Book review and China's Yuan

Just finished Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression, and it deals what should be a death blow to the idea that DC didn't interfere with the economy during the 1920s, and especially during the Hoover administration. Agree or disagree with the hypothesis that monetary and other intervention caused and sustained the Depression (I tend to agree), any honest man reading the evidence ought to admit that the "roaring 20s" were not a time of laissez-faire in our country.

Great work, and free thanks to the Mises Institute.

On a similar note, J. Roosh notes that China might respond to American diplomatic bullying by selling dollar reserves, dealing a serious blow to our economy. More or less, many Congressmen (and manufacturers) desire a stronger yuan to make American exports more competitive--much like the monetary manipulations of the 1920s to help manufacturers, farmers, and so on described by Rothbard.

The most hilarious thing about this--and it does not make me proud of many of my elected officials--is that the claim is made that China is manipulating its currency to help its exports, when the reality is that China has pegged its currency to the dollar for years. In other words, whatever China is doing, it's not "manipulating" its currency, but has had a consistent policy of "hands off."

It's not quite a gold standard, but probably a step in the right direction.