Gotta love economists. This book is like one of those rush to market books after a major news event--that's stale 6 months later.The only saving grace is that the authors are respectable economists (oxymoron?) who have published monographs about currencies.Otherwise, just surf the web and see how Asia likes currency intervention and others float. Which raises the question: why fixed versus floating? See the works of Robert A. Mundell, who won the Nobel in 1999. In short, with a floating currency and free capital flows, fiscal policy can't affect overall demand because changes in government spending trigger changes in interest rates, exchange rates, and trade flows that are offsetting (sterilized). Can it be that Asian countries want more control over their economy (rightly or wrongly)?