All the way from Quito, Ecuador, Paul Krugman, says the dollar is gold. This is to say that the dollar is weighing down the Ecuadorian economy and policy options the same way that gold did to protectionist countries in the 1930s. These countries used import restrictions to peg the value of their currency to gold. But, as Krugman quotes Barry Eichengreen and Doug Irwin, who say “that trade protection in the 1930s was less an instance of special interest politics run amok than second-best macroeconomic policy management when monetary and fiscal policies were constrained.” In January of this year, Ecuador instituted a series of similar measures to protect itself as the dollarized country was stuck in our crisis. Krugman writes: “Anyway, no deep moral here, except to say that the problems that faced nations on the gold-standard in the 1930s are being replicated in countries pegged to the euro or the dollar today.”

Felix Salmon is also on vacation. No, he’s not with Krugman. 

Barry Ritholtz declared today “Real Estate Monday” and began the day with a post recasting facts presented in a two-part Seattle Times series (one and two) that uncovers the “reckless course that doomed [Washington Mutual].” Interviews with former employees and internal documents reveal that the bank “systematically dismantled … controls meant to prevent the bank from taking on too much risk.” The results:

• “WaMu’s subprime home loans failed at the highest rates in nation. Foreclosure rates for subprime loans made from 2005 to 2007—the peak of the boom—were calamitous. In the 10 hardest-hit cities, more than a third of WaMu subprime loans went into foreclosure.”
• “By the summer of 2004, nearly 60 percent of the loans WaMu was making were the riskiest sort—option ARMs, subprime mortgages and home-equity loans.”

Later in the day, Ritholtz linked to a story in the Mercury News that looks at the rise in office vacancies in Silicon Valley. And as a supplement he posts comments from his “hedge fund friend,” in San Francisco who has also seen a trend toward downsizing office space.

All Brad DeLong does today is share an e-mail he received from HRL Laboratories, LLC—“a corporate research-and-development laboratory owned by The Boeing Company and General Motors specializing in research into sensors and materials, information and systems sciences, applied electromagnetics, and microelectronics.” He might as well be on vacation too.