Obama's Secret Plan: Debase the Currency

The title of this article is "Obama's Secret Job Plan." According to the author, a professor at MIT, the administration's plan is to weaken the dollar in order to export more of our manufactured goods by making them cheaper. An increase in exports, according to this theory, will help the country return to meaningful economic growth. He concedes that this could lead to inflation, but that this a worry for after the 2010 midterm elections, where key congressional seats are in play in the industrial midwest.

"If the dollar stays weak or declines further, our car companies, machinery makers, and turbine blade manufacturers will soon be rehiring and we’ll finally get some job growth as part of our sputtering economic recovery."

It is pretty scary to think that that anyone, especially a professor of economics at MIT, can honestly believe that debasing the dollar can lead to prosperity. If the recipe for economic success is to simply weaken the currency in order to export our way to growth, then why wouldn't all countries do the same thing? For the dollar to weaken, it must do so against other currencies. Will our trading partners stand idly by as the U.S. devalues it's currency? If a weak currency were the solution, then why have so many African and Latin American countries suffered economic collapse and widespread poverty as a result of currency debasements?