Reply #8: But the numbers are meaningless.

[Igel]

Really.


I like to express things not in terms of dollars, but in terms of loaves of bread (assuming that the bread isn't subject to price controls) or "average apartments for a four-person family". Hard to get those numbers; much easier to plug numbers into a formula.

When you express things in dollars you're ignoring what the currency spent actually gets you. In the Czech Republic in '94 a dime got you a pint of really good beer, and $1.50 got you a good dinner--in the US it would have cost easily 10x as much.

Take the Chinese example. If the yuan gets revalued upward by 10%, the dollar value of what they spend will increase by 10%. But does that mean the Chinese military will suddenly be able to buy 10% more stuff?