Business: Playing Chicken with Currencies

A catch-up game in which all sides could be losers

Volck' er i za' tion, n. 1: a process of money management whereby interest rates are kept high at a time of deepening recession; 2: a reliance on tight monetary policy in order to protect the value of the dollar abroad and quell inflation at home.

That wry description of the policy of the Federal Reserve Board's new chairman is already making the rounds in Washington. Though he has headed the U.S.'s central bank for a little more than seven weeks, tall, taciturn Paul A....

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