The Disconnected Barometer: What the Stability of the Dollar Really Means

For years, the exchange rate was the barometer of national anxiety. People did not gauge the health of the economy through public accounts or production statistics; they read it in the price of the dollar, displayed by currency exchangers, discussed in public transportation, feared at the end of every month. When it rose, the entire country knew it before learning of any official indicator. Concern was measured in the voices of dollar users, merchants, families receiving remittances, all those for whom the gourde, as it depreciated, seemed t