Paul Krugman Crushes Rick Santelli

A few weeks ago, we found a video undermining Rick Santelli's claim that his complaints about Fed easing "were never about inflation."

If you needed more proof, a reader has sent us the following clip from 2009 in which Santelli warned inflation would be "stunning" (start at 4:20):

So if his argument was never inflation, what did it concern?

In the aforementioned segment (an exchange with WSJ's Jon Hilsenrath), Santelli said his main concern had always been "gyrations ... in foreign exchange programs."

Today, Paul Krugman completely dismisses that fear, in a post titled: "Fish in a Barrel, Rick Santelli Edition."

He looks the dollar's movement against major currencies, as expressed in the following chart:

FRED

It's true that the dollar fell sharply at the beginning of 2009, but this was as a result of the crisis fading, and the safe-haven bid coming out of the dollar (a good thing).

As for the real meat of the argument, here's Krugman:

See how stable the dollar was before the Fed starting QE? See how much it has plunged since? Neither do I.

Not exactly gyrations.