Guess Who Manipulates Currency More Than China

Matthew Boesler points out that Israel won't draw flack from either campaign
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 22, 2012 1:53 PM CDT
Guess Who Manipulates Currency More Than China
Israeli currency sits on a kitchen table in this file photo.   (AP Photo/The Killeen Daily Herald, David Morris)

Mitt Romney has loudly promised to label China a "currency manipulator" on his first day in office, but China's hardly alone in keeping its money cheap to goose exports. Another country has done so even more egregiously, and you won't hear either candidate criticize it: Israel, Matthew Boesler of Business Insider points out. Since 2008, Israel's central bank has aggressively been buying dollars and selling shekels, hoping to keep its currency low and its products cheap.

Nor is Israel really trying to hide its work; in an interview last year, the central bank's governor said that if the shekel kept rising, "we will have to intervene." The shekel has fallen significantly since. "Of course, the Israeli economy is so small, nobody thinks it's a serious threat to big US industries," Boesler writes. "But the point remains that China is far from unique in its efforts to control its currency." Click for his full piece. (More Israel stories.)

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