Where’s the outrage?
Just last fall, candidate Mitt Romney sought to exploit populace fear by vowing to label China a “currency manipulator” come day-one of a presidency that wasn’t to be. And here Japan has overtly promised to embark upon an aggressive campaign to weaken the yen. Again I ask, where’s the outrage? If Romney was right on China, and Japan’s up to the same, why haven’t the Chinese and Japanese citizens taken to the streets? Why haven’t they thrown themselves at their policymakers for stealing from them to make life better for us?
Not what you were thinking? Oh that’s right, all the hullabaloo is not over the damage devaluation does to the citizenry’s purchasing power, but over what devaluation does for the devaluer’s exporters (makes their stuff cheaper abroad), and what it does to the foreign competition (makes their stuff more expensive at home).
Here’s a lesson from last year where I address China’s alleged, Japan’s avowed, and our apparent (ya think?) currency manipulation: