(Bonus) quotes of the day: On currency depreciation

“The so-called improved competitiveness resulting from currency
depreciation in fact amounts to economic impoverishment. The
"improved competitiveness" means that the citizens of a country are
now getting fewer real imports for a given amount of real exports.
While the country is getting rich in terms of foreign currency, it is
getting poor in terms of real wealth — i.e., in terms of the goods and
services required for maintaining people's lives and well-being.”
- Frank Shostak, ‘Will Currency Devaluation Fix the Eurozone?’

“[F]lexible exchange rates preclude an efficient allocation of resources
on an international level, as they immediately hinder and distort real
flows of consumption and investment. Moreover, they make it inevitable t
hat the necessary real downward adjustments in costs take place…in a chaotic environment of competitive devaluations, credit expansion, and inflation…
    “I do not believe we shall regain a system of international stability without
returning to a system of fixed exchange rates, which imposes on the national
central banks the restraint essential for successfully resisting the pressure of the
advocates of inflation in their countries — usually including ministers of finance.”
- F.A. Hayek, quoted in ‘An Austrian Defense of the Euro’ by Jesus Huerta de Soto
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