I couldn't help but giggle...

at reading this:
"And then there’s the claim that hard money is the key to growth. Milton Friedman turned over in his grave."

What's weird is that I remember when the National Review and other conservative organs were obsessed with Friedman as the paragon of conservative economics (back when I was a subscriber in middle-school and high-school). However, more and more the Republican Party (and it's weird synthesis with supply-siders, Tea Partiers, and libertarians) is promoting bizarre economic ideas that aren't backed by either theory or evidence (which is scary when considering you can usually scrounge up at least one of these). They have also moved well beyond much of what Friedman, for instance, proposed. He may have politically pushed many arch-conservative points, but his economic contributions hardly justify the conservative pseudo-economics every Republican seems to subscribe to currently.

On the hard money subject, what's interesting is that those countries commonly-cited by conservatives as successful examples of fiscal consolidation (i.e. austerity of spending cuts for deficit reduction combined with economic growth) frequently weakened their dollar to boost exports to compensate for the economically-damaging effects (well established in the short-run time frame) of sizable government spending cuts. If Ryan & Co. had their way- combining fiscal austerity with a strong dollar- we'd almost certainly drop quickly into a harsh recession.