John,
as they say, the more things change the more they stay the same.
to your original question, 'when last have so many st least secretly weakness against the key currency'. The answer of course is the 30s when the key currency was gold. Hopefully that is just a coincidence :).
However it will be interesting to watch unfold. The lesson we learned in the last several decades has been, imo, that competitive devaluation doesn't work as well as the practitioners hope. In fact it usually worsens the situation. So if the US avoids the siren song of competitive devaluation it could benefit us longer term.
The 1890s are a very interesting period. Fwiw are you aware that there is a well founded theory that Frank Baum's 'The Wizard of Oz" is an allegory for the period. Baum was active in Bryan's campaign. (fwiw in the allegory: Dorothy = Uncle Sam, Scarecrow = farmers, tin woodsmen = industrial workers, Cowardly lion = Bryan, Wizard = McKinley, Witch of East = Eastern bankers, Witch of West = the depression of 93 and western drought, tornado = election of 96, yellow brick road = gold standard, ruby slippers were silver slippers in book = the power Dorothy/the US has all along but don't realize until the end that can solve her problems) there's more and its very interesting :-)
btw I thought the gold standard came in 73 when we went off the bimetallic system. I believe Bryan's followers referred to it as the Crime of 73. |
