Instead he seized on the situation in Scotland where George Younger, the Scottish secretary, was desperate for an alternative to the rates after a politically disastrous domestic rating revaluation had laid waste to Tory fortunes north of the border.
Munch takes the artistic revaluation of mental illness that started in the Romantic age to its logical conclusion: there is no Bedlam but the world itself.
Well, if there are significant structural issues in China helping to generate a trade surplus, then the yuan revaluation necessary to eliminate the trade deficit would be devastatingly large.
A Chinese revaluation makes for cruddy American countercyclical policy.
In fact, revaluation of oil exporters' currencies would do little by itself to reduce America's deficit (nor, for that matter, would a dearer Chinese yuan).
It prescribes a single, aggressive treatment (read: a revaluation of the yuan) which is expected to take effect quickly.
Rich-country exchange rates are set for a year of stability, but some developing-country currencies are ripe for revaluation, according to JPMorgan Chase.
Pride played as big a part as economics in patching up the system: just about every devaluation of the French franc seems to have been dressed up as a revaluation of the D-mark.Europe's institutions served it less well once it had more or less caught up with America.
As Portugal, Spain, and Greece grind down public sector wages and move into the thick of tough austerity programmes, economic slack will restrain price increases.But the key to a relatively painless internal revaluation is inflation in tighter markets.
But the G7 members should save their breath: not only would a revaluation of the yuan have little impact on America's deficit, but the more that foreigners pressure China to act, the harder it is for China do so.To begin with, it is not obvious that the yuan is undervalued.
To read analysis on Chinese revaluation from The Economist's network of guest economists, visit here.
