To Bring Back U.S. Manufacturing, Get the World to Dump the Dollar | Hacker News Reader

To Bring Back U.S. Manufacturing, Get the World to Dump the Dollar

wsj.com

14 points1cvmask9 comments

Maybe worth noting it's from 2018. Although not sure how much has fundamentally changed.

I hope that in the future, money will be looked at as a technology, and become a high technology. Economics should be reinvented in light of current technological progress and understanding of the brutal dynamics of primate behavior (such as humans). But hopefully with the consideration for an actual civilized paradigm, given the smallness of the world now with communication and transportation capabilities.

In the long run, comparative advantage, i.e. the result of capital investment, dominates transitory exchange rate effects.

Please elaborate. Are you saying that the exchange rate effect of Bretton Woods is an advantage by attracting capital investment, or a disadvantage due to comparative misallocation?

nothing to do with breton woods. In the long run the real costs of production are driven by comparative advantage not exchange rates. If the dollar goes down you simply pay more dollars for the same widget if the real economic cost stays the same. Manufacturing in China is cheap because China is good at manufacturing not just because of low wages.

But the article is about Bretton Woods, so I’m trying to understand whether you think it would be wise or unwise for the US to dump it as the article suggests.

The article is partially paywalled, so I'm not sure if they get into this, but giving up the immense power that being the world reserve currency gives you, just to boost the manufacturing industry seems like a terrible trade-off.

>but giving up the immense power that being the world reserve currency gives you,

The "immense power" mostly boils down to cheap imported consumer goods and unemployment/underemployment. You actually have to actively fend off the negative effects or it will drag your country down because of right wing populism.

The misconception is that economies are static and always in a certain specific state some boomer grew up in. e.g. supply side stimulus will fix all problems because all problems are supply side problems (just think of the shortages after WW2). Of course, reality is not that simple.

What if the supply side has been saturated and you are in a liquidity trap and you have demand side problems? A "world reserve currency" can only make things worse because your government is forced to take on an increasing amount of debt and it has no power to stop the process beyond getting rid of your "world reserve currency".

The only good news is that some presidents want to use the debt on infrastructure investments. It's the textbook way to get out of a liquidity trap. Turns out this has never happened and instead we get trump tax cuts for the rich. Immense power my ass.

I can’t take your comment seriously with all of the political biases in your opinion.

Good thing you came along to contribute productively to the conversation!

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