Devaluing History (Paul Ryan's idiocy)

[n2doc]

From Paul Krugman's blog:

Menzie Chinn goes after Paul Ryan’s challenge: “Name me a nation in history that has prospered by devaluing its currency.” But why go back to the 1930s?

How about:

-Britain, which recovered strongly from its early 90s doldrums after it devalued the pound against the mark in 1992. (At the time, some wags suggested putting a statue of George Soros in Trafalgar Square.)

- Sweden, which recovered from its early 90s banking crisis with an export boom, driven by a devalued kronor.

- South Korea, which roared back from the 1997-1998 crisis with an export boom, driven by a depreciated won.

- Argentina, which roared back from its 2002 crisis with an export boom, driven by a depreciated peso.

more

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/devaluing-history/

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Paul Ryan is dangerous.

A little more psychopathic than the average Republican (i.e. high in the 99th %ile), he actually sometimes sounds smart. Republicans really only hate the signs of intelligence when they occur in Democrats. When one of their own is smart enough to baffle them, they lionize him. Think Rumsfeld, for example.

[CurtEastPoint]

2. Ryan's experience as...

"...legislative director for Sam Brownback of Kansas from 1995 to 1997. He worked as a speechwriter to "drug czar" William Bennett and to Jack Kemp during his run for the vice presidency.

These credentials alone make me go, "Hmmmm."

[applegrove]

3. Canada did well with a low value currency in the 1990s and 2000s.

Especially since we had just entered into a free trade deal with the USA in the early 1990s.