IN THEFinancial Times, Willem Buiter, the outspoken chief economist at Citi, adds his voice to the chorus of complaints about Fed unilateralism. By failing even to mention the overseas effects of its tapering, the Fed has displayed bad manners, Mr Buiter argues. He supports the plaintive call by Raghu Rajan, governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), for more co-operation between central banks.

The dollar is imperial; the Fed is parochial. That seems to be the nub of the problem. If so, there are two logical solutions. One is to limit the dollar's sway. The other is to expand the Fed's sympathies.

The first is difficult. The second, potentially illegal. The Fed's parochialism is the product of both economic circumstance and legislative design. It is required by law to care about US inflation, US employment and long-term US interest rates. This limited circle of concern is hardly unique to the Fed. Central banks around the world pay attention to everything that affects their economies. They do not pay attention to everything their economies affect.

That is as true of Raghu Rajan's Reserve Bank of India as it is of the Federal Reserve. Earlier this week, Amando Tetangco, who heads the central bank of the Philippines,warned that interest-rate "tweaks" by emerging economies might backfire, increasing financial volatility. Did Mr Rajan take that into account before tweaking rates last month? In the policy statement and conference calls accompanying his decision, he talked about the emerging-market turmoil only insofar as it affected India. He mentioned the Philippines not at all.

The RBI's statements do, of course, pay close attention to global economic forces. The Fed's recent statements, on the other hand, "could have been written by the central bank of a closed economy," according to Mr Buiter. But that is because the US economy is relatively closed (de facto if not de jure). Trade was equivalent to only 31% of its GDP in 2012. Over 140 countries have reported a higher ratio.

Cross-border financial flows are, of course, enormous. But since America's foreign liabilities are mostly priced in its own currency, they fall when the dollar falls. The things the Fed is legally obliged to care about (inflation and employment) respond only sluggishly to fluctuations in the exchange rate. It is but a small exaggeration to say that the only country that does not care about the dollar is America itself.

The Fed's legal constraints, Mr Buiter fully understands and acknowledges. "If the Fed were to attach any intrinsic weight to the effect of its actions on the rest of the world, it might be in violation of its legal mandate," he writes. His quarrel is not, in fact, with the Fed's mandate. It is instead with its analysis. Or, to be more precise, with the analysis he reads into their silence.

Since the Fed has not recently acknowledged the foreign repercussions of its tapering policy, Mr Buiter worries that it has not noticed those repercussions. "The Fed's silence on the external impact of its policies may indicate that it believes there are no external effects."

But that is surely too much of a stretch. The Fed must know its policies have had international consequences (even if it does not appreciate their full extent). It probably does not yet believe those external effects will come back to haunt America. That is the most you can read into its silence. To repeat: the Fed cares about (and therefore talks about) everything that affects America, not everything America affects.

External effects do not always remain safely external, of course. The foreign repercussions of Fed policy (which may include an unsustainable boom and bust in the big emerging markets) might have domestic repercussions for the US. "Through trade and financial linkages, financial and economic distress in foreign markets can come home to roost," Mr Buiter warns. But if and when that happens, you can be pretty sure the Fed will mention it. In fact, the Fed will probably do something about it. It might even call Mr Rajan to discuss it.