Putin Calls U.S. Financial Activity Hooliganism

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dissed the United States economy and monetary policy, in comments before Russia's lower house of parliament.

We see that everything is not so good for our friends in the States.

Look at their trade balance, their debt, and budget. They turn on the printing press and flood the entire dollar zone — in other words, the whole world — with government bonds. There is no way we will act this way anytime soon. We don’t have the luxury of such hooliganism.

Putin is a little confused by what is generally thought of as printing press activity, which is done by Ben Bernnake and his crew at the Fed by printing money tp buy bonds, rather than the bonds themselves. Nevertheless, he does seem to get the idea that what is going on in the U.S. is not good.