The United States would never deliberately promote a weak dollar policy, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner vowed Tuesday.

“Our policy has been and will always be … that a strong dollar is in the interest of the country,” Geithner said at a New York conference. “We will never embrace a strategy to weaken the dollar.”

It was the first time this year that Geithner publicly prostituted his personal reputation defending a position that everyone knows is a lie. A U.S. strong-dollar policy has been the mantra of treasury secretaries for decades. However, over that time period the dollar has continually devalued. Members of Congress also frequently call on the Federal Reserve to devalue the dollar to temporarily aid exporters.

Conversely, if a strong dollar really is in the interest of America, the government has done a horrible job.

Breitbart reports that the dollar hit a new all-time low against the Swiss Franc Tuesday. Earlier this month the dollar hit all-time lows against gold. Today it also hit a 35-year low against coffee. In fact, the dollar has been cascading against virtually all commodities over the past decade and has even been plunging against other paper currencies—down 6.5 percent against a basket of currencies so far this year.

The dollar’s recent plunge, though sharp, is nothing new. It has lost around 95 percent of its purchasing power since the authority to manage it was taken away from Congress and given to the Federal Reserve in 1913.

The dollar’s plunge in value is an indicator of the relative poor health of the U.S. economy. It is a sign of a lack of confidence in the economy and presages more difficult economic conditions in the future.