Krugman does speak sense sometimes.

in economy •  2 years ago 


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https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/international-money-mania/

Krugman gets a lot of grief for his columns- albeit some of it is deserved. But when he's not being a partisan ideologue he's got some pretty good writings on economic issues.

In light of the debt limit talk, this is a really good summation of why the whole thing about the dollar being the global reserve currency is more of a meme than anything else. To put it simply a lot of the dudebro conspiracy theory rants about the concept reverse things.

The US dollar is the global reserve currency because of the credibility of the US government and the strength of the US economy. Those don't flow from our status as the global reserve currency, but enable it. As Krugman notes the main economic benefit of being the reserve currency is mostly just that foreigners hold dollars abroad, which only amounts to a ~$20 billion benefit per year. Otherwise it is just politically symbolic (that's likely why China is so focused on it).

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Krugman is a partisan hack. During Trump, he denounced deficit spending; he PRAISES it under Dems