For the past decade or so we've had the best of all worlds. We've been experiencing fantastic nominal growth as a result of our willingness to print dollars and the rest of the world's willingness to take them, despite the fact that they clearly were headed towards becoming less and less valuable.

(Simple economics, you print more dollars, the dollars become worth less. Supply and demand. Period.)

Thus, the dollar was saved from collapsing by oil states, China, Japan and others who were willing to just sit on their dollar holdings and pretend they were still worth what they were used to.

Those dollar holders have taken their cue from Trump, Kudlow and Cramer's beloved interest rate cut. They realize that the fed is absolutely on the path towards inflation and recession-avoidance at all costs. And they are treating the dollar appropriately.

We have a choice. We can tighten rates, let the asset markets sort themselves out and retain low fuel prices. We can loosen rates, "rescue" some asset markets -- primarily to the benefit of banks and hedge fund managers, as I've noted here before -- and watch import prices rise as the dollar tanks. Or we might be able to have a healthier economy by cutting back on energy use while simultaneously working on our household balance sheets. This latter step would necessarily involve getting the government out of lots of things -- like the artificial tax benefits provided to huge SUV owners, artificial subsidies for corn based ethanol and artificial protection for sugar producers that makes sugar-based ethanol uneconomic in the United States.

But none of these options are palatable to Trump et al. They want low interest rates, rising domestic asset prices, robust SUV markets, protection for sugar farmers and compliant foreigners who will sell us what we want at low prices rather than the prices that the market will bear. If they market won't deliver this impossible goldilocks scenario, they want somebody -- the Fed, the President, the military... anybody -- to go "over there" and make "those people" do whatever is necessary to keep our little utopia intact.

Sorry Trump, welcome to the real world. We don't always get everything we want. Chavez doesn't want to help us live our fantasy lives. Nor do most of the middle eastern oil dictators. The Russians certainly have only their own interests at heart, not ours. Even the Canadians are quite happy to sell us oil denominated in their stronger currency. And we have virtually no tools to force them to do otherwise.

I don't expect this to get better. Too many in power still retain their post-WWII viewpoint, the one that dictates that the world must do what is good for us. They fail to understand that the "new world order" that George Bush the elder spoke of is one in which the United States is no longer able to impose its needs on the rest of the world and make the world pay the price. Thus I expect we will see more futile attempts at protectionism and unilateral policies that ultimately are more harmful and destructive than helpful. Congress is already gearing up for such efforts after the 2008 election, and it's likely to get worse.

In the end, we'll be forced to live within our means, but probably not before Trump, Kudlow and their hypocritic ilk manage to wreak more devastation through government meddling, all the while claiming to favor free markets above all.