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发帖数: 8363 | 1 1. A strong currency only hurts exports over the short run. Nobody seems
to remember that the German mark was at .25, and the Japanese yen at 300
before the Nixon devaluation of 1971. The mark afterwards quintupled, and
the yen has almost quadrupled since then.
2. A strong currency reduces the cost of imports, helping to keep prices
in check. If the price of your currency doubles, the price of imported oil,
machinery, technology, and everything else is cut in half.
3. Strong currencies attract foreign capital and encourage domestic
savings. Businesses prefer to invest in a place where values tend to rise
with the currency.
4. A strong currency encourages producers to be as efficient as possible.
When domestic costs rise with the currency, producers run a tighter ship
and substitute technology for labor. That is the path to progress. Using
cheap workers instead of technology is a poor alternative.
5. Conversely, devaluing the currency simply makes everyone poorer. Most
people keep their savings in the national currency, so are directly
impoverished by devaluation. The only people helped (and only over the short
term) are the relatively few companies that export.
In point of fact, governments have no business fixing the prices of
currencies. It creates distortions, just like fixing the price of anything
does. The idea of devaluing the currency to make things better is at least
as stupid as the idea of printing money to stimulate the economy. And they
have the same economic premises. |
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