still not a good thing: regardless, neither Geitner nor Summers is high on my list of valuable public servants, but still a valid distinction nonetheless.
NickT
@IowaOldLady:
“female dollar” = “scares the piss out of self-pitying ignorant white male wingnuts”
Matt McIrvin
This is reminding me very much of the whispering campaign against Sonia Sotomayor. I remember actually seeing one of those whispers in the wild on the TPM comment boards: an anonymous comment from someone claiming to be well-connected in the legal world, who assured us that his associates with personal knowledge of Sotomayor were saying consistently, off the record, more in sorrow than in anger, that they were deeply troubled at her nomination because she was kind of a dim bulb. It actually gave me pause for about two seconds.
NobodySpecial
@Alex S.: If Yellon is fundamentally equal to Summers policywise, then what does it say if Summers is picked?
MomSense
@JPL:
Hi JPL, we are ok–our dog is not doing well but yesterday we had a good day. Our friends who sell beef at the farmers’ market brought some treats for him and he ate!! The gruff looking farmer carried his beloved border collie wherever he went for months because she wanted to go with him but couldn’t walk so they understand. Today we are going to just relax at home and sit outside and watch the clouds go by.
Chris
@Lurking Canadian:
What I look forward to the most whenever something like this happens is that I know, if anyone points it out (heck, even if no one points it out), I can anticipate an absolute Noah’s Flood of wingnut tears as they have a nervous breakdown and cry “HOW CAN YOU CALL US SEXIST!” (or racist, or homophobic, or otherwise prejudiced, depending on the topic).
OmerosPeanut
@Groucho48: Sally Ride? Rosa Parks? Molly Ivins? Helen Keller?
If we’re naming people for currency I wouldn’t mind straying away from politicians this time.
Citizen_X
That may be, but I have it on good faith that Life ain’t nothing but bitches and money.
dww
@gene108: Other reasons why Yellen would be better than Summers:
Jay C
I think Krugman is being over-generous by describing the New York Sun as “a marginal publication”: they make a big deal out of trying to paint themselves as THE “conservative intellectual” or “intellectual conservative” paper, but usually jump on the last train to Wingnutville whenever economics comes up. But “female dollar”? “gender-backed”? – GMAFB….
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
I thought the “female dollar” was the one with Sacajawea on it.
schrodinger's cat
What did you guys think about Brad DeLong, who is quoted approvingly many times on this blog, pimping for Summers? I checked DeLong’s publication record, he has co-authored many papers with Summers. Conflict of interest, he has it.
Corner Stone
I think the correct answer to your title question is undoubtedly:
“Bank$ter! Bank$ter!”
Roger Moore
@Lurking Canadian:
I think you’re overthinking this. I’m pretty sure that what they really mean is, “Girls are icky! Who let one into our clubhouse? We sure aren’t going to put her in charge!”
Joel
@Ms.B: Does this make Ma$e or Too $hort the “male dollar”?
Alex S.
@NobodySpecial:
Several possibilities:
1. Obama follows the arguments I mentioned above and thinks that Summers has more village credibility than Yellen and is going to need it.
2. The confirmation of Summers might be easier than Yellen’s. I for one, could imagine that McCain and some allies vote for Summers but not for Yellen.
3. It means that Obama follows the wisdom of the village.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So the article asserts that fallowing an economic theory though up by a woman is bad for the economy, I assume they are talking about Greenspan and Objectivism?
Tehanu
Another vote here for Molly Ivins. Gosh, I miss her. But I can think of others, too: Eleanor Roosevelt. Dolores Huerta. Pearl S. Buck. Helen Thomas. Ursula K. Le Guin. Betty Friedan. Frances Marion. Maria Mitchell. Lillian Hellman.
Older
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: Don’t forget Susan B Anthony. Although Sacajawea is smiling. That’s a first for American coins, I think.