($EURUSD, $MACRO) This decision by the Fed to lend ill-collateralized loans to European banks will be fodder for the Tea Party and those on the far-right here in the U.S., and quite honestly, we think the right’s antipathy toward this lending is correct. Does the Fed have an obligation to defend the banks of France or Germany or Austria or Italy et al.? Or should the Fed’s aegis only extend to the coasts here in the U.S.? We think the latter, and we suspect that the repo-lending operation had better be very short-term in nature and be unwound at the first opportunity or there shall be fiscal “hell to pay” from the right.

-- Dennis Gartman, The Gartman Letter (Sept. 16, 2011)