Clueless in China

Mark Thoma pegs the China trip of Paulson and Bernanke.  I’m all for sending high level delegations to important countries, but I believe our "marketing" of this one has come off to the Chinese as a bizarre mix of pathetic begging and arrogant condescension.  I agree with Mark’s bottom line:

Given
the importance of Fed credibility, from my perspective an abundance of caution
is in order when the Fed chair speaks, and I would prefer that the Fed limit
itself to comments that relate directly to the conduct of U.S. monetary policy.