* The "finance minister who knew nothing about economics" was actually a very respected sociologist, a senator and a very intelligent and skilled politician. He later became known as president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. I.M.O. one of the best 3 presidents this country had.
* What Edmar Bacha, Pedro Malan and others did was to break inflation's inertia/momentum. A lot of people already knew it was necessary; but no one else knew how to do it.
* The article doesn't comment on the strict and cautious monetary policy implemented by Fernando Cardoso. It was as much important as the "fake money" trick.
* Big inflation was a huge tax on the poorest people. Because they were poor, they didn't have the knowledge and means to protect against rising prices. It is because inflation ended that they began consuming more and the country increased their internal markets.
[Edit]Wikipedia has a more comprehensive explanation about what we call here Plano Real : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano_real [/Edit]