Don't Buy Currency Devaluation? It's Been Done Before

[and-justice-for-all]

Monday 06 December 2010
by: Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co. | Op-Ed

Hard-money types tend to take a sort of "Lives of the Saints" approach to history.

They reverently reference certain iconic examples of hyperinflation (Weimar Germany! Zimbabwe!), while remaining utterly ignorant of all examples to the contrary.

Take Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican on the House of Representatives budget committee. It's a good bet that he doesn't actually know much about monetary history.

In a Nov. 21 story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about his strong opposition to the Federal Reserve's plan to pump another $600 billion into the economy, Mr. Ryan posed an interesting question: "Name me a nation in history that has prospered by devaluing its currency."

http://www.truth-out.org/dont-buy-currency-devaluation-its-been-done-before65710