The US can win the currency war – but it'll regret it

I'm at the tail end of the generation that still remembers vaguely what it was like to live in a world where the big overshadowing fear behind the daily headlines was nuclear apocalypse, rather than climate change, or total economic collapse. The optimists' argument against the idea that we'd end up blowing ourselves and each other up was that "no one would be crazy enough to do it". The doctrine of 'mutually assured destruction' – the fact that as soon as you launched one missile, the other side would fire off ten in your general direction – would prevent anyone from pressing the big red button. And luckily enough, the USSR didn't survive quite long enough for either side in the Cold War to produce such a leader. Sadly, today's currency wars are different. Everyone knows that a race to the bottom will be hugely damaging. But what can the rest of us do when the biggest currency of all – the US dollar – is run by Ben Bernanke, who once theorised about dumping helicopter-loads of money into the streets. 'Blackhawk Ben', as he's been nicknamed by traders, has certainly persuaded investors that he's more than willing to sacrifice the dollar to reflate the US economy – whatever the cost...