Bernanke & Co. Play A Confidence Game

On an August Sunday in 1971, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the world to trust the full faith and credit of the United States. The world, having no alternative, obliged. Today’s disorderly credit markets, and the response by U.S. policy-makers who seem desperate to avoid a recession, may put the world’s trust in America and its currency to the greatest test yet. The worst economic turmoil since the 1970s could …