Let’s ponder for a moment those many critics of the Federal Reserve who have argued with great certainty for several years that low interest rates and gargantuan central bank bond-buying programs would lead to a collapse of the dollar. Boy, have those predictions been wrong. The U.S. currency is up 5.2% this year against a broad basket of currencies, based on the ICE dollar index. It is up 9.7% since the Fed launched a controversial round of bond purchases in November 2010; up 3.1% since it first pushed short-term interest rates to zero in December 2008 and up 7.2% since the collapse of Lehman Brothers on September ... (full story)