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[Not Too Swift]

About a week ago, more than one poster commented on the dollar being strong as an indication that the economy is strong in this bull run. The statement was that the correlation has been true in the past. I can see how that might work. If the value of the economy is growing faster than money is being printed, sure -- the dollar can rise as the economy expands faster than the money does. However, I have been using gold and the dollar as indications of whether Bernanke is winning or debt liquidation is winning. In that interpretation, the stronger dollar lately with weak gold is an indication that debt is being liquidated faster than money is being printed. Now that quantitative easing is pausing a bit, that should continue. The debt liquidation is not pausing. But notice that this is exactly the opposite interpretation than the bull argument from a week ago. Bankruptcies are up 20% in March over 2009, and more of them were Chapter 7, indicating that homeowners who are under water are walking away from their mortgages. (See Mish's blog for this data). And with 9.7% unemployment, and U6 much higher, I don't buy the argument that the economy is strong right now.