He confirms with the reader immediately that small countries "can maintain monetary independence" and proceeds to calmly call out the Euro. I guess this is considered the economic version of dropping a mixtape. Krugman's next point discusses the value of having monetary independence during a crisis is a positive compared to relying upon gold or the U.S dollar. Having control of the currency that’s going down the economical toilet might be better than having to rely on gold in the end. Krugman then switches his assertion towards the people who "pay far too much attention to the role of national currencies". He claims that although “the U.S dollar is special”, countries can maintain a global presence in trade without relying on the U.S. Krugman then proceeds to close out the article by discussing that as you got an "umbrella of legal and political stability", controlling a global currency is "trivial". Well, unless you’re the United States of America. After completely reading this article, I was astounded that having your own currency didn't necessarily mean you were dunzo. With current events such as the Greek economic tragedy written by Europides, having your own dollar might not screw you over as much as Greece/Spain/Portugal might. However, starting up a brand new currency isn't as simple as it was in the pre-2000’s. In today's economy, starting a brand new dollar require large amounts of reserves containing gold/U.S dollar. Only in the right scenario, can I imagine that a country will revolutionize its own economy with a brand new dollar. - Nick
Works Cited:
Krugman, Paul. "Other People’s Dollars, and Their Place in Global Economics." Web log post. NY Times. New York Times, 4 Sept. 2015. Web. 6 Sept. 2015.
"The One-handed Economist." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 15 Nov. 2003. Web. 08 Sept. 2015.