You Heard It Here First: A Global Currency War is Being Fought – And There Will Be No Victors

Brazil's finance minister, Guido Mantega, recently acknowledged to the global investment community what most trade officials already believed: An "international currency war" has broken out. And, in this war, there won't be a real victor. " We're in the midst of an international currency war , a general weakening of currency," Mantega told The Financial Times . "This threatens us because it takes away our competitiveness." Mantega's comments came just weeks after Japan joined Switzerland in intervening in the foreign-exchange market. But the reality is that the currency war has been under way since 2008. At least, that's when Money Morning Chief Investment Strategist Keith Fitz-Gerald first warned that countries - most notably the United States - would debase their currencies in a race to boost their exports and keep economic growth afloat. "The government has adopted a weak-dollar policy," Fitz-Gerald said in an interview in March 2008 . "They're sending out a message loud and clear: 'We want you to sell the dollar.'" By holding the central bank's benchmark lending rate down in a record low range of 0.00% to 0.25% for close to two years now and buying up Treasuries in a policy known as "quantitative easing," the U.S. Federal Reserve is effectively debasing the dollar. But the U.S. central bank isn't alone.